She has a voice that can move you to tears. Grammy Award winner Isabel Leonard is one of the most in-demand Opera Singers in the world. We talk Opera, finding your voice, pop stars who can really sing and her Karaoke skills. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Music Genres.
Interview with Opera Singer Isabel Leonard
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
sing, opera, people, singers, hear, music, voice, silverware, sounds, listen, opera singer, thought, gator tail, screamo, longitude, song, country, call, feel, pretty
SPEAKERS
Nick VinZant – Profoundly Pointless podcast host
Isabel Leonard – Opera Singer
Nick VinZant 00:13
Hey everybody welcome to profoundly pointless My name is Nick coming up in this episode, we're gonna go to the opera and counting down the top five genres of music.
Isabel Leonard 00:24
And that was pretty terrifying you know, I was there on stage by myself singing the one Aria that my character had and that was it. It was like sink or swim go. One of the strongest connections you know, from human to human is the voice and is the the transmission of emotion through I always say one animal cry to the other. You know, you're hearing you're hearing like emotion and words all tied up into one and coming out with this sort of soaring sound.
Nick VinZant 00:55
I want to thank you guys so much for joining us. If you get a chance like Download, subscribe, share. We really appreciate it. It really helps us out. I think the best way to introduce our first guest is to hear her sing. This is Grammy Award winning opera singer Isabel Leonard, when did you know that you could really sing?
Isabel Leonard 01:52
I think there's sometimes there's this. This thought that opera singers are just sort of like found with these big voices. That's not exactly always the case. I think sometimes they're found if they've been training and nobody knew about them in the first place. But generally, you know, opera singers come to, come to this world, like any other singer does, you know, musical theater or pop or jazz or any of those things is that they start because they can sing and they can carry a tune. And then they get into the genres that they like, and then they go on training and learning to sort of vocal technique and style that is, that is connected to the genre, right? That they're that they're singing. So I mean, like, as an example, you know, I I went in high school, I was of course, singing a lot of musical theater. And I could have gone to cap 21, which was the NYU musical theater program or Juilliard, and I chose Juilliard because I thought, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm going to want to have a really solid vocal technique. I think this is where I'm going to be able to get that technique. And so I went there. had I gone to cap 21 I probably would have been in musical theater world. It's like, I knew I could sing and then it was What I'm going to do with my voice, I wasn't entirely sure, in the very beginning, I just knew that I wanted to have a good technique so that I could then later make those choices.
Nick VinZant 03:08
So it's not as if an opera singer just has this fundamentally amazing voice. It's more of a training slash career interest kind of thing.
Isabel Leonard 03:18
You know, ultimately, at the end of the day, it's like those 10,000 hours that you put in, it's really it's, I think, at its fundamental it is training muscles. And I just think that yeah, it's finding people that kind of have the raw gift and then kind of building from that point.
Nick VinZant 03:32
So what kind of like for the training what, what do you do?
Isabel Leonard 03:35
Well, I mean, vocal training looks a little different probably for everybody. I mean, we do things like we do, we have vocal exercises, right? It could be as simple as singing scales and doing breath exercises where you learn how to take a very deep breath and in the correct way that allows you to have a free we call it a free voice like free singing where You're not using your neck muscles to control the sound that you're creating, that you're really singing from your, your full body. And we have all sorts of things that we do, you know, as a teacher, because I teach as well, but there are so many things that you can do with students to sort of help them get to that place. But it's not like you say to a student here, do this, and then all of a sudden they do it. And it's better, right? It takes hours and years of practicing this until it becomes a habit until this sort of muscle memory kicks in. And it becomes a habit, you know, as you think of Tiger Woods and his swing, right, this swing is broken up into so many different parts, right? It's the same thing was singing, you have like the inhalation at the beginning. And then you have your exhalation which is really when you're singing, and then all the things that are attached to the singing like the articulators of your mouth, which are going to say, and say the words and make the different vowels and consonants and things that you've had that we have to do it right in order to communicate language. And again, I always I always refer back to the athletes I think it's kind of an easier way to see that it's actually quite the same. The biggest difference is that there's less visual when you're teaching somebody like a singer, that you can point out to the public because it's all happening inside the voice. Right? So, unlike with an athlete, you could look at, you know, a basketball player, a golf pro, or whatever. And you can watch them go through their process and go through a day of training. And you could see very specifically, the movements they make with their body that are supposed to help them get better. With it, you can do this with a lesson and I just think it's a lot more subtle. So it doesn't it's not always as as blatant as what we're doing right.
Nick VinZant 05:42
So what was it about opera that drew it that drew you to it?
Isabel Leonard 05:46
I sort of fell into opera. I went when I went to Juilliard. Like I said, I wanted to, I wanted to have a good technique. That was my first and foremost goal was to get a good singing technique, and then a Juilliard was a classical based education we did a lot of, we started off course, like everybody was the Italian art songs and we which is this good basically a book of like it sounds Italian songs that are used. Traditionally, when you're learning how to sing when you're learning about technique, it would be like, you know, somebody learning how to really do a correct walk, you know, or like, in learning how to run properly and run efficiently in any sport so that that basic thing is really well taken care of, right. It's the sort of the same idea. And it Juilliard. It was a lot of the classical music. And, of course, we worked on operas, and and all this this classical repertoire, and I sort of fell into it from that point, I did my undergrad and once I was entrenched four years into that I stayed, I did my masters, I was lucky enough to be able to go back for my masters. And by that point, I was really, you know, fully entrenched in the opera world.
Nick VinZant 06:57
How do you get an opera part? Do you? Is it an audition? Is it like, it's not like a job application or something like how does it work?
Isabel Leonard 07:05
No, they're all auditions. Once you get to a certain level, you generally if you're lucky, you stop auditioning. And the companies will come to you or your manager and they'll say, Hey, we're doing this production in a year or two years time can and is she available for this role? Would you like to sing this role? Here are the dates. A lot of times, you know, you might want to do it, you might not be free. And so then those are the negotiations that go in into that. And in the beginning, when you're a young artist, you, you know, you basically try to stay in school kind of as long as you can, because you're developing and unlike, again, unlike athletes, this time, singers develop a lot later, I would say like into your mid 30s is when singers really come into their own and really figure out their vocal technique. And so that's kind of a ways to wait. So singers tend to go from their master's program if they went to a master's program into things that we call young artists. programs or apprenticeship programs, and lots of big opera companies in the United States and all over really have these programs like, they're really I really like the word apprenticeship. Because at that point you're older, you're know, you're in your mid to late 20s, perhaps, and you're working for a company. And you're getting, you're still getting coachings, and you're working on your voice and you're doing maybe scenes from opera is not full operas. But if you're lucky, you also get to sing the small roles in the mainstage OPERS, with the mainstage singers that come in as guest artists throughout the seasons. And so then you're really learning a lot, you know, trial by fire, so to speak,
Nick VinZant 08:37
the fact that singers kind of come into their own a little bit later, is that because of a physical reason, like there's the body, does the voice change, or is it just being practiced enough in it?
Isabel Leonard 08:48
You know, that's a really good question. I actually am not entirely sure if it is something to do with the musculature if it has to do with the development of the vocal cords. Perhaps the vocal cords may mature continue to mature into the 30s more than we realize, I think that singing it's such a finer muscle training that perhaps it just takes longer to finesse the coordination of the of the whole thing I do know Like for example, I sounded not so different but quite different in tambor from when I was in my early 20s, mid 20s to like what I do now, and a lot of that has to do with use that has to do with you know, use and experience and just muscle muscular usage, but it has to do with hormonal changes and shifts in the body and getting older and, you know, like, again, like any muscle in the body, the vocal cords are a muscle and they are, they will be subject to what the body is subject to.
Nick VinZant 09:55
What was that first kind of big performance like for you? What do you remember about it?
Isabel Leonard 10:00
You know, when you're when you're a singer, and if you're going to, let's say, an artist program, you're performing little things here and there. And you're, you know, there's never really, for most people, it isn't like all of a sudden you weren't doing performances, and then all of a sudden, you have this one big show, right? And you have all of a sudden started, it usually starts in smaller ways than that you start with a little concert here or scenes program. I was very fortunate that for me, I was able to start working really soon. And I was able to sing sort of like the equivalent of like, supporting actress roles in the sort of the second kind of like the Second Lady roles in most of the shows that I was doing. And so I was able to go in as a guest artist and sing these roles. And I was I was thrown into the deep end of the pool very, very quickly, in my career and in relatively unusual path for singers. But I debuted at the Met I think I was either 25 or 26. I was really young. And it came out from a recital that I had done in New York. My manager who I had also met pretty young, had invited Peter gal who is the general manager of the Met to my recital. And at the end of the recital, he told me that he had been there. And then from that recital, he hired me, basically for the following 15 seasons met. And so that was really, I mean, that was like, it was lucky, but it was being prepared right place, right time and having some great people supporting me along the way. And so I was able to debut in that house very, very quickly. And that was pretty terrifying. You know, I was there on stage by myself, singing the one Aria that my character had, and that was it. It was like sink or swim go.
Nick VinZant 11:41
Is opera. Is it kind of a cutthroat world? Is it really competitive? Or what's it like?
Isabel Leonard 11:48
You know, I stay away from all that kind of nonsense. So if it is I wouldn't have noticed. I just don't play into people's insecurities and problems and Because I think as performing artists, we have so many of them as it is on our own, that the last thing you need is to add anything else to it. We, I would say that amongst my friends and myself and the people that are in my close circle who are in the business, we're all very supportive of each other. And we're all extremely aware that, that everybody's different, you know, everybody's voice is like their thumbprint, completely unique, very much their own. And everybody has a different way of telling stories and of singing. And the best way I think, to get through any kind of performing art career is to not be in direct competition to the person next to you because there's actually no growth there because it's jealousy. It's frustration, right? But if you're in competition with yourself, like to continuously do a better job or to continuously study and hone on your technique and do all those things. And that's, that's good. I think that's really good.
Nick VinZant 12:56
So I seem to see kind of two different kinds of things of what means As a person with no knowledge would consider to be opera one where there's somebody that's just standing and singing in front of a microphone. And then another word seems to be almost like a play, or those both the same thing or what's, what's the difference there?
Isabel Leonard 13:15
Well, so technically in opera, we do not use a microphone ever.
Nick VinZant 13:19
Really?
Isabel Leonard 13:21
No, no, no, yeah, that's the whole thing. It's an acoustic, it's an acoustic art form. So there are no mics in opera. And so if you hear an opera singer in front of a microphone, there's usually a reason for that they're probably in a venue that is way too big or outdoors. Or it's a broadcast of some sort, you know, they need different sound sound levels, right. So, yeah, so and I would say, These days, opera is definitely a singing play. It is people on stage, you know, moving and in costume and acting and telling the story that is the opera, Vice singing in an opera. They're constructed different You know there, there are offers in which the characters sing all the time. There are operas in which there's a little bit of dialogue. We have their structural things in the music they have our arias right and our duets and things like then trios and stuff. As well as something that we call Reggie tattoos. And it's a basically a reciting reciting of text and it tattooed is when you sing text. Now, you would say, well, that's what you're doing anyway, right? It's like, yes, yes, it is. Singing text all the time. But a lot of times in the recitation as we shorten them to say rested, because we shorten everything in the opera world. We never say anything fully. We'll never say like Don Giovanni will just be like, Dungy, or like, or we'll just say, or we'll just say like Giovanni instead of saying because even today, we'll just say because he do a lot of that kind of thing. So but the rescue team is usually when the if there were to be dialogue in a show, that would have been the dialogue itself. Time is still some right but it is more free, musically and rhythmically so usually the rest of it is done with a harpsichord playing chords, and then the singer singing their text, essentially over these chords to notes that are written down in the music, but their rhythm is a little bit freer. So there are a lot more open to interpretation of a singer and they can be a lot of fun. So we have I would say in the opera world we do operas, full staged operas, costumes, lights, orchestra everything. We have concerts in orchestra and Symphony halls in which we stand at the front of the stage in front of a giant orchestra or Symphony. And we work we do different pieces there. Usually we don't sing opera will sing concert repertoire, which is different, or will sing, or retort to some, you know, so sometimes you're seeing religious work or non religious work or you'll sing. Sometimes there are songs that were written by composers that they also set to an orchestra and you can do those with an orchestra as well as with piano For a recital, for example. So there's a lot of like, really fun permutations within the music that we sing. And they can sort of translate into those different, you know, opera stage concert stage recital stage venues.
Nick VinZant 16:13
What do you have to do to care for your voice?
Isabel Leonard 16:17
Well, you Well, not over abuse it. I would say, not yelling. Not not screaming and yelling, not over over singing. Having a good technique is, you know, tiring, and I don't know, I try not to be too neurotic about my voice.
Nick VinZant 16:37
Like after a longer performance or a regular performance. Can you talk normally or do you like wear it out or anything?
Isabel Leonard 16:44
No, no, no. I think if you're wearing your voice out after a show, you're doing something wrong. I would say that After After Show, generally, singers and particularly because it's so late and we probably haven't eaten since. three in the afternoon. We all tend to go get some food. The thing is to go to a quiet restaurant is really ideal. The biggest issue again, is going to like a very loud place loud restaurant loud bar. Because that's really detrimental for a singer, especially if they and even more so if they have to sing like the next day. Right? So it's one thing if you just sang a show and I got a loud bar, it's like, maybe you have the next day to recover. It's still not a good idea. But it's better than for example, like if you were to say, hey, let's go to dinner the night before your show, I would be like,
Nick VinZant 17:29
Are you ready for the harder slash listener submitted questions?
Isabel Leonard 17:34
Yeah.
Nick VinZant 17:34
Is your voice insured?
Isabel Leonard 17:38
Yes.
Nick VinZant 17:39
How much is like how much do you ensure a voice for Can I ask?
Isabel Leonard 17:44
Ya know. I don't I don't really know. I mean, it's it's one of those things that I started, I think, I think, I think I'm thinking harder about it. Now, I think it is insured. I mean, we're talking basically about disability insurance, right? Because it's my it's my career. So it's it's basically it's disability insurance and you try to insure your voice for what you're making, you know, through the course of your life, hopefully, and because God forbid, you have to stop short. And what are you gonna do? Right? It's like it would be like an athlete would do the same thing. a pianist will insure their hands. violinists will insure their hands. They will all musicians will do this, because it's their livelihood. I mean, this is serious stuff.
Nick VinZant 18:24
You know, it's one of those things, I guess it sounds a certain way. But then when you think about, it's like, oh, that's makes complete sense. And I would do the exact same thing.
Isabel Leonard 18:33
Of course, I think when you realize, you know, I think that's one of those things is that there's still stigmas, you know, behind becoming a musician, you know, and I remember even in college, I had friends whose parents were very supportive and I had friends whose parents were not supportive at all right? And they were like, you're never gonna have a good enough career or like, you're never gonna make enough money and it's, it's really tricky, right. And I also think that it's very difficult in this country, right, our, our music, you know, the arts are They're not government subsidized, like they are in Europe. And so it is a difficult business, I think in this country, you have to be a savvy business person, and you have to, you have to figure out how not to be taken advantage of, and how to save your money. And for for all of us, we're all independent contractors, you know, we, we pay quarterly taxes we have, we're an independent contractor status. So this whole thing now with COVID, and all of us being out of work has been very tricky for people, because they may be able to file for unemployment in one of the states that they worked in. But the companies themselves aren't going to pay us unemployment because we are not employees of the opera companies that we work at, because we work at so many. So there's a lot of it's a real big issue. So when you think of it that way, and then you'd go Did you ensure your voice like hell yes. Yeah.
Nick VinZant 19:51
Right. Yeah. What is the hardest opera to sing?
Isabel Leonard 19:55
Oh, I have no idea. I don't know how to answer that question because it's different for everybody. That's like asking the questions. What's your favorite opera? Those are the kinds of questions that we all kind of go don't start asking me.That's all. I know. But here's my question to you. Why do you want to know?Like, if I were to say to you, here's my favorite and here's my hardest would that make you more? Would you go and listen to that one? Probably right? Maybe,
Nick VinZant 20:24
I think maybe from like a lay person's perspective. It gives me like an an idea of a new appreciation of what I'm really looking at or listening to.
Isabel Leonard 20:37
Yeah, Interesting. Interesting. I guess. I guess I've always, you know, those questions are hard, because, again, you know, we are constantly evolving, and we're constantly changing as artists and our techniques are constantly evolving. So, you know, the first five years of my career, I could have said, I definitely find this particular role to be difficult. But then five years later, it's not so difficult, right. It changes So, so my answer to be honest with that question of like, what's your favorite or what's what do you think is the hardest opposite for me in terms of favorite, it's whatever it is that I'm working on. So and I really get entrenched in the piece that I'm working in, I'm focused in on it. And in order to play these characters, honestly, I really feel like you have to be in it and you have to be loving what you're doing. You'd have to kind of love the character you're playing, no matter what kind of character they are, but you have to love who they are, and and go with that, as her hardest opera. I mean, hardest maybe technically vocally.I'd have to think about it. I mean, Marnie was really hard. This piece that I did this Nico muli piece that I did. That's been streaming for the last 24 hours on the met on live demand. Live on demand, sorry, it was like Yoda speaking. Met live on demand at midnight. The that's on their website and that was a contemporary opera written by Camila who's a contemporary of mine, very gifted, gifted, gifted composer. That's a very hard thing. Technically, technically very hard sing very difficult notes to find. Very modern, very difficult. So yeah, I mean, I would say, okay, that could be an answer. That could be a hard, a hard piece. But again, I think in retrospect, I look back and everything has its challenges and everything has easy moments.
Nick VinZant 22:24
How do you feel about people doing karaoke? Can you listen to it or does it bother?
Isabel Leonard 22:31
That is hilarious. I will listen to people. I have no problem with karaoke. Just don't ask me to do it. You won't.
Nick VinZant 22:39
Yeah, wonder like what's that like for you? If somebody say doesn't know what should they try to? They try to get you up. They're like,
Isabel Leonard 22:47
Yeah, no, I just don't, I can't. I can't. I just don't know enough like pop culture, songs like with all the music that I know is probably coming from I mean, aside From the upper world comes from like from the 1930s to the 1960s. And so I don't really I can do some of it like 70s 80s and 90s things, but I'm just not very good at it. So I'm like, you know, it's totally fine. I can leave it to somebody else. I can sit here and watch. It's not a big thing for me. Personally, I have friends who love it, who are an opera world and who love it and get a kick out of it. So
Nick VinZant 23:22
can a lot of people can they not sing because they just fundamentally like you just don't have the voice, your voice? Isn't that great? Or do they just not know how to do it?
Isabel Leonard 23:32
That's a really good question. I don't Okay, so now I don't have like a scientific answer, which I wish I did, because I think it will be good to have one. But I do know that so much of singing and has to do with just matching pitch, right? And I think when when kids are little This is when you teach them to match pitch matching pitches, just an aural skill. Like aural right is our ear. It's a matter of hearing something and then replicating that sound, which is something that babies do. Do anyway, right because they learn how to speak. And they learn how to create the sounds in the language that their mother or father, whoever is taking care of them is speaking to them, right. And all of those things happen through the ear. And then they create the shapes and the sounds that they need to create with their mouth and their tongue in order to replicate those sounds. So, in my mind, I would think that with enough, we call it ear training. You could get somebody to match pitch if they were perhaps before having trouble matching pitch. Now, could you get that same person to go from a situation in which they weren't matching pitch to them singing on an opera stage? Maybe, I don't know. I've never tried. I mean, that can be fun. It can be good, you know, reality TV crazy show. But I think that there's so much of it has to do with the being an active listener and trying to match pitch. I mean, that's the basic right? That's the very first step of the whole thing.
Nick VinZant 25:04
It does seem like a lot of it would be able to hear the difference. And I think that for me is an untrained person who knows, like, I can't hear the difference necessarily.
Isabel Leonard 25:15
hear the difference between
Nick VinZant 25:18
pitch like I don't, I couldn't tell you if I was I don't even know what, where to even begin.
Isabel Leonard 25:25
That's really interesting. That's like, did you sing as a child? like did you sing at school or anything? Like did your parents ever say?
Nick VinZant 25:32
No, but that yeah, that the ability has skipped the VinZant family by a long way,jumped over it by miles.
Isabel Leonard 25:44
That's hilarious.
Nick VinZant 25:45
Some of the other ones that we got.Best Movie about an opera singer.
Isabel Leonard 25:53
Best Movie about an opera singer. I don't use they're a movie about AI are there even movies about it? Here's I mean, I feel like Julianne Moore just did the bell contem movie and it was so she's played an opera singer. It wasn't really about an opera singer. Um, um, I would go and watch the callus documentary that was just made. It was pretty fantastic. And she's really interesting. She's got her obviously a really interesting history. You know, Meryl Meryl Streep just made this movie. What was it called? She was playing. They call this woman like the worst opera singer she could so here's a situation like she could not sing into this woman. But she loved opera. She very much loved opera and anyway is a real story. But Meryl Streep was playing this woman is very funny movie. But it's not exactly. You know. It's not exactly showing what the actual you know, trained kardex you know, opera singer is doing right. It's just this one, this one particular story so many of it that you know, juxtaposed with the kahless documentary can be really fun.
Nick VinZant 27:08
Can you shatter glass? Can you shatter glass with your voice?
Isabel Leonard 27:13
Ah, I don't I have never done it. I feel like it's gotta be possible, right? Because we're just talking about vibration if you get if you get maybe a thin enough glass, a crystalline enough glass perhaps right that because again, it's just vibration, right? So you know how if you like when you look at a rock concert, right and you the speakers are vibrating, you know, because the bass is so loud and you can feel a vibration in your chest. It's because what's happening is your tissues are vibrating at the same rate that the music is playing, right that those vibrations are coming in so loud, because vibration is sound waves and sound waves travel through the air. They actually right. So there's in my brain, I'm thinking Why not? If that's the sound wave that travels through air, if I'm singing very closely to stained glass, and I'm singing, I have to find the right pitch. That's the other thing, you'd have to find the right pitch that would make that glass and vibrate, right? Because every object has a vibration point. I think, I don't know how to explain this scientifically, but every object can vibrate at a certain frequency. And so if you find that frequency, and I bet if you sing it loud enough, you could probably make
Nick VinZant 28:27
sounds. Sounds like you just did it.
Isabel Leonard 28:31
I dropped one of my son's trucks. I'm sorry. Yeah, and I'm thinking you maybe if you were lucky enough, right next door glass, maybe you could probably good
Nick VinZant 28:41
acoustically speaking which theater was your favorite?
Isabel Leonard 28:46
Oh, it's a good question. There are so many good theaters out there and there's so many great acoustics as well. I don't know if I have one favorite. This last season before everything. shut down. I had performed Where did I go? I was actually at the Detroit Symphony. They have a fantastic Hall. Cincinnati has a fantastic Hall. I love singing in San Francisco and I've sung there many times and I adore the symphony. I mean, the Met I gotta tell you the Met has a fantastic acoustic and is a huge house but isn't fantastic acoustic. And let's see what else there are lots of actually there are some really great great halls, especially the symphony halls, the ones where the orchestras play. Those are really great. And then in Europe, you've got all these wonderful jewel house we call them like jewel house opera theatres because they're a little bit smaller. You know, they're not as massive as the Met for example. And they're beautiful, of course, and they're old and architectures beautiful and some of them have like all this gold inlay and the walls and it's just you know, these stunning, that's why they're called jewel boxes, right? You kind of it's like if you'd open the lid it would just be this shiny. Beautiful box. And a lot of those tend to have great acoustics also, just cuz they're just naturally smaller, right? You don't have to worry too much about singing into this huge space.
Nick VinZant 30:12
What do your neighbors think of you? Do the you annoy them with your singing?
Isabel Leonard 30:18
I hope not. If I'm annoying people by singing, I better stop. No, actually, we are very close friends with our next door neighbor and she likes it. She likes it when I practice. So she's always very happy. So he's very happy. I always get a text from her after I've been practicing one day she's like, I heard you. But you know, everybody's different. And it depends on where you live. And I would say that singers are very respectful of, you know, the kind of practicing that they have to do. And you know, it's we're no less or more annoying than having somebody sing musical theater or jazz or anything else. Because if the voice is good, and the voice is good, if the voice is not so great, then it's a little annoying, right? Just like if you're listening to a clarinetist play the same way If over and over again and they kept on like honking away at it. Now that would get annoying, but if they were a beautiful clarinetist, you would listen to that all day. Right?
Nick VinZant 31:07
something that I've always wondered about and I'm, I'm not a big music person I kind of never have been. But there is something about an opera singer or something about somebody who can really seen that can almost bring me to tears. Like what is that? Why do you think that is?
Isabel Leonard 31:25
I mean, I personally think that there is one of the strongest connections you know, from human to human is the voice and is the the transmission of emotion through I always say one animal prior to the other, you know, you're hearing you're hearing like emotion and words all tied up into one and coming out with this sort of soaring sound. And it's, it's extremely touching. You know, it's, it's why we love Frank Sinatra sing in New York, New York. You know, we will have you know, we listen to you We have all of these iconic voices from history and that we hear and we know who they are right without even they don't even have to be singers performers you know you think like Martin Luther King you hear his voice you know it's him. You know you hear I'm trying to think some other people off the top of my head but i think you know what I mean right? Yeah. Your voice is so identifiable and I think because of that you can immediately be drawn in and feel close and feel heard and feel feel touched and almost feel like that person is singing directly to and for you only. And I think that that's what singing really does and can do. It's just this it's like one wolf crying out to another wolf. Across the forest. They hear each other and they feel each other and, and they are communicating.
Nick VinZant 32:50
Favorite none opera song to sing.
Isabel Leonard 32:53
Oh favorite non opera songs say that's Good question. I mean, I love I love all the ladies of Gershwin like ladies of jazz. I used to sing in the jazz band when I was in high school and I love all the standards. I love all those.
Nick VinZant 33:13
You don't have to. You don't have to name any names. Can can pop singers sing? Are they good singers or not?
Isabel Leonard 33:20
Yeah. Yeah, there are some that are really good singers. Totally. I think like Ariana Grande is a great singer. I think she can sing really well. I think I've always really surprised like when I hear a pop singer who really has a lot of vocal freedom, and it's usually the ones that when they get on to like a talk show or something and they don't have like auto tune and they're not on recording and they're not, you know, on a mic where there's all these other things going on, and they all of a sudden sing something and you really hear their voice. And it is exactly how you've been hearing it in recordings and you go Aha, you know, like that's for real. That's a real that's the real deal, right? Because they can sing, you know without having to worry about anything else kind of creating sounds around their voice. Right. Um, I think it always makes me laugh like when I hear I think, isn't it Seth Meyers? Seth Meyers the one that does the voices for a family guy is that
Nick VinZant 34:09
Seth McFarland?
Isabel Leonard 34:12
You know, I have been screwing up people's last names left and right over the last two days. I am ashamed.Seth McFarland
Nick VinZant 34:22
I know what you're talking about. He can really sing
Isabel Leonard 34:27
Yeah, so that's it. Like he can totally say, like, I would do a duet with him in a heartbeat or anything. I don't care what it is. I will sing with him. You know, I'll say with Ariana. I would say with JLo i like i like JLo. You know, come on Jenny from the block. We're from New York. You know? I mean, Bronx, Bronx, Manhattan, whatever. You know, um, I would I've always been a big fan of Madonna. And I haven't heard her sing recently. But I just think she's kind of incredible by how, how much she's evolved over the decades. Um,
Nick VinZant 34:58
is there anyone you think that could just jump right into Opera. They've got the voice to it.
Isabel Leonard 35:06
Ah, good question. I'm not sure. I have to give it some thought. I have to give it some thought
Nick VinZant 35:19
from any musical genre than anybody that you could think of.
Isabel Leonard 35:24
I mean, I guess like, I don't know, I have not listened to Tony Bennett in a long time. So I don't know what he sounds like, right now. Maybe like a young I mean, I would have said, like Frank Sinatra in the beginning, but he was also trained at some point in his career by an opera singer. He took lessons like he took lessons from an opera singer to learn good technique.
Nick VinZant 35:44
How can opera be more relatable? Do you think it needs to be more relatable?
Isabel Leonard 35:50
Yeah, I think I do. I think it does. I think I think the audience needs to know that they are welcome and they, they can come and they can get into the stories. Even if it's in a different language like, like not to let that bother you or or, or, you know, deter you from coming in, but that the stories are awesome and they're so touching and they're so deep and like, it's like watching one of those just like watching like great films, and some of them are 30s. And I'm we're, you know, tragically sad. And to be totally honest, anybody that's like, oh, opera is too long. If you've all watched Lord of the Rings, movies, opera is not too long. Those movies are frickin long, they're like three and a half hours. And that's pretty much as long as you would need for an opera and at least you get to get up in the middle of an opera and go get a glass of wine, which, granted, obviously, you could do that if you're watching those movies at home, but you know what I mean? Yeah. You know, you can get up and you know, a glass of wine and make kind of an evening of it and get dressed if you want or not, you know, I mean, please wear the clothes. Like I mean, get dressed up, get dressed up nicely, versus like, just be cash. I do think it needs to be relatable. I think that it needs to be promoted, more like sports. Players are promoted. I think that individual singers need to be promoted more to the audience so that the audience can really start to, like, get to know the people, the people behind those characters and the, you know, the actors. It's like we know, you know, actors, actors that we love. And we know everybody thinks they know who they are, right? Well, we owe so um, so Oh, he's a method actor. I know so much about so and so. Right. And it's the same kind of thing. I think if we got to know singers a little bit more on that level, people would feel more kind of confident perhaps about coming into the houses and theaters coming to see these people live. You know, also, I gotta say it's, it's, it's such a rare thing. The live art form is still unique. It is still magical. And like you said, that listening to a human voice right can bring you to tears, and it could be a happy song and it could still bring you to tears. And there's something so magical about being whether it's feet away or a couple hundred feet away from listening To a live singer with an orchestra. And it's just it's like nothing else.
Nick VinZant 38:04
That's pretty much all I got what's coming up next for you What's kind of on the horizon?
Isabel Leonard 38:10
Technically, I will be going to Houston in September October to do my very first Carmen down in Houston, Grand Opera. So it'll be my role debut down there as well as my debut at the Opera House. And then I have a, I have a tour coming up after that, and I should be back and Sam, back in LA in January for a concert. And then in a little bit after that, I go back to the Met to do a new production of Giovanni, I've done Giovanni. And so that should be fun. And yeah, so I think everybody should get on to like the met on demand. And check out the live streams that are happening right now because Peter is streaming live one opera every every day or every other day for 24 hours so people can kind of see To watch these things and get to know them and feel like they're getting to know it without feeling like they have to do any sort of financial commitment yet. And then later, you know to do I think it's like $15 a month or something to have them that on demand on all times. And then you can put it up like on your big screen at home, you can turn up the volume and listen to these people. And you can see their faces up close, right, which is also pretty rare, especially for a place like that, because normally you're, you know, sitting way far away, and it's hard to see. And it's like it's really like nothing else is it's very cool. It's very, very cool.
Nick VinZant 39:34
I want to thank Isabelle so much for joining us if you want to connect with her. We have linked to her on our social media accounts. Were profoundly pointless on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And we have also included her information on the RSS feed that's on her podcast. She's got she's got these really cool a series of Instagram chats that she's been putting up on her social media. If you want to hear more More of her singing. She has a YouTube channel. It's really cool to check out. I'm, like I mentioned, I'm not a huge music person, but just to hear somebody who can really see. To me that's just, it's such a amazing experience.