About Isabel Leonard

Three-time Grammy Award-winning artist Isabel Leonard has established herself as one of the biggest stars on the world’s stages and screens.

The 2024 – 2025 season sees Ms. Leonard’s much anticipated return to Opéra National de Paris as Rosina in Damiano Michieletto’s production of Il barbiere di Siviglia conducted by Diego Matheuz. She will also be making her house debut with Gran Teatre del Liceu as Anita in a concert performance of Bernstein’s West Side Story conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Ms. Leonard also returns to Houston Grand Opera to sing Angelina in Joan Font’s production of Cenerentola. This will also be the occasion of her directorial debut, leading the HGO Family Day production of Cinderella. In this season Ms. Leonard will return to The Metropolitan Opera as Rosina in Bartlett Sher’s celebrated production of Il barbiere di Siviglia. Orchestral appearances include performances of Les Nuits d’été with Kevin John Edusei conducting the New York Philharmonic and Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony conducted by music director Courtney Lewis. Ms. Leonard also continues her collaboration with guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas, performing their all-Spanish program at the Gallo Center for the Performing arts. In addition, Ms. Leonard will appear in recital with Matinee Musicale in Cincinnati, OH, Teatro de la Ciudad in Monterrey Mexico, Sala Sao Paulo, and Teatro Municipal de Río de Janeiro.

In the 2023 – 2024 season, Ms. Leonard returned to the Bayersiche Staatsoper as Angelina in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s production of La Cenerentola. She also returned to Los Angeles Opera to sing the roles of Donna Elvira in the Kasper Holton production of Don Giovanni, as well as her signature role of Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia. Ms. Leonard returned to Houston Grand Opera for her role debut as Maria in Francesca Zambello’s production of The Sound of Music and to Washington National Opera to reprise her appearance as the title character in Offenbach’s La Périchole. Concert work includes opening the Dallas Symphony’s season in a special gala performance with Emanuel Aix, an appearance hosting Palm Beach Opera’s season gala, and a live recording of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with Gustavo Gimeno conducting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Additional concert appearances included Ravel’s Schéhérazade with both the New World Symphony and longtime collaborator Stéphane Denève and with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, and an eleven-city concert tour with renowned Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. Ms. Leonard also appeared in recital with Pablo Sáinz Villegas at the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, reprising their program of songs in Spanish.

Highlights of Ms. Leonard’s career include the title roles in Carmen, La Périchole, Cendrillon, Marnie, and Der Rosenkavalier, as well as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Angelina in La Cenerentola, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Zerlina and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Sesto in La clemenza di Tito, Charlotte in Werther, Blanche de la Force in Dialogues des Carmélites, Costanza in Griselda, Musetta in La bohème, Der Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos, Sesto in Giulio Cesare, Maria in West Side Story, and Marguerite in a concert performance of Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust.

Ms. Leonard regularly appears on the stages of the world’s leading opera stages including The Metropolitan Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Wiener Staatsoper, Los Angeles Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, San Francisco Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Aix-en-Provence Festival, Salzburg Festspiele, and Teatro Comunale di Bologna. She regularly enjoys collaboration with esteemed conductors including Valery Gergiev, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Charles Dutoit, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nézét-Seguin, 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. Orchestral highlights include appearances with Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Orquestra Acadêmica Mozarteum Brasileiro, in São Paulo, and at Teatro Positivo in Curitiba, Brazil, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Vienna Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony, among others. She also enjoys a regular collaboration with celebrated international star Andrea Bocelli, performing with him at arenas around the world.

Ms. Leonard was featured on the season 43 finale of Sesame Street in Murray Monster’s “People in Your Neighborhood” segment in 2013. Other television and film credits include an appearance in Terrence McNally’s Masterclass directed by Nicole Alexander (2020) and in the Rebecca Miller film She Came to Me (2023), starring Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei. She appeared in the movie Maestro (2023), in which she reenacted the performance by Rosa Feola conducted by Leonard Bernstein in 1973. Ms. Leonard is also a regular host of The Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD broadcasts.

Ms. Leonard was named the recipient of the prestigious Richard Tucker Award in 2013. She currently has three Grammy Awards. In 2014 she won the Grammy for her work in Michael Tilson Thomas’ From the Diary of Anne Frank on SFS Media. In 2016 she was awarded another Grammy for her singing in Maurice Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges on Decca. Her third Grammy was for her work in The Tempest at The Metropolitan Opera on Deutsche Grammophon. She currently resides in New York and sits on the Board of Trustees at Carnegie Hall and on the Artistic Advisory Board of ArtSmart.