Opera singer Ellen Graham has recruited a dozen of her colleagues in the Cincinnati Opera Chorus to take a night off from Music Hall to put on a more informal affair. Tonight, they'll be singing arias and Broadway tunes at the Blue Wisp Jazz Club, Downtown.

Graham, a mezzo-soprano and Westwood native, started organizing concerts, recitals and opera productions "just for an opportunity to perform," she said.

Although chorus master (and the evening's pianist) Henri Venanzi was skeptical when she pitched the idea last year, it was such a hit, they decided to try an encore.

"It feels like it's going to become an annual event," Graham said.

The Walnut Hills High School grad, currently a doctoral student at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, is in her fifth summer season in the Cincinnati Opera Chorus. Calling herself "a heavier-voiced mezzo," she has sung many recitals and loves to put on a show.

While Graham was earning a master's degree in voice at Miami University, she organized a student production of Handel's "Giulio Cesare."

"So I guess I'm an impresario," she said.

Graham's program will include arias and ensembles from Donizetti's "Don Pasquale," Beethoven's "Fidelio," Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte," Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers," and Silvio and Nedda's duet from "I Pagliacci."

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