About

A native New Yorker and graduate of The Juilliard School, three-time Grammy Award-winning artist Isabel Leonard has built a career of rare breadth, praised by the New York Classical Review as "so compelling that she is effortlessly seductive" — a reputation earned not only on the opera stage but in the concert hall, on film, and on screens worldwide.

The 2026–2027 season finds Ms. Leonard at the center of an exceptionally wide-ranging series of operatic and orchestral engagements spanning Europe and North America. She makes her house debut at Teatro Real in Madrid as Rosina in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, conducted by Giacomo Sagripanti in Damiano Michieletto's production. She sings her role debut as Julie in Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Show Boat with Houston Grand Opera, in Francesca Zambello's production conducted by Music Director Emeritus Patrick Summers. She is also featured as one of the star soloists in the Metropolitan Opera's Diamond Jubilee Gala — 60 Years at Lincoln Center — conducted by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and directed by Julian Crouch, featuring fully staged performances from more than thirty operas.

Orchestral highlights include opening the Houston Symphony's season in a gala evening of Great American Songbook repertoire with Principal Pops Conductor Steven Reineke, a gala appearance with the San Diego Symphony conducted by Music Director Rafael Payare, Ravel's Shéhérazade and Debussy's Le jet d'eau with the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Fabien Gabel, and L'enfant et les sortilèges with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Music Director Stéphane Denève and in a staged production with digital projections with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, also conducted by Denève. She also appears in a private gala concert in Monte Carlo with soprano Nadine Sierra, and is featured in an all-star Christmas gala at Carnegie Hall curated by Eugene Wintour.

The 2025–2026 season was one of Ms. Leonard's richest and most varied. She returned to the Metropolitan Opera in two prominent productions: the title role in Bizet's Carmen, conducted by Fabien Gabel, and the leading role of Frida in the company premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank's El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, directed by Deborah Colker and conducted by Nézet-Séguin, broadcast as part of the Met's Live in HD series. She also appeared in the title role of Carmen at the Wiener Opernsommer, in the open-air Opera Arena at the Heumarkt in Vienna, conducted by Joji Hattori. She returned to the Bayerische Staatsoper as Angelina in La Cenerentola and sang the title role in Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges with the San Diego Symphony under Music Director Rafael Payare in a semi-staged production directed by Gerard McBurney. She joined Le Cercle de l'Harmonie and conductor Jérémie Rhorer for a tour of France celebrating the music of Rossini.

The season also saw Ms. Leonard designated a Perspectives Artist at Carnegie Hall, where she presented a series of concerts throughout the season, including a recital with pianist John Arida in Stern Auditorium, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with The Met Orchestra conducted by Nézet-Séguin, and participation in the prestigious 50th Anniversary of the Concert of the Century Gala, also conducted by Nézet-Séguin. The season's Perspectives series closed with a Spanish Song and Dance Recital with vocalist Ismael Fernández and dancer Sonia Olla. Additional engagements included a residency with the Asheville Symphony Orchestra comprising a recital with John Arida, an orchestral performance of Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and a concert of Gershwin and American music with the Youth Orchestra; and further residencies and recitals at Washington University in St. Louis, Ithaca College, and Montclair State University.

Ms. Leonard made her Metropolitan Opera debut at twenty-five years old, having graduated from Juilliard just months before — and the New York Times noted that she sang "with the assurance of one who feels completely at home on the stage." That assurance has only deepened over nearly two decades at the company, where her roles have ranged from the Mozart and Rossini heroines that first defined her — Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, and Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia — to Charlotte in Werther, Miranda in the company premiere of Thomas Adès' The Tempest, the title role in the Met commission and world premiere of Nico Muhly's Marnie, the title role in Cendrillon, Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande and Blanche de la Force in Dialogues des Carmélites — both conducted by Nézet-Séguin and broadcast worldwide as part of the Live in HD series — Carmen, and most recently the title role in the company premiere of El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego. She has appeared regularly at Opéra national de Paris, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, San Francisco Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Los Angeles Opera, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the Salzburg Festspiele, and Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and has collaborated with conductors including Valery Gergiev, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Charles Dutoit, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Franz Welser-Möst, Plácido Domingo, Edward Gardner, James Levine, Edo de Waart, James Conlon, Marin Alsop, Sir Andrew Davis, Michele Mariotti, Harry Bicket, Andris Nelsons, and Michael Tilson Thomas. Her wider operatic repertoire encompasses the title roles in Carmen, Cendrillon, and La Périchole, Angelina in La Cenerentola, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Sesto in both La clemenza di Tito and Giulio Cesare, Costanza in Griselda, Musetta in La bohème, Der Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos, Marguerite in Berlioz's La damnation de Faust, and Maria in West Side Story.

On the concert stage, Ms. Leonard has brought her artistry to the Vienna Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony, among many others — approaching each engagement with the same musical intelligence and theatrical instinct that have distinguished her operatic career. A long artistic partnership with St. Louis Symphony Music Director Stéphane Denève has produced acclaimed performances of Berlioz's La damnation de Faust and Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges. She has performed an all-Spanish recital program with guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas at venues including Alice Tully Hall, the Colburn School, and the La Jolla Music Society, and maintains a regular collaboration with international star Andrea Bocelli, performing with him at sold-out arenas around the world.

Ms. Leonard's repertoire and instincts extend naturally into the world of musical theater, and she has long moved fluently between opera and the American songbook. A trained dancer who studied at the Joffrey Ballet School before entering Juilliard, she brought a distinctive physicality and theatricality to her portrayal of Maria in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music with Houston Grand Opera in a production directed by Francesca Zambello. She has also performed Sondheim's "No One Is Alone" in a special tribute at Carnegie Hall, appeared in a Sondheim Celebration with the New York Philharmonic at the Bravo! Vail Festival conducted by Leonard Slatkin — where her performance of "Send in the Clowns" drew particular acclaim — joined Broadway star Tony Yazbeck and the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Lionel Bringuier for an All-Gershwin celebration at the Hollywood Bowl, sung Anita in Bernstein's West Side Story in concert at the Gran Teatre del Liceu under Gustavo Dudamel, and regularly incorporates American popular song and musical theater repertoire into her recitals with pianist John Arida. The Houston Symphony's 2026–2027 season-opening gala, in which Ms. Leonard headlines an evening of Great American Songbook music conducted by Steven Reineke, is the latest expression of this dimension of her artistry.

Ms. Leonard has extended her reach well beyond classical music audiences through an active presence in film and popular culture. She appeared in the Rebecca Miller film She Came to Me starring Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei, and in the Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro directed by Bradley Cooper; she has been a familiar presence to audiences worldwide as a regular host of The Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD broadcasts; and she has been featured on Sesame Street and in scenes from Terrence McNally's Masterclass directed by Nicole Alexander.

Ms. Leonard is the recipient of the prestigious Richard Tucker Award and holds three Grammy Awards for Michael Tilson Thomas' From the Diary of Anne Frank on SFS Media, Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges on Decca, and The Tempest from the Metropolitan Opera on Deutsche Grammophon. She sits on the Board of Trustees at Carnegie Hall and on the Artistic Advisory Board of ArtSmart. A graduate of The Juilliard School, she studied with Marilyn Horne.

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