Praised by Opera News as a “gleaming, pitch perfect soprano” and the Wall Street Journal as “piercingly lovely,” soprano Leela Subramaniam has sung with some of the world’s most prestigious houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Gärtnerplatz Theater, Theater Basel, Irish National Opera, LA Opera, and Carnegie Hall. A winner of the Bjorn Eklund Scholarship, she was a member of the Bavarian State Opera studio as a young artist. She was the 1st prize winner of the Joan Taub Ades Competition, as well as a finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition, Tenor Viñas Competition, Giulio Gari Foundation, and the Zinka Milanov International Competition. Passionate about new music, Leela has performed in five world premieres, two of which have been by women of color. 

In the upcoming season, Ms. Subramaniam will be performing the title role in the world premiere of Minnesota Opera’s The Many Death of the Laila Starr by Kamala Sankaram, Governess in the Turn of the Screw with Opera UCLA directed by James Darrah, and Beethoven’s Mass in C with the La Jolla Symphony. In previous seasons Ms. Subramaniam performed the title role in Handel’s first opera Rodrigo directed by James Darrah, Pauline Oliveros’ Bye Bye Butterfly with Long Beach Opera, Veronica in the world premiere of Richard Danielpour’s The Grand Hotel Tartarus directed by Peter Kazaras, and made her role debut as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro with Portland Opera. She has also been seen in Kamala Sankaram’s Thumbprint with Portland Opera, Turan in Threshold of Brightness by Iranian composer Niloufar Nourbakhsh with Beth Morrison Projects and Contemporaneous at National Sawdust, the title role in Kamala Sankaram’s virtual reality opera Miranda with Tri-Cities Opera and the Contemporaneous ensemble, and performed with the LA Philharmonic in a workshop as Marzelline in Fidelio with Deaf West Theater.

Her past performed roles include the title roles in Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti) and Thais (Massenet), Pamina (Die Zauberflote/Mozart), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni/Mozart) with Heartbeat Opera, Miss Wordsworth (Albert Herring/Britten) with the Bavarian State Opera, Soeur Constance (Dialogues of the Carmelites/Poulenc), and Angelica (Orlando Paladino/Haydn). As a young artist, she was also a Gerdine Young Artist with the Opera Theater of St. Louis and attended the Chautauqua Institution Voice Program for several years with Marlena Malas.

Ms. Subramaniam received her Master of Music and Professional Studies Certificate in Vocal Performance from the Manhattan School of Music and her B.A. from the University of California-Los Angeles in Art History and Music (Vocal Performance). She is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance at the University of California-Los Angeles. Ms. Subramaniam speaks German, French, Italian, and Spanish conversationally and lives in Los Angeles, California, where she maintains a voice studio and enjoys painting alongside her black cat Lucia. She was born and raised in Los Angeles of multiracial descent; her father is South Indian and her mother is Ecuadorian and Cuban.