When your name is Cinderella, things have a way of fitting into place. Your fairy godmother makes sure of it. In the case of coloratura soprano Cinderella Liao, her real mother, a Honolulu-based artist, seems to have been the one waving a magic wand.

"When my mom was pregnant with me, she lived in New York and covered for a friend who couldn't make it to work at an opera house," Liao explained. "So for a while, she was at an opera every day, carrying me along."

While Liao wasn't born singing arias, she did develop an early love of music, occasionally performing Broadway show tunes onstage. She also focused on a respectable, but slightly less-glamorous, career path, receiving a bachelor's degree in economics at National Taiwan University and a master's in communication at Cornell. The seemingly disparate interests were about to converge into a real-life fairy tale. But first, Mom had more magic to create.

"My mom had been taking some voice lessons," Liao said. "But she's an artist, you know, and has these wild ideas. Well, one day she was feeling lazy and said to me, 'Why don't you go to the lesson in my place?' The teacher later called her up and said, 'Why didn't you tell me your daughter was this good?' "

At the time, Liao had been working behind the scenes in television production. "But I wanted to do something different," she said. "I thought I could do something more, that would really make an impact on people. Taking private voice lessons from a respected teacher in Rome was definitely one of the turning points."

She was pretty, shrewd and as several high-profile vocal mentors were suddenly confirming, immensely talented. A personal mission was forming.

Liao decided she would use her communication background, and her marketable looks, to attract attention. But she was more interested in the next phase of the plan: Turn new audiences on to opera and classical music. Along the way, she modeled for big-hitter advertisers such as Lexus, Estée Lauder and Motorola.

"Once I modeled two very rare pieces of jewelry for Rich Jade — a bracelet and a necklace," she said. "Their total value was, like, $6 million! It was pretty scary because they had these security guards with me at all times. But I've found that a lot of high-end advertisers want to be associated with opera and classical music."

Fast-forward seven years and Liao has headlined performances with major orchestras in China, Taiwan, Europe and the U.S. Through it all, she has managed to stay on task. While in Hawai'i, Liao has stopped at Punahou School, Sacred Hearts Academy and 'Iolani School to wow them with her success story.

"I tell them if you work hard enough, your dreams will come true," she said.

As you can guess, the name makes everyone she meets a comedian. While Liao has avoided corny pickup lines by introducing herself socially as Cindy, the name can lead to adventures: "Once I was removing my shoes at an airport security check, and one of the security agents asked me why I don't have glass slippers."