“The plush, animated mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard is a beguiling Cherubino, the count’s page…that this Cherubino is 100 percent hormones was palpable in Ms. Leonard’s singing of the breathless aria ‘Non so più,’ in which the young man tells of being so swept up with longing for every woman he sees that he goes through each day trembling with elation and utter confusion.”
Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, 23 September 2014
“Isabel Leonard’s libidinous Cherubino made the adolescent a worthy rival of the Count.”
George Loomis, Financial Times, 23 September 2014
“Isabel Leonard is a marvelous Cherubino, squirming and lusting and leering and ducking as if she had been reborn as a teenage boy, but with the voice of a confident woman.”
Justin Davinson, New York Magazine, 24 September 2014
“Isabel Leonard is perfectly ardent and amusing as the love-struck young man Cherubino, who ends up dressing like a girl — and takes to it like a duck in heels.”
Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News, 23 September 2014
“My new favorite Cherubino, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, was all unrestrained boyishness that gave way to the stumbling awe of adolescent feelings in ‘Voi che sapete.’ It was a stunning moment, and you could tell that Levine was having a great time, too. He brought down the da capo volume to such a whisper that this Cherubino was able to savor, as if entranced in a prayer, the possibility that what he felt in his heart might be love.”
Nancy Malitz, Classical Voice North America, 25 September 2014
“A key asset was Isabel Leonard’s Cherubino: Vocally charming (aren’t most of them?), she was the most convincingly boyish singer I’ve seen in that role, different from Frederica von Stade’s more physically contained portrayal, instead striking out in all directions on the stage with intense emotional undercurrents. One example: When sent off to war with mocking military salutes from Figaro and Susanna, Leonard threw herself into Susanna’s arms in a touching show of adolescent anguish. All of Leonard’s stage time had the solid ring of truth, accentuating the sense of realism among those around her.”
David Patrick Stearns, WQXR, 23 September 2014
“American mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard as Cherubino, the count’s page, was convincing as the hormone-driven teenage boy in love with every woman he sees. She dispatched his two arias with gorgeous tone and natural feeling, swinging between the extremes of a now passionate, now reflective youth.”
Examiner, 24 September 2014
“Leonard, a young mezzo destined for a stellar career, has to be the most engaging page since Frederica von Stade.”
Manuela Hoelterhoff, Bloomberg, 26 September 2014
“And the hometown mezzo Isabel Leonard is a joy in the trouser role of Cherubino, the pageboy who falls in love with every woman he sees. The scene in which Susanna and the Countess dress him as a woman — in fact, a woman playing a man playing a woman — is a highlight of the evening.”
Wilborn Hampton, Huffington Post, 26 September 2014
“Isabel Leonard looked delightful as Cherubino and sang beautifully…”
John Rockwell, Opera, December 2014
“Isabel Leonard’s Cherubino is a proven commodity in New York; looking especially toothsome and singing with an extra measure of grace, she stole every scene she was in.”
F. Paul Driscoll, Opera News, December 2014
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