About

Recognized as “a crystalline lyric soprano and a superb singing actress” by Seen and Heard International, soprano Amber R. Monroe’s 2025–2026 season sees her role debut in the title role of Francesca Zambello’s production of Aida with Washington National Opera, as well as her house debut with Seattle Opera to sing Mary Johnson in Fellow Travelers. Ms. Monroe also covers the role of Sister Rose in Dead Man Walking with San Francisco Opera and debuts the role of Bess in Porgy and Bess in concert with Dayton Opera. Concert work includes Handel’s Messiah with the Chattanooga Symphony.

The 2024–2025 season saw her return to Washington National Opera in the role of Serena in Francesca Zambello’s production of Porgy and Bess at the Kennedy Center, and to Pensacola Opera as Nedda in Pagliacci. She also sang the role of High Priestess and covered the title role in Aida with both the Baltimore Symphony, conducted by John Heyward, and Dayton Opera. Additional debuts included with the Boston Symphony Orchestra as Lucienne in Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt, conducted by Andris Nelsons; the National Philharmonic singing Verdi’s Requiem; and with the New Jersey Symphony singing a concert of Gershwin with Paquito D’Rivera.

Additional operatic highlights include Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with Opera Columbus; Nedda in Pagliacci with the Glimmerglass Festival and El Paso Opera; Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at Kentucky Opera; Clara in Porgy and Bess with Opera Western Reserve; Esther in Ricky Ian Gordon’s Intimate Apparel with Arizona Opera; and Mimì in La bohème with the Chattanooga Symphony. Ms. Monroe originated the role of Clarissa in the world premiere of Gregory Spears’s 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’s The Hours, commissioned by The Metropolitan Opera.

Ms. Monroe is an 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. She was also an Apprentice Artist at Santa Fe Opera, covering the Second Wood Sprite in Rusalka, as well as a member of the Merola Opera Program, where she performed as Magda in La rondine on the Schwabacher Summer Concert Series and as Madame Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmélites in the Merola Grand Finale concert. As a young artist with The Glimmerglass Festival, she performed as the Rooster/Jay in The Cunning Little Vixen and covered the role of Anna Sørenson in Kevin Puts’s Silent Night.

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 include Schubert’s Mass in G Major, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Margaret Bonds's The Ballad of the Brown King with the Arlington Chorale, and Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem with Lehigh University.

A highly decorated artist, Ms. Monroe was a 2023 winner of the Sullivan Foundation Award and the George and Nora London Foundation Competition, and a 2021 recipient of the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from The Shoshana Foundation. She has also received recognition in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Opera Index Vocal Competition, and the Gerda Lissner Foundation IVC, among others.

Ms. Monroe holds a Master of Music degree and Artist Diploma in Opera from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where she performed the Governess in The Turn of the Screw. She earned her Bachelor of Music degree in Voice from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where her roles included Lady Billows in Albert Herring and Luigia in Viva la Mamma.

Events

Watch

Repertoire