It’s only a rehearsal, but Martile Rowland sparkles in the light of the Colorado College stage. It’s the purple sequins — and that still-exquisite voice.

“What can anyone expect, except to recollect?” sings Rowland, who plays a sour dowager in Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music,” an Opera Theatre of the Rockies production that begins a three-day run Friday.

Rowland’s celebrated voice is lower than it once was, but her legendary skill hasn’t dimmed. Rowland begins “Liaisons,” a cynical ode to past triumphs and present disappointments, and the murmuring in the dark hall fades away. As her character slips into sleep at the end of the song, this tiny audience stands and applauds.

“I would say without exaggeration that she’s a world-class singer,” says Donald Jenkins, artistic director and conductor of the Colorado Springs Chorale. “You just couldn’t ignore her.”

Rowland, 68, has been every inch a star for a long time now. She began a storied life in opera with a dream and talent but no connections. Serendipity often lent a hand, but ultimately, fearlessness, talent and her husband’s support fueled the nearly impossible: An enviable international opera career while still living in Colorado Springs.

And after Sunday’s performance, she’ll never perform again.

If you ask her how she can give singing up, the founder of the Opera Theatre of the Rockies shrugs and falls back on her unofficial mantra.

“It is what it is,” she says, resolutely. “It is what it is.”

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Rowland first walked away from singing in high school.

Although her father didn’t like opera, his radio was always tuned to the Metropolitan Opera while he worked. Rowland, a Louisiana native, was seduced by the sound, the deeply wrought emotions and the dramatic stories. Piano lessons at 5 and voice lessons at 14 convinced her that she would be an opera singer.

Then her family moved.

“You know, I’d lived in the same place for a while and had a lot of friends and we were involved in things, like music,” she says. “I don’t know who I thought I was punishing but I just decided, ‘I’m going to be a serious student and not have anything to do with music.’”

A little successful subterfuge upended her resolve: Her mother asked the school’s choir director to entice her daughter to join.

Husband James did almost the same thing when a job at a Colorado youth treatment center took them from New York City to the Springs in the late ‘80s.

Chorale conductor Jenkins doesn’t remember his conversation with James but he does remember the first time he heard Rowland sing alone.

“What really impresses me is the solo beauty of her tone and the extraordinary virtuosity and range,” says Jenkins, who was also co-founder of the Colorado Opera Festival. He eventually cast her in at least five operas during the past 25 years. “She may have moved away from an opera Mecca and didn’t sing for a while, but you can’t hide that talent.

“Let’s just say that the world recognized her.”

Jenkins’ regard — and her increased role as a chorale soloist — kicked off a long series of career-making coincidences that Hollywood couldn’t have written any better.

They started when founders of the Opera Colorado caught her performance in “La Traviata.” Then New York City Opera mover-shaker just happened to see her in the Springs. He invited her to come to audition for the company.

“I remember very clearly the first time she came to me for coaching in New York City,” says Benton Hess, a vocal teacher who has worked with a “Who’s Who” of opera megastars, including Renée Fleming. “She was warm and outgoing, confident but without the least hint of arrogance. She sang her first aria … and the first words out of my mouth were ‘Where have you been?!’”

But New York is expensive, especially on an understudy’s salary. James, who is a psychotherapist, gutted his retirement savings for what he called the “James Rowland Career Advancement Award.” He handed her a $25,000 check.

Then the impossible happened: The understudy actually stepped into a starring role when the renowned soprano got a cold.

“Rowland made a big impression,” wrote The New York Post of her 1991 Carnegie Hall debut. “Vocally fearless, she risked much, especially in the more extravagantly florid passages at the top of the soprano compass. … She sounded like a real discovery.”

Four months later: the Met’s “I Puritani.” During intermission of the final night of the run, Rowland was pulled backstage.

“I was there on a little platform waiting to go and at that moment, I was struck with panic. My heart was pounding so hard. I thought, ‘This is going to be terrible.’

“At that very moment my music started and I began to sing. All of the sudden I was there on the stage as if I were seeing someone else do it. It felt very strange.”

Hess saw the performance.

“The audience was so thrilled, they started tearing up their programs in little pieces and throwing it like confetti over the balconies,” says Hess, who is director of opera at the Eastman School of Music now.

“I am very lucky,” Rowland says. “Very, very lucky.”

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The early days of Opera Theatre were scary, but thrilling, says Rowland, the company’s artistic director.

“But I had this deep, deep feeling of purpose. I knew somehow inside my heart that I needed to try it. I didn’t know at that moment if it would work or not.

“They were very uncertain times. They still are.”

Pianist Susan Grace says Rowland’s biggest challenge was proving to the community that she could more than sing.

“It’s often hard to be both performer and leader of the pack,” says Grace, a Colorado College artist-in-residence and director of the school’s acclaimed summer music festival, “but Martile has proven over and over that she can be equally adept at both.”

Friends say she’s smart and funny, demanding and disarmingly self-effacing. And even though opera is know for its XXL egos, colleagues say that Rowland is a no-nonsense administrator

Certainly, Rowland and her board have been cautious: The company didn’t move from the modestly priced Armstrong Theatre until 2006, when an El Pomar Foundation grant propelled them into the Pikes Peak Center. The state-of-the-art hall offered cache and excellent acoustics, but the steeper price tag and the jump from 730 to 2,000 seats made it a significant gamble.

“I have had a lot of sleepless nights during productions.”

Today, the company juggles a $250,000-$300,000 budget, she says. The company has also never been in debt, which is something of a feat for what is widely acknowledged to be the most expensive art form to produce. And Opera Theatre continues to evolve: “A Little Night Music” marks the first time Opera Theatre has added a second staged production to its season.

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Rowland moves carefully down the handful of stairs to the basement studio she playfully calls the “vocal dungeon.”

Although her health is generally good, she needs new knees.

Old albums are stacked next to the upright piano that dominates the room. There are some recordings of her performances around here somewhere, she says, but she’s not sure where. A few photos hang by the stairs: Rowland in “Turandot;” Rowland in “Lucia di Lammermoor;” Rowland with the cast of “Norma.” Beyond those, the photos that cover nearly every surface in the room are of her students.

“Martile as a teacher,” asks soprano Judy Shay Burns, a professional opera singer who started studying with Rowland when she was 17. “Compassionate, kind, insightful, inspiring, the best ears ever.

“She hears beyond the superficial and gets down to the business of helping your voice find itself,” she says. “I would not have had a career without Martile. She’s been there every step of the way.”

But obligations take their toll on Rowland: Opera Theatre, a roster of 28-plus students and caring for James as his health declines has created a perfect storm of Too Much.

Her epiphany came about seven years ago. Rowland found herself in a grocery store parking lot, crying in her car.

The answer, she finally realized, was to quit singing. Rowland did, and most people took her high profile position with the company as a sign she was performing.

“Just like he has made great sacrifices for me and helped me so much in the establishment and ongoing support for my dreams, I want to be there for him. It’s as simple as that. There’s nothing big about it.

“I was relieved really.”

But what about her turn in “A Little Night Music,” which has been touted as her final stage performance? Will there be another in a few years?

She laughs. There aren’t many once-in-a-lifetime roles and Rowland doesn’t see much chance of roles in “Aida” or “Tosca” coming her way. “Other than that I’ve pretty much gotten to sing everything that I’ve ever wanted.”

Rowland shake her head. “You can’t know anything for sure, but I don’t think I’ll be singing again.”

She smiles.

“It’s not a sad thing,” Rowland says. “It is what it is.”