isabel leonard

Musician/Singer

Isabel Leonard is a New York-based American mezzo-soprano opera singer. Leonard has performed with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society and the Juilliard Opera Center in New York. Her first performance with the New York Philharmonic was in a concert version of Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Candide’, and she later performed in concert with the orchestra and Lorin Maazel as the Squirrel in ‘L’enfant et les sortilèges’. Leonard made her professional operatic stage debut as Stéphano in ‘Roméo et Juliette’ in February 2007. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in the same role in September 2007.

In 2008, Leonard made her debut as Cherubino with the Santa Fe Opera. Her commercial recordings include a DVD of Dorabella from the 2009 Salzburg Festival staging of ‘Cos fan tutte’ for Euroarts. Leonard performed the role of Dorabella in a performance at the Metropolitan Opera on April 26, 2014, which was broadcast worldwide as part of the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD programme. Leonard made her Vienna State Opera debut in February 2011 as Cherubino in ‘Le nozze di Figaro’, and returned in January 2012 as Rosina in ‘Il barbiere di Siviglia’.

From 2014 through 2016, Leonard and Sharon Isbin gave eleven soprano/guitar duet recitals, including one at Zankel Hall (Carnegie Hall). In October 2018, Leonard sung the lead role in the American premiere of ‘Marnie’ at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Leonard received two Grammy Awards for Best Opera Recording: one in 2014 for Thomas Adès’ ‘The Tempest’ and the other in 2016 for Maurice Ravel’s ‘L’enfant et les sortilèges’. ‘From the Diary of Anne Frank & Meditations on Rilke’, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, won her the Grammy Award for Best Classical Compendium in 2021.