[3] She created roles in two world premieres staged at the Metropolitan Opera House: Lise in Damrosch's Cyrano in 1913 and Queen Carolina in Giordano's Madame Sans-Gêne in 1915.

[5] At the age of 17, Vera Curtis entered the New England Conservatory where she was a pupil of voice teacher William L. Whitney for four years.

[8] After completing her studies at the conservatory, Curtis began her professional stage career in 1905 performing the role of Suzette in the national tour of Alfred Baldwin Sloane and R. H. Burnside's operetta Sergeant Kitty.

[7] She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House as the First Lady in Mozart's The Magic Flute on November 23, 1912, with Alfred Hertz conducting.

[3] Her Wagnerian repertoire included the parts of Freia in Das Rheingold, Gutrune in Götterdämmerung, both the Shepherd Boy and Venus in Tannhäuser, and both Sieglinde and Ortlinde in Die Walküre.

[3] Her other repertoire at the Met included Desdemona in Verdi's Otello,[3] Euridice in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice,[3] Giulietta in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann,[7] Marguerite in Gounod's Faust,[3] Marianne in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier,[3] Mimì in Puccini's La bohème,[7] Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci,[7] Santuzza in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana,[3] and the tile role in Aida.

During the 1930s and 1940s she toured widely throughout the United States giving a series of lecture-recitals in which she would lecture on specific operas or composers in conjunction with performing arias and excerpts from the works being discussed.

[30][31][32][33][34][35][36] In 1930 she began to work as a voice teacher out of two studios; one at 1 East 124th St. in Harlem and the other at the parish house of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Port Chester, New York.