A 1996 graduate of Nutley High School, Leonardo Capalbo pursued his musical muse at Juilliard, followed by training at the Musical Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California under the legendary Marilyn Horne. He made his operatic debut in 2004 as Paco in de Falla’s La Vida Breve for Opera North.
Since then he has garnered international critical acclaim for his performances throughout the United States and Europe. His rich lyric voice, dramatic intensity and youthful, good looks have made him popular with notoriously critical opera fans.
His steadily increasing repertoire includes long time classical favorites such as both Alfredo and Rodolfo in la Boheme, Don Jose in Carmen, Gustavo in Un Ballo in Maschera, Alfredo in La Traviata, lsmaele in Nabucco, Romeo in Romeo et Juliette, Hoffman in Les Conte d’Hoffman, Narraboth in Salome, Fenton in Falstaff, Edgardo in Lucla di Lammermor, and the title role as Roberto Devereux, among others.
ln addition, he has performed important roles in lesser known and newer operas such as Gloriana, Der Kuhhandel, Powder Her Face, The Manchurian Candidate, La Straniera, Candide, The Rake’s Progress, I Due fuscari, and ll Postino.
His itinerary includes an impressive variety including, royal Opera House Covent Garden, Berlin Staatsoper, Teatro Real Madrid, Glynbourne Festival, Opera de Lyon, Teatro Regio diTorino, Lyric Opera of Chlcago, Teatro Dell’ Opera di Roma, Semperoper Dresden, Grand Theatre de Geneve, New York City Opera, Welsh National Opera, lsraeli Opera, L’Opera National du Rhin in Strasbourg, The Minnesota Opera, The Greek National Opera, The Concertgebouw, Teatro del Liceu.
Leonardo Capalbo’s impressive career certainly makes his hometown Nutleyites proud, yet the feeling remains that, for this rising star, young by opera standards, the best is still to come.