Amber Monroe
About
A native of Youngstown, Ohio, Amber R. Monroe has been recognized as “a crystalline lyric soprano and a superb singing actress” (Seen and Heard International). The 2023-24 season included company debuts with the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera singing Mimì in La bohème, and with Arizona Opera in their New Works Festival, as well as a return to the Glimmerglass Festival reprising the role of Nedda. On the concert stage, she sang Vivaldi’s Gloria and Margaret Bonds' The Ballad of the Brown King with the Arlington Chorale, as well as Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem with Lehigh University. She appeared in further concerts with Birmingham Opera.
Monroe’s announced engagements for the 2024-25 season include a highly anticipated return to Washington National Opera to perform the role of Serena in Porgy and Bess.
Monroe is a recent alumna of the Cafritz Young Artists Program at Washington National Opera, where she made her Kennedy Center debut as Ines in Il trovatore, followed by Isabelle in Carlos Simon’s The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson and Mimì in La bohème. After her time in Washington, she joined Santa Fe Opera as an apprentice artist, covering the Second Wood Sprite in Rusalka. Monroe was also an emerging artist with San Francisco Opera’s prestigious Merola Opera Program, where she performed as Magda in La rondine in the Schwabacher Summer Concert and as Madame Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmélites in the Merola Grand Finale concert. As a young artist with the Glimmerglass Festival, she performed the Rooster/Jay in The Cunning Little Vixen and covered the role of Anna Sørenson in Kevin Puts’ Silent Night.
Recent performances in opera have included Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with Opera Columbus, Nedda in Pagliacci at El Paso Opera, Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at Kentucky Opera, and Clara in Porgy and Bess with Opera Western Reserve. An enthusiast of contemporary opera, Monroe originated the role of Clarissa in the world premiere of Gregory Spears’ Castor and Patience with Cincinnati Opera and performed the title role in the Midwest premiere of Nkeiru Okoye’s Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom with Cleveland Opera Theater. She has also workshopped Jeanine Tesori’s Blue at the Glimmerglass Festival and Kevin Puts’ The Hours, commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera.
On the concert stage, she has been a featured soloist at the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of Maryland for Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, and in Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Capital City Symphony. Other performances have included Schubert’s Mass in G Major, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 4 with the Oberlin Orchestra; Ricky Ian Gordon’s and flowers pick themselves with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra; and a Lincoln Center performance of Roland Carter’s Hold Fast to Dreams with the Tuskegee University Golden Voice Concert Choir.
Monroe was recently named a 2023 winner of the Sullivan Foundation Award and the George and Nora London Foundation Competition. She was a 2021 recipient of the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation, and she has also received recognition in competitions such as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Opera Index Vocal Competition, the Gerda Lissner Foundation IVC, the Annapolis Opera Voice Competition, the Mildred Miller International Voice Competition with Pittsburgh Festival Opera, and the Classical Singer Competition.
Monroe completed her Master of Music and artist diploma in opera at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. With CCM Opera, she sang the Governess in The Turn of the Screw and was scheduled to sing Erste Dame in Die Zauberflöte before its cancellation due to COVID-19. She earned her Bachelor of Music in voice from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Her work in Oberlin Opera Theater productions ranged from the main stage to contemporary operas in nontraditional venues, performing roles such as Lady Billows in Albert Herring, the Old Lady in Michael Torke’s Strawberry Fields, and Luigia in Viva la Mamma.