Isabel Leonard, press kit

Mezzo-soprano. Three-time Grammy winner. Native New Yorker.

Three-time Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano and Juilliard graduate. A career of rare breadth across opera, concert, film, and the American songbook: Metropolitan Opera regular for nearly two decades. Native New Yorker.

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, whose Carmen the New York Classical Review found "effortlessly seductive," a reputation earned not only on the opera stage but in the concert hall, on film, and on screens worldwide. 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 Mozart and Rossini heroines to contemporary works including the Met commission and world premiere of Nico Muhly's Marnie and the company premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank's El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego. A trained dancer who studied at the Joffrey Ballet School before entering Juilliard, she brings distinctive physicality and theatricality to her performances. Her artistry extends naturally into musical theater and the American songbook, and she maintains regular collaborations with international artists including Andrea Bocelli.

A native New Yorker, a graduate of The Juilliard School and a student of Marilyn Horne, three-time Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard has built a career of rare breadth across opera, the concert hall, film and the American songbook. Her 2026-27 season includes her house debut at Teatro Real in Madrid as Rosina in Damiano Michieletto's production of Il barbiere di Siviglia, the title role in the world premiere of Christopher Tin's O'Keeffe: Kiss the Sky at Washington National Opera, directed by Francesca Zambello, and her role debut as Julie in Show Boat at Houston Grand Opera. She is a featured soloist in the Metropolitan Opera's Diamond Jubilee Gala under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and appears with the San Francisco Symphony, the San Diego Symphony, the New World Symphony and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the last two in Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges with Stéphane Denève. In recital she opens the LIFE Victoria season in Barcelona with Malcolm Martineau. Ms. Leonard made her Metropolitan Opera debut at twenty-five, months after graduating from Juilliard, and has sung with the company for nearly two decades. Her roles there range from the Mozart and Rossini heroines that first defined her, among them Cherubino, Zerlina, Dorabella and Rosina, to Charlotte in Werther, Miranda in the company premiere of Thomas Adès's The Tempest, the title role in the world premiere of Nico Muhly's Marnie, Mélisande, Blanche de la Force, Carmen, and Frida in the company premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank's El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego. She has appeared at the Opéra national de Paris, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Glyndebourne, Teatro alla Scala, San Francisco Opera and the Salzburg Festival, with conductors including Antonio Pappano, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Seiji Ozawa and Michael Tilson Thomas. On the concert stage she has performed with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony, and she was a Carnegie Hall Perspectives Artist in 2025-26. A trained dancer who studied at the Joffrey Ballet School, she moves fluently between opera and musical theater, from Maria in The Sound of Music at Houston Grand Opera to Gershwin at the Hollywood Bowl, and performs regularly with Andrea Bocelli. She has appeared in the films She Came to Me and Maestro, and hosts the Met's Live in HD broadcasts. She is a recipient of the Richard Tucker Award and holds three Grammy Awards, for Michael Tilson Thomas's From the Diary of Anne Frank, Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges, and The Tempest from the Metropolitan Opera. She sits on the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Hall and the Artistic Advisory Board of ArtSmart.