Too Many Sopranos is an opera by Indiana University Jacobs School of Music faculty member Edwin Penhorwood.
The piece has become a popular one for opera workshops because of the many soprano parts and its relative brevity.
The sopranos are told that if there were more tenors and basses that were in the heavenly choir, there would be no problem in letting them in.
So, the sopranos go to hell to retrieve the men who have been condemned to eternal torment.
Through a few operatic "tests" like trying to remain awake for an hour (a task made harder by a stage director boring them to sleep), all the sopranos successfully gain entrance to heaven with the men in tow.