Welcome, everyone!
NEXT PERFORMANCES
T The Tempest | Milan
NOV 5, 8, 11, 15, 18
Carmen debut at the Kennedy Center
Isabel Leonard will make her debut in the role of Carmen at the Washington National Opera on May 14, in a vibrant D.C. premiere directed by Francesca Zambello and conducted by Evan Rogister. Opposite her will be Michael Fabiano as Don José, Vanessa Vasquez as Micaëla, and Ryan Speedo Green as Escamillo. Bizet’s blockbuster of tumultuous love has everything you want from an opera, from Carmen’s instantly recognizable “Habanera” aria to the famous “Toreador Song,” all culminating in a spectacular finale at a bullfight. Carmen’s determination to be “born free and to die free” is what makes her irresistible—but in love, does anything come without a price?
IN THE PRESS
“I always sang, since I was a child,” says Isabel Leonard. “I ended up fully entrenched in classical music, really, once I began at Juilliard. Before college I had been singing musical theater and with the jazz band as well…. I love it all!”
Hailed as “opera’s most in-demand singer” by Town and Country, the two-time Grammy-winning Isabel Leonard makes her Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra subscription concert debut February 7–8, singing the role of “l’enfant” (“The Child”) in Ravel’s fairy-tale opera L’enfant et les sortilèges.
Isabel Leonard has built an unprecedented international career, performing all over the world and winning a number of competitions and awards, chief of which is the prestigious Richard Tucker Foundation Award in 2013. An audience favorite at The Metropolitan Opera, last season she sang three leading roles there. Two of these, the title role in Nico Muhly’s new opera Marnie (a Met commission), and the role of Blanche in Poulenc’s tragic Dialogues des Carmelites, were broadcast all over the world as part of The Metropolitan Opera Live in HD program. Recent years have also seen her perform the title role in Rossini’s La Cenerentola with Wiener Staatsoper and Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther with the Royal Opera House in London.
