User:EponineBunnyKickQueen/sandbox/Catherine Cook

Catherine Cook is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer and a teacher at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She frequently performs with San Francisco Opera.

Early life and education
Cook was raised in Chicago and wanted to be an actress as a teenager. She took improv classes at the Goodman Theatre. After seeing a production of The Barber of Seville at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, she decided she wanted to be an opera singer. She earned degrees in music at Millikin University and Wichita State University, and then earned an Artist’s Diploma in Opera from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.

Career
In 1990, Cook participated in the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco. The next year, she was accepted into San Francisco Opera's Adler Fellowship. Following that program, she continued to live in the San Francisco Bay Area, frequently performing with San Francisco Opera. As of 2015, she had completed over 300 performances with San Francisco Opera.

In 2013, she helped create the title role in Tobias Picker's Dolores Claiborne, which she called a "highlight" of her career.