Performers rummaging around for the right material to show themselves off at auditions will want to gander at the series that music director-vocal coach-pianist-music copyist-arranger-transcriber-transposer Barbara Irvine (phew!) has compiled. To help aspiring sopranos, tenors, mezzo-sopranos/altos, and baritones/basses, Irvine has collected 35 different songs for each vocal range — each of which gets its own volume — into the first set of a planned two-set edition.
At the top of each volume, she places practical information about the shows from which she's plucked the songs, including synopses, songwriters, which characters sang the songs and in what context, and the length of the shows' Broadway runs. Irvine also suggests 16-bar cuts of the songs in deference to casting directors' requests along those lines.
No need to list all the songs here, many of which should serve actors well. But it might be enlightening to report on Irvine's sometimes savvy, sometimes curious policies and tendencies. As claimed on each book's cover, she is publishing the songs in their original keys and with authentic arrangements transcribed from the original vocal scores. This means, for instance, that the parts for the first and second maids and Mrs. Pearce are included with Eliza's soprano "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady. It's unlikely anyone auditioning will need all this, unless she has an especially agreeable accompanist in tow.
Sticking with the soprano volume for a moment, Irvine also includes "What Is a Man?" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" from Pal Joey. While technically these songs were originally sung by a soprano (Vivienne Segal), would they be today? When the long-awaited revival of Pal Joey comes to Broadway this season, will Stockard Channing sing them in her head voice? And is "The Lady Is a Tramp" a soprano song?
Though among the troves there's plenty of Cole Porter, Jerry Herman, David Shire and Richard Maltby Jr., Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, and even some Frank "This Is the Moment" Wildhorn, don't bother to look for songs by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, or Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock. That's right, there's no "Some Enchanted Evening" or "This Nearly Was Mine," both from South Pacific, for baritones/basses. And don't expect to find anything truly right for a rock musical. That's a big oversight nowadays, since producers, directors, and casting directors do want rock-trained voices. Still, the Irvine books are a good place for novices to begin their research.
Alfred Publishing, 2007, paperback, 204 pages (soprano), 268 pages (mezzo-soprano/alto), 208 pages (tenor), and 224 pages (baritone/bass), $19.95 each.