Knoch alumna and international opera star Marianne Cornetti demonstrates to the class Thursday, March 30, how stage fighting is conducted. Shane Potter/Butler Eagle

EFFERSON TWP — “How does a kid from Cabot make it?”

It’s a question that Marianne Cornetti, international opera star with roots in Butler County, told Knoch High School choir students she gets a lot.

Cornetti is portraying Azucena in the Pittsburgh Opera’s upcoming production of the Giuseppe Verdi opera “Il Trovatore” at the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts in Pittsburgh. The character is after revenge on those who burned her mother at the stake when she was a young girl.

When she spoke to the students on Thursday, March 30, Cornetti revealed that her love for singing began as a student at what was then Saxonburg Elementary School, when a teacher asked if she’d like to sing a solo in their spring concert.