The Rise of Soprano Ealynn Voss Didn’t Happen Overnight : Opera: After an auspicious start, she returns tonight as the heroine of Puccini’s ‘Turandot’ for Opera Pacific at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

COSTA MESA —  When last we saw soprano Ealynn Voss, she was one of the hopefuls who had turned up at Opera Pacific auditions for secondary roles, apprentices and chorus members nearly three years ago at Cal State Northridge. She was supporting herself then by scrubbing floors and cleaning houses in Malibu.

Tonight, Voss returns in triumph as the titular heroine of Puccini’s “Turandot” for Opera Pacific at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

It has been a long journey, even though Voss had come to those 1987 auditions not as a rank amateur. She had understudied Ghena Dimitrova as Turandot for Michigan Opera Theater and Martina Arroyo in the same role for Dayton Opera Assn. (Both organizations are run by Opera Pacific’s general director David DiChiera.)

She also had the uncommon blessing of legendary soprano Birgit Nilsson, who described her, according to press material, as belonging “to the group of dramatic sopranos that is very rare today.”

But despite all, a career nearly didn’t happen. Faced with the problems of an older artist trying to make a career--Voss is now in her early 40s--she had abandoned singing for several years.

She had trained at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio in the early 1970s, ventured a short stint in Europe, then came to UCLA to work with Jan Popper, director of the opera workshop program there.

“But that didn’t work out,” Voss said in a recent interview at a Costa Mesa restaurant. “One thing led to another. It just didn’t work out . . .

“That’s when I started the governess work (in Malibu) and all that sort of thing. After a while, I just let singing go. And that probably was what was my saving grace because if I had been singing . . . I may not have been able to do what I’m doing now. I may have been burned out. Now there’s the freshness, the enthusiasm that’s there because now I’m coming at it in a different respect. Now I want to do it. Before I felt I had to do it.”

Voss credits basso Giorgio Tozzi and his wife--they met through a church in Malibu--for getting her back on track. “They were so very gracious in helping me,” she said. “They believed in me and basically gave me the encouragement and nurturing to convince me that I could have a major career, that there was no reason why I had quit.”

Now she is enthusiastic that she is at last earning a living through her singing.

“I crossed that barrier after I did the Charleston ‘Rusalka’ at the Spoleto Festival,” she said. “And then I went on and made the connection with Gian Carlo Menotti, who invited me to (sing the title role of) Strauss’ ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ in the Spoleto Festival in Melbourne, Australia. And from that moment on I was able to pretty much support myself, finally.”

But just as these major breaks were occurring, personal tragedy struck. While she was singing Turandot for Arizona Opera, her father suffered the first in a series of heart attacks. An only child, Voss moved back home--a small town outside Pittsburgh--last October to help her mother take care of him. He died in January.

“It was a slow demise,” Voss said. “A textbook case of everything (bad) that could possibly happen to a heart patient . . .

“He never got to see me on stage, which I regret deeply, but I always had little tapes and things--pictures--from performances that I would show him. And I was grateful that before he passed away he was able to see some success coming my way.”

She is scheduled to sing Chrysothemis in Strauss’ “Elektra” next season with the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, and other possibilities lie ahead. But she hasn’t forgotten the difficulty of starting a career.

“Unfortunately, it is still hard for the older singers,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s going to change. I’ve often thought if ever I’m able to be in a position in some later years, that maybe there’s something I could do . . .

“It’s important that people realize that it doesn’t just happen. And I’m glad that I had the struggle that I had because I’m enjoying it now so much more than if it had been handed to me. And maybe that helps me as an artist, too.”

Ealynn Voss will sing the title role in Puccini’s “Turandot” for Opera Pacific at 8 p.m. today and at 2 p.m. March 4 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, in Costa Mesa. Lando Bartolini will sing Calaf today; Giorgio Tieppo will sing the role on March 4. Maria Spacagna will be Liu today; Katherine Luna, on March 4. Louis Salemno will conduct. Tickets: $20 to $55. Information: (714) 979-9000.