Elizabeth Welch is home.

After four months on the road, she'll take the stage tonight in the room where she fell in love with musical theater.

Welch was 14 when The Phantom of the Opera made its first stop in Denver. Now she's an understudy for the role of Christine. For an operatically trained soprano, it's the part she has worked to play.

Right now, sitting in the Bonfils Theatre lobby at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, Welch has a smile that might just leap off her face. She's one of those preternaturally graceful young women.

The smile, though, isn't politesse - Welch is ecstatic to be in Denver. Unlike most tours, Phantom is a big-seller hitting big towns for long stays, which means she gets to spend some time at home with her husband, Tim, and 4-year-old daughter, Vivian.

"I'm at home!" she all but chuckles. "It's so great."

After growing up in Aurora and attending the University of Colorado, Welch went to the University of Illinois to take graduate classes in vocal performance. She was looking to build up her resume.

"I grew up with musical theater, and that was my first love. Through school, I was moved more into opera."

In Illinois, she met her husband and they returned to build careers in Colorado. He was most recently onstage as the Beast in Beauty and the Beast at Town Hall Arts Center, and he teaches voice as well as taking care of Vivian while Elizabeth is on the road.

When they first moved back to Denver, she gravitated toward musical theater, not just because she loves it, but because it was an easier path than the close-knit world of opera.

"You can just break into it. You can go to an audition, without knowing anybody, and get the part."

For Welch, the start was at Town Hall Arts Center in The Sound of Music. She went on to take leads there in Kiss Me, Kate and West Side Story. They were great roles, if not greatly paid. She'd done only one Equity show, The Tempest at Denver Center Theatre Company, but hadn't taken her union card at the time.

"I thought, 'There's no way I'll be able to get into more Equity shows,' " she recalls.

It was awhile, but it was a big one. Her next Equity job, the one that let her join the union, was in The Taffetas, which ran in the DCPA's Garner Galleria for six months, from March to September 2007. It seemed like her breakthrough. She was making enough money to quit her day job. But after the show closed, she didn't work for a year.

"I couldn't get called back for anything," she says. "It was time for me to just be at home with Vivian."

But back when The Taffetas was still running, Welch's co-star, Reyna Von Vett, had clued her in to New York auditions for replacements on the Phantom tour. So she flew herself there, sang 32 bars of Green Finch and Linnet Bird, heard the casting director say 'Thank you' and headed back to Denver.

"I was feeling successful, because that was my first audition in New York ever. What I wanted was just to be seen by them and get in the file."

Welch came home and got back onstage at the Galleria.

"A month later, I got a call saying, 'We have an audition for you at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, can you make it?' And I said, 'This is Tuesday.' And they said, 'I know, can you make it?' "

More days off, another plane, another trip to New York, singing Christine's songs and being thrown into a dance callback.

Still, there was no word about being hired. In February 2008, Welch flew herself to Las Vegas for an audition for that city's production. A month later, she was on her way back to New York for another ensemble audition.

Finally, she got a job - at the Arvada Center, playing Cosette in Les Miserables last fall. She was in rehearsals for the show when she got the call that she was hired for the national tour's ensemble.

On Oct. 1, she moved into her new home near Congress Park. On Oct. 30, she left for Tampa, where she rehearsed for six days before stepping onstage.

"The entire thing was scary for me," she admits. "This is my first tour, it's only my third Equity contract. Having no idea what to expect, it's always more scary."

The first three weeks were also the longest time she'd been away from her daughter. Welch chats with Vivian via Skype each morning. Father and daughter visit the tour about 10 days out of the month, and with a big tour like this, Welch gets to spend about a month in each city - so far, Tampa, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Shortly after her arrival in Tampa, Welch was offered an upgrade, from ensemble to Christine cover. If both of the principal Christines (one does six shows a week, one does two) cannot perform, Welch takes the role. She sang the part for the first time in Los Angeles and is lined up next for Kansas City.

Now that she's home, Welch has big plans.

"A lot of cleaning," she says. "Tim's been here with Vivian by himself. And I'm excited about getting to play tourist in my hometown. We'll do all the museums - I think we're still members at all of them if Tim's kept up the renewal."

The Phantom of the Opera

* When and where: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Sundays, through March 22, Buell Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex.

* Cost: $20 to $115

* Information: 303-893-4100

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