Isabel Leonard, mezzo-soprano presented by San Francisco Performances

Highly acclaimed for her "passionate intensity and remarkable vocal beauty," the multiple Grammy Award-winning Isabel Leonard continues to thrill audiences both in the opera house and on the concert stage. In repertoire that spans from Vivaldi to Mozart to Thomas Ades, she has graced the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Salzburg Festival, Bavarian State Opera, Carnegie Hall, Glyndebourne Festival, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Angelina in La Cenerentola, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, Charlotte in Werther, Blanche de la Force in Dialogues des Carmelites, Costanza in Griselda, the title roles in La Perichole and Der Rosenkavalier, as well as Sesto in both Mozart's La clemenza di Tito and Handel's Giulio Cesare.

Leonard has also appeared with some of the foremost conductors of her time: James Levine, Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Franz Welser-Most, Placido Domingo, Edward Gardner, Edo de Waart, James Conlon, Michele Mariotti, Harry Bicket, and Andris Nelsons with the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Vienna Philharmonic, among others.

Leonard's vocal prowess is skillfully demonstrated in this centennial program which pays homage to Leonard Bernstein, a pivotal force in translating and transforming the European song cycle and oratorio tradition into an American idiom that can be related to by all. She will be joined by John Arida on piano.