Too Many Sopranos is an opera by Indiana University Jacobs School of Music

Jacobs School of Music

The Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, is a music conservatory established in 1921. Until 2005, it was known as the Indiana University School of Music...

 faculty member Edwin Penhorwood

Edwin Penhorwood

Dr. Edwin Penhorwood is an American composer and currently assistant professor at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.-Biography:Penhorwood is a native of Toledo, Ohio, and studied music at the University of Iowa...

. Too Many Sopranos is a two-act opera in English with a pastiche of song from opera's various periods. A group of sopranos is trying to get into heaven, but there is no more room in the heavenly choir. So, something has to be done, and it looks like some will be sent to Hell!

Background

Penhorwood wrote many gags into the opera based on stereotypes of sopranos, opera stock plots, and traditional staging. The Sandman is taken fully from Hänsel und Gretel

Hänsel und Gretel

Hansel and Gretel is an opera by nineteenth-century composer Engelbert Humperdinck, who described it as a Märchenoper . The libretto was written by Humperdinck's sister, Adelheid Wette, based on the Grimm brothers' fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel"...

, 'Unnamed Bass' is a reference to the fact that basses can be fairly anonymous in the opera community. The piece has become a popular one for opera workshops because of the many soprano parts and its relative brevity.

Roles

• St. Peter - bass-baritone
• Dame Doleful - mezzo-soprano
• Madame Pompous - soprano
• Miss Titmouse - coloratura soprano
• Just Jeannette - soprano
• Sandman - soprano
• Unnamed Bass - bass-baritone
• Enrico Carouser - tenor
• Gabriel-Angel - silent
• Nelson Deadly - tenor
• Orson - bass

Synopsis

Four sopranos are brought to heaven's gates, but are stopped by St. Peter. Room has opened up in the heavenly choir for only one soprano. Each auditions in her own way with an aria that exemplifies the traditions and excesses of its time. The sopranos are told that if there were more tenors and basses that were in the heavenly choir, there would be no problem in letting them in. So, the sopranos go to hell to retrieve the men who have been condemned to eternal torment. Through a few operatic "tests" like trying to remain awake for an hour (a task made harder by a stage director boring them to sleep), all the sopranos successfully gain entrance to heaven with the men in tow.

External links

• Indiana University page on Too Many Sopranos and Edwin Penhorwood, accessed 5 February 2010
• TIS music catalog page with video clips of Too Many Sopranos, accessed 5 February 2010