bio
American-born Cuban and Colombian tenor, Anthony León, is a young up-and-comer quickly developing an international performing career. His voice has been lauded by Stage and Cinema as possessing “beauty, freedom of tone, and outstanding breath control.” Anthony has received some of the most prestigious honors in the opera industry including being a finalist for the Rising Star award at the 2024 International Opera Awards and a winner of the 2024 Richard Tucker Career Grant. He has also won the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition winner and received the First Prize and the Don Plácido Domingo Ferrer Zarzuela Prize at Operalia, 2022, the most
important opera competition in the world. Additionally, he has been awarded a Career Development Grant from the Sullivan Foundation. Other accolades include being featured in Opera News magazine and being named “Best up-and-comer” in the Inland Empire Magazine’s “Best of the Best 2019” list, among other important awards. Despite being a relatively young singer, Anthony has made many important debuts in stages and theaters around the world. Most recent engagements in the 2024 season include debuting Nadir in Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles at Cologne Opera, singing Telemaco in Il ritorno d’Ulisse at the Aix-en-Provence festival, and making debuts with symphony orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival and the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.
During the 2022/2023 season, Anthony was contracted as a member of the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program at the Los Angeles Opera. Anthony’s engagements at LA Opera included opening the 2023/2024 season with his role debut as Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. At LA Opera, he also sang Aldeano #1 and Young Man in the world premiere tour of El último sueño de Frida y Diego by Gabriela Lena Frank, Roderigo in Verdi’s Otello, Pelléas in Impressions de Pelléas, Don Curzio in Le nozze di Figaro, Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia, Spoletta in Tosca, and Normanno in Lucia di Lammermoor.
Beyond Los Angeles, during the summer of 2023, Anthony made debuts both at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and the Salzburg Festival, singing the roles of the Teapot, Frog, and Mathematician in Ravel’s Das Kind und die Zauberdinge (L’enfant et les sortilèges). He has also recently been on tour performing the roles of Giove and Amphinome in Monteverdi’s opera, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, with the ensemble I Gemelli. On tour, Anthony performed at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, France; Arsenal Theater in Metz, France; and Victoria Hall in Geneva, Switzerland. A recorded album of the opera with Ensemble I Gemelli was released in September 2023 on all music platforms and has won international awards.
In the fall of 2021, Anthony also presented the role of Count Almaviva in Opera Theatre St. Louis’ production of The Barber of Seville. During the summers of 2021 and 2022, Anthony was an Apprentice Artist at Santa Fe Opera, covering the role of Lysander in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Fenton in Verdi’s Falstaff, and performing Remendado in Bizet’s Carmen. In addition to these contracts, Anthony has performed other leading roles in various stages around the world such as Le Chevalier in Dialogue des Carmélites, Agenore in Il re pastore, Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore, Tamino in The Magic Flute, the Witch in Hansel and Gretel, and Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance.
Anthony’s future engagements include performances and debuts at LA Opera, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Semper Oper in Dresden, the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Glyndebourne Festival, Zürich Opera House, and many more.
Anthony holds a Bachelor of Music from La Sierra University and a Master of Music degree concentrating in Vocal Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where he was awarded the Wendy Shattuck ‘75 Presidential Scholarship for Vocal Studies studying under the tutelage of Bradley Williams.