Recommended Arias for Singers

(U.S. Opera Home Page)

These are a few ideas for singers interested in American opera, from my own and my listeners' experience. Your suggestions are welcome!

Opera wouldn't be opera without the sopranos, and American opera is no exception.

• Gian-Carlo Menotti: "To this we've come...Papers! Papers! Papers!" (Magda) from The Consul. Vocal score available from G. Schirmer.
• Samuel Barber: "What is he thinking of... Who is there to love me?" (Geraldine) from A Hand of Bridge. Vocal score available from G. Schirmer.
• Mary Carr Moore: "Sola, abbandonata" (Mary Stuart) from David Rizzio. Vocal score reprinted by Da Capo Press.
• Walter Damrosch: "Messieurs...Woo not a woman's heart" (Roxane) from Cyrano Vocal score reprinted by Da Capo Press.

Good mezzo and contralto arias are always harder to come by than soprano arias. One of my readers suggested the mezzo aria below; please let me know if you know of any others.

• Gian-Carlo Menotti: "Ah! Michele, don't you know" (Desideria) from The Saint of Bleecker Street. Vocal score available from G. Schirmer.

American composers have always favored baritones as their heroes (and anti-heroes), but even when he's just a foil, the tenor must have his aria...

• Samuel Barber: "What do you want me to say?... Outside this house" (Anatole) from Vanessa. Vocal score available from Schirmer.
• Virgil Thomson: "I've no great cause... A mighty mass of brick" (Byron) from Lord Byron. Vocal score available from Southern Music Publishing/Peer Musicverlag. [recit. not printed in vocal score]
• Gian Carlo Menotti: "This is my box" (Gaspar) from Amahl and the Night Visitors. Vocal score available from Schirmer.
• Aaron Copland: "Quiet, quiet... I'm gettin' tired of travellin' through" (Martin) from The Tender Land. Vocal score available from Boosey and Hawkes.
• Dominick Argento: "Once when I was a young man" (Mr. Owen) from Postcard from Morocco. Vocal score available from Schirmer.

From Wrestling Bradford to Richard Nixon, many American composers' most notable parts have been written for the lowest voices.

• John Adams: "News has a kind of mystery" (Richard Nixon) from Nixon in China. Vocal score available from Boosey and Hawkes.
• Carlisle Floyd: "Hear Me, O Lord" (Blitch) from Susannah.
• Louis Gruenberg: "Oh, Lord... It's Me" ("Standin' in the Need of Prayer") (Brutus Jones) from The Emperor Jones.
• Samuel Barber: "And this will be my epitaph" (David) from A Hand of Bridge. Vocal score available from Schirmer.
• Stewart Wallace: "Thank you, San Francisco" (George Moscone) from Harvey Milk.