Danielle Pastin

Danielle Pastin checked her phone during the intermission of Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” at the Benedum Center.

She had a lot of missed calls.

It turned out there was a major plumbing problem in a building she owns. But the soprano, who was playing one of the lead roles in Pittsburgh Opera’s 2015 production of “Cosi,” had to prioritize.

“I was completely freaking out,” she said, “but I couldn’t leave the theater.”

Ms. Pastin finished the performance, took her bows and headed to the building. By the time she arrived, the first-floor kitchen ceiling had collapsed under the weight of the water. So she got to work, fixing up the kitchen as the opera continued its run at the Benedum.

“I was like contractor by day, opera singer by night,” she said.

Ms. Pastin, 37, should be a familiar name to local opera fans. A former Pittsburgh Opera resident artist, she remained here after graduating from the program in 2010 and has kept close ties with the company, regularly taking on large roles in its mainstage productions. But few opera lovers probably are aware that the soprano also invests in real estate and manages her own properties.

She calls herself the DoIt-Yourself Diva.

Being an opera singer is contracted work, and the Brighton Heights resident, who lives in a late-19thcentury Craftsman duplex she purchased in August, travels several months out of the year for performances.

“It’s a way for me to have some sort of stability that my career as an opera singer wouldn’t necessarily offer me,” Ms. Pastin said of her real estate activities.

The soprano does most of the home improvements herself, turning to her real estate mentor, her father or YouTube to learn any skills she doesn’t already know. (The kitchen issues warranted an eight-hour FaceTime session with her dad.) She currently owns two properties in Brighton Heights and Bellevue, but she’s constantly on the hunt for more.

Ms. Pastin sees parallels between opera and real estate. The sense of accomplishment she feels after completing a home improvement is not unlike the one she gets from a curtain call at the theater, and she can listen to study recordings (or quietly sing) as she does home improvements. Making decisions about paint or troubleshooting problems that arise with the properties feeds her artistic instincts, too.

“It ends up being quite creative,” she said.