Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Isabel Leonard, Paul Appleby, Derek Welton & Gustavo Gimeno
Biography Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Isabel Leonard, Paul Appleby, Derek Welton & Gustavo Gimeno
Isabel Leonard
was born in New York, studied at the Juilliard School and won the Richard Tucker Award in 2013. She made her debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 2008 as Stéphano (Roméo et Juliette) and has since appeared in over 150 performances at this particularly important theatre, including Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro), Dorabella (Così fan tutte), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Miranda (Thomas Adès' The Tempest), Blanche de la Force (Dialogues des Carmélites), Charlotte (Werther), Mélisande (Pelléas et Mélisande), Composer (Ariadne auf Naxos) and the title roles in Massenet's Cendrillon and Nico Muhly's Marnie. These and other roles, such as Angelina in La Cenerentola, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and Ada in the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon's Cold Mountain, have taken her to theatres in her home country, including in Washington DC, Houston, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palm Beach, Dallas and Santa Fe as well as in Europe at the Vienna State Opera, the Opéra national de Paris, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London and at the festivals in Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence and Glyndebourne. She made her debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper in 2009 as Cherubino and sang the role of Angelina for the first time in 2015, a role in which she can now be heard again in the 2023/24 season.
Paul Appleby
The American Paul Appleby regularly appears on the world's major opera, concert and recital stages. In the 2023/24 season, he sings the role of Blake in the world premiere of Bernard Foccroule's ‘Cassandra’ at La Monnaie under the baton of Kazushi Ono, Caesar in ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’ at the Teatre del Liceu, continuing his long-standing collaboration with conductor and composer John Adams, and Tamino in ‘The Magic Flute’ at Glyndebourne Festival Opera. In concert, he appears with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Fabio Luisi in Schmidt's ‘The Book with Seven Seals’ and with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky's ‘Les Noces’. A graduate of New York's Juilliard School and the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Programme, Paul Appleby is a regular guest on this stage, most recently as David in Wagner's ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’ under Sir Antonio Pappano and as Grimoaldo in Handel's ‘Rodelinda’ under Harry Bicket.
Derek Welton
The Australian-born bass-baritone Derek Welton is recognised as one of the leading voices of his generation, with a repertoire ranging from Bach and Handel to the present day.
He is a regular guest of companies such as the Royal Ballet and Opera, Covent Garden, Salzburg Festival, Vienna State Opera, Bayreuth Festival, Bavarian State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Hamburg State Opera, Paris Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, Dutch National Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago, in roles such as Wotan/Wanderer (Der Ring des Nibelungen), Amfortas and Klingsor (Parsifal), König Marke (Tristan und Isolde), Orest (Elektra), Voland (Der Meister und Margarita), Bluebeard (Bluebeard’s Castle), Pizarro (Fidelio), Forester (The Cunning Little Vixen), Prus (The Makropulos Case), Saint-Bris (Les Huguenots), Pandolfe (Cendrillon) and Mozart’s Figaro.
Derek has performed with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music, Hallé Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Concerto Köln in repertoire including Bach’s St Matthew Passion, St John Passion and Mass in B minor, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9, Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Tippett’s A Child of our Time.
After his return to the Bayreuth Festival in 2024 as Amfortas, highlights Welton’s 2024/2025 season include Pizarro in Fidelio at Washington National Opera, King Marke in Tristan und Isolde, the title role of The Flying Dutchman and Forester in The Cunning Little Vixen at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wanderer in Siegfried with Concerto Köln and the Journalist in Otto Ketting’s Ithaka at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Concerts include Mahler’s Symphony No 8 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and West Australian Symphony Orchestra, a concert of Wagner highlights with the Washington National Opera, Messiah at the Vienna Musikverein, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem at the Rome Opera, The Dream of Gerontius with the WDR Symphony Orchestra and Bruckner’s Mass in F minor with the Vienna Symphony.
Derek Welton’s discography includes performances as Wotan in Das Rheingold (Naxos), Amfortas in Parsifal (Deutsche Grammophon), Orest in Elektra (Unitel Edition), Der Pförtner in Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane (Naxos), the Herald in Lohengrin (Deutsche Grammophon), Creonte in Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo (Pinchgut Live), in Martinů’s The Epic of Gilgamesh (Supraphon Records), Stravinsky’s Pulcinella (Harmonia Mundi), Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 (Ondine and Brattle Media) and on a solo CD of Vaughan Williams songs with Iain Burnside for Albion Records.
Derek Welton holds degrees in Linguistics and German from the University of Melbourne and in Music from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
