Arizona Opera Cast Members & Creatives

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). Her 2023/24 Season will include making company debuts with Chattanooga Symphony and Opera singing Mimì in La Bohème, as well as Opera Birmingham singing Nedda in Pagliacci. Monroe then returns to The Glimmerglass Festival summer 2024 as a Guest Artist, reprising the role of Nedda. On the concert stage, she will be a soloist in Vivaldi’s Gloria and Margaret Bonds' The Ballad of the Brown King with the Arlington Chorale, and in Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem with Lehigh University.

She is a recent alumna of the Cafritz Young Artists Program with 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. In summer of 2023, she joined Santa Fe Opera as an Apprentice Artist, covering the Second Wood Sprite in Rusalka.

An enthusiast of contemporary opera, Monroe originated the role of Clarissa in the world-premiere of Gregory Spears‘ Castor and Patience (Cincinnati Opera) and performed the title role in the Midwest premiere of Nkeiru Okoye’s Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom (Cleveland Opera Theater). She has also workshopped Blue by Jeanine Tesori (The Glimmerglass Festival), and The Hours by Kevin Puts, commissioned by The Metropolitan Opera.

A former artist at the Merola Opera Program, Monroe performed as Magda from La rondine in the Schwabacher Summer Concert, and Madame Lidoine from Dialogues des Carmélites in the Merola Grand Finale. As a young artist with the The Glimmerglass Festival, she performed as the Rooster/Jay in The Cunning Little Vixen, and covered the role of Anna Sørenson in Kevin Puts’ Silent Night. Additional performance credits include; Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni (Opera Columbus), Nedda in Pagliacci (El Paso Opera), Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro (Kentucky Opera), and Clara in Porgy and Bess (Opera Western Reserve).

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. She was also the soprano soloist of Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Capital City Symphony. Other performances include Schubert’s Mass in G Major, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 4 with the Oberlin Orchestra, Ricky Ian Gordon’s and flowers pick themselves with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra, as well as in a Lincoln Center performance of Roland Carter’s Hold Fast to Dreams with the Tuskegee University Golden Voice Concert Choir.

Monroe has recently been named a 2023 winner of the Sullivan Foundation Awards and George and Nora London Foundation Competition. She is a 2021 recipient of the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from The Shoshana Foundation. She has also been awarded and placed in competitions such as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Annapolis Opera Voice Competition, the Mildred Miller International Voice Competition with the Pittsburgh Festival Opera, and the Classical Singer Competition.

Monroe completed her Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma in Opera at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. With CCM Opera, she has sung the Governess (Turn of the Screw), and was scheduled to sing Erste Dame (The Magic Flute) until it's cancellation due to COVID-19.

She earned her Bachelor of Music in voice from Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Her work in Oberlin Opera Theater productions have ranged from the main stage to contemporary operas in non-traditional venues. She has performed the roles of Lady Billows (Albert Herring), the Old Lady (Michael Torke’s Strawberry Fields), and Luigia (Viva la Mamma).