Ailyn Pérez performs the role of Leonora in Il trovatore during HGO’s 2024-25 season. Pérez has previously been seen at HGO as Cio-Cio-San in Madame Butterfly (2024), Donna Anna in Don Giovanni (2019), Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro (2016), and Desdemona in Otello (2014). Pérez’s additional operatic engagements for 2024-25 include Mimì at the Metropolitan Opera and the Chicago Lyric Opera, Cio-Cio-San at Grand Teatre del Liceu, Tosca at the  Staatsoper Berlin, and Nedda in Pagliacci at the Bavarian State Opera. Her engagements during the 2023-24 season included Cio-Cio-San at Teatro di San Carlo and Teatro Real de Madrid; role debuts as Florencia Grimaldi in Florencia en el Amazonas and Micaëla in Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera; her debut with Washington Concert Opera as Magda in La Rondine; and the title role in Tosca at Hamburg State Opera. Career highlights include Violetta (La traviata) at the Zürich Opera House, the Hamburg State Opera, Berlin State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, San Francisco Opera, Teatro alla Scala, and London’s Royal Ballet and Opera. Other highlights include Blanche (Dialogues of the Carmelites), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Mimì and Musetta (La bohème), Tatiana (Eugene Onegin), and Juliet (Romeo and Juliet) at The Metropolitan Opera; and Tatyana Bakst in the world premiere of Jake Heggie’s Great Scott. Pérez won the 2012 Richard Tucker Award, becoming the first Hispanic recipient in the award’s 35-year history, as well as the 15th annual Plácido Domingo Award.