A little assistance with learning opera roles

One of the repetiteur's jobs has always been helping singers learn new roles. Since home recording became available, we've been making learning recordings - basically the voice part played out nice and clearly on the piano, with simplified harmony underneath and a few vocal cues. Here are some that I've recorded over the years. My main advantage in making these is that I'm equally experienced in recording and editing as in playing operas on the piano.

Latest news, December 2024

Contact details

If the recording you want isn't here, or you have any other reason to contact me, email:

recordingrescue (at) gmail.com

Yes, sorry, not a clickable link but we've all got better things to do than dealing with spam emails from robots.

Important note about downloads

There seems to be a trend for the latest version of popular browsers to play MP3 files by default rather than downloading them, which doesn't work at all well with this site. Because of this, I have taken to ZIPping up all roles before uploading them, even when the recording consits of a single file (multiple files have been ZIPped all along). I will gradually be replacing MP3 files with ZIPs, but in the meantime, if you run into problems running out of download attempts because of this, don't hesitate to get in touch (email address above).

All accompaniment tracks are clearly marked as ACCOMPANIMENT in their title. In addition to what's here (complete roles) I have accompaniments to over 1000 arias and artsongs on my computer, plus learning recordings for at least 200 arias. I am slowly adding these to the catalogue on this site.

I am sometimes asked if I charge extra for making new recordings to order. No! The charge is the same, £25 per hour of finished recording, to the nearest whole £ (slightly different calculation for short roles, below 24 minutes/£10). I also don't distinguish between 'standard' and unfamiliar repertoire. The only situation in which I might find myself having to charge a little more is if I have to go to inordinate lengths to get hold of a score. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it...

Finding roles

The easiest way to find a role is simply to search by name of role, opera or composer (all role titles include all three). Look for the magnifying glass icon at the top of the screen.

Opera titles are in the original language. When a character has a 'job title' rather than an actual name, I have tended to put these in the original with the English in brackets, to aid with searching by name: for instance, 'Erste Dame (1st lady)'. I may not have been entirely consistent, so try both languages!

Since I launched this site, the Shopify search engine has been adjusted so that diacritics on letters are ignored, so if you want to search for Brünnhilde you can also enter 'Brunnhilde' and the role will still come up.

Of course browsing the site is also possible, for example using the collections below.

Please note: you only get two goes at downloading a file once you've bought it. Make sure you save the file somewhere you can find it! If problems occur due to interrupted downloads or something, drop me a line and we'll work something out.

About these recordings