Best Soprano Songs for Musical Theatre Auditions

Tales From The Bad Years is a musical revue by Kerrigan and Lowdermilk.

The show is a series of short self contained songs and musical scenes, all about being twenty-something.

The songs from this show are perfect for auditioning for drama school as they dealk with issues you will be familiar with at student age. The songs are about youth, determination and unexpected love.

Not A Love Story is a song dealing with the end of your first love, how the romance ends and you drift apart. Its a beautiful song, its modern, its probably not one they’ve heard hundreds of time. If you can find the sheet music, then give it a whirl.

The wonderful show She Loves Me about shop employees Georg and Amalia who, despite being consistently at odds with each other at work, are unaware that each is the other’s secret pen pal met through lonely-hearts ads.

The show contains the classic audition song Vanilla Ice Cream, sung by Amalia as she realises that George isn’t who she thought he was.

This really is a great song for auditions because it shows off your storytelling and acting skills, whilst really allowing a soprano to show off her full range. If it is sung with confidence then it can be a real tour de force

A beautiful ballad from the musical movie Evening Primrose.

The character of Ella barely remembers the outside world having been raised from the age of six, after she fell asleep in the hat department, as part of a society who live within a department store ( … I know, just go with me on this one!)

She has not seen the sun for thirteen years, but she tells Charles what she remembers with this song. She likens the natural world of the outside to the artificial world she has been raised in.

“I remember trees – Bare as coat racks – Spread like broken umbrellas.”

The song is full of long phrasing and so requires great control. It was written for a woman to sing but I have heard men sing it too.

Songs For A New World has no story so if you choose a song from this to audition with, you need to do your homework. Build a story and a character around the song show them you can act and create.

A recurring theme in Songs For A New World is parents. Mothers are portrayed as nurturing and fathers destructive, with a few exceptions. This song is one of the exceptions. This is a song about a woman abandoning her children and husband, the kids must be young because one of them is afraid of the dark. You need to know why she is leaving, is it best for them or for her. Play with performing it in different emotional states, don’t go for the obvious, see how this changes the song, see how this changes the performance. The beauty of a song like this is that you can build your character and see what works best for you.

Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 Disney animated musical fantasy film. It was the last fairy tale produced by Disney for some years; the studio did not return to the genre until years after Disney’s death with the release of The Little Mermaid.

In the 14th century, the malevolent Maleficent taunts a king that his infant Aurora will fatally prick her finger on a spinning wheel before sundown on her sixteenth birthday. This, of course, would deny her a happily-ever-after with her true love. Fortunately, some bubbly, bumbling fairies named Flora, Fauna and Merryweather are on hand to assist.

‘Once Upon A Dream’ is sung by Aurora as she dreams of being with a Prince Charming, it is a perfect panto audition song for a soprano wanting to play the Princess. It lacks some of the ‘spunk’ of some of the other Disney heroines, but is perfectly girly.

The Glorious Ones is a musical by Flaherty and Ahrens set in 17th Century Italy and concerning a theatre troupe in the world of commedia dell’arte. It is based on the book by Francine Prose.

The musical is a mixture or slapstick and serious, and tells the story of commedia dell’arte and how its bawdy comedy captured the publics adoration. The Glorious Ones has been called smutty, nutty, sentimental and moving.

This song is sung by Isabella, an aristocratic young woman who joins the troupe and falls in love with group’s protégé, Francesco. This really is an incredible song for a soprano, it is a beautiful story song up there with Meadowlark and talks of creativity and creation so is perfect for an actress audition song.

Ghost The Musical is based on th 1990 hot movie of the same name. The book is by Bruce Joel Rubin and the music from Dave Stewart.

Incase you have never seen the film, where have you been(?), the plot revolves around lovers Sam and Molly who are attacked on the way back to their apartment. Sam dies, and becomes a ghost caught between this world and the next. Molly is in danger and Sam finds a medium Oda Mae Brown to help him to warn her.

With You is sung by Molly in Act One and shows how she is not dealing with her grief.

It really is a beautiful ballad and is bang up to date for auditioning. If done well it will show your acting and emotion, as well as how you can tell a story through song which is everything an auditioner is looking for.

Evening Primrose is a television musical movie based on a short story about a poet who seeks refuge from the world by hiding in a department store. There he meets a society of ‘night people’ who live in the store and he falls in love with a young girl called Ella.

Ella has never seen the outside world and wants to leave with Charles and experience the world.

It is a wonderful song and is full of innocence and hope.