Set-up post.
There seemed to be enough interest in chat to sustain this, so I'm going to give it a try.
There are 32 arias. Since most people are not going to be familiar with all or even most of them, I've included a Youtube link for each one. Arias were chosen from the Italian and French rep from 1850-1925 (also known as 1850-1900 plus some Puccini). Pairings are pretty much random.
Given the time period, it was inevitable that the selections would be dominated by tenors. I managed to keep it to only 12 tenor arias, with 8 arias each for soprano and baritone. Mezzos got the short end, with only 4, as mezzos got pretty well shafted for most of the Romantic period.
I've also included a link to the text and translation when I could find it. Some arias I could only find text, and one I couldn't find either.
I realize that 32 arias is a lot to slog through, especially if you need to listen to them all. I expect this to be a slow moving battle. If people want to vote in separate posts so that they can do a few arias at a time, that's fine with me.
Arias are listed simply by name, with no mention of voice type, opera, or composer, as I am attempting to keep the aria list from getting too cluttered.. That information should be available at either the Youtube link or the text link. The one aria that has no text link (De miei bollenti spiriti) is from La Traviata by Verdi. I attempted to get a variety of periods and performers in my examples, but repeats were inevitable.
Hopefully I'll have formatted everything correctly. If there are any problems with links, let me know and I'll ask Zuul or another mod to fix them.
Aria list to follow.