Affetti musicali sopra la Follia, Dietzenbach 2026

Countertenor requires a vocal range from the usual tenor to the soprano register, here up to high B. Back then, highly coveted castrati had taken over this role in fierce competition against the equally coveted primadonnas. Countertenors are in very high demand again today. Lafont shone with his clear voice, agile in the difficult coloraturas and tricky interval leaps (especially in Gratiani's Quid agis cor meus), matching his theatrical facial expressions, body movements, and costume.

Dr. Florian Lauermann, Offenbach Post, February 19, 2026

Chamber music concert of the Italian and French Seicento (17th century), Wissembourg 2025 

"The variety of instruments as well as the fascinating voice of Leandro Lafont opened up a world of unique and subtle timbres to the audience."

Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, October 19, 2025

Henry Desmarest's Venus and Adonis, Offenbach-Hundheim 2023

A central role in the performance was taken by Leandro Lafont, a male soprano from the Kusel district, in the role of Bellona. The goddess of war ensures that the city is devastated. With a stern look and plenty of baroque gestures, Lafont fills this terrifying role. The orchestra plays excited, fast beats, and Lafont adopts a posture as if he is carrying weapons.

Susanne Cahn, Die Rheinpfalz, July 31, 2023

 Henry Desmarest's Venus and Adonis, Offenbach-Hundheim 2023

"There are many countertenors, but male sopranos are very rare," Lafont explains. As a soloist and opera singer, he is in demand for historical performances involving cantatas and Baroque operas. His repertoire includes male soprano and trouser roles; in theatrical language, this refers to a travesti role or part whose character is male, yet performed by someone with a high voice.

Susanne Cahn, Die Rheinpfalz, July 25, 2023

Cantio Sacra, Kroměříž Festival, Kroměříž 2022

Harpsichordist Lucie Fišerová and countertenor Leandro Lafont presented an impressive Baroque program consisting of arias and instrumental works by Italian composers. Francesco Cavalli, Georg Muffat, Michelangelo Rossi, and Giacomo Carissimi are each remarkable authors. For example, Rossi's Toccata made extraordinary inventive use of chromatic possibilities. Carissimi's Meditation on One's Own Death was equally suggestive. Fišerová and Lafont guided listeners along lesser-known paths of Baroque music. However, it holds true that lesser-known does not mean less good.

Milan Bator, Klasikaplus, September 8, 2022

Cantio Sacra, St. Hildegardis, Dietzenbach 2020

Leandro Lafont presented himself as a highly gifted singer who knows how to apply his experience from Baroque opera to church music as well. He translated the musicalized psalm texts either into a heavily affect-driven soundscape, similar to a religious painting by Caravaggio, as in Luigi Rossi's "O amantissime Jesu" and Alessandro Grandi's "O quam pulchram es" (from the Song of Songs). Or he contrasted a quiet recitative with dramatic declamation in the style of "drama per musica," most notably in Carissimi's psalm setting "Domine deus meus" or Cavalli's "Cantate Domino." Lafont let the latter resonate with a gorgeously sung Hallelujah. He performed the highly virtuoso pieces perfectly. He controls his voice, soft in timbre, down to its smallest facet, which he can also open up into a piercing fortissimo, especially in dramatic expression. The fast runs and ornaments came across cleanly and with a slight shimmer, and the effortless transition between low and high registers was impressive. Furthermore, the encore repetition of Grandi's "Cantabo domino," but with altered accents, proved the high musicality and interpretive capability of the two musicians.

Dr. Florian Lauermann, Offenbach Post, March 11, 2020

Seniors' Festival Grötzingen Community Center 2019

"The short performance by countertenor Leandro Lafont at the community center felt like a small sensation. His repertoire includes roles for castrato soprano as well as mezzo trouser roles. The specialized Master's graduate in Early Music studied in Geneva and Basel, among other places, and places great emphasis on historically informed performance practice with Baroque gestures in secular cantatas and Baroque opera concerts, for which he has performed in Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Colombia. For three years he has been a vocal teacher at Antigona Vasquez Parra's Grötzingen music school, Musikrearte. Alongside their therapeutic choir 'Sing dich glücklich' [Sing Yourself Happy], led by Lafont, she brought a children's chamber orchestra to the stage."

Grötzingen aktuell, December 20, 2019

Cantio Sacra, Leinsweiler September 2019

"His extremely high voice reaches into the women's soprano register and masters coloraturas with impressive sonic power and agility. In contrast to castrati, who retained their childhood voices because they did not experience voice mutation due to the removal of the gonads, Lafont has a completely normal male speaking voice, which, thanks to a special breathing and singing technique in the head voice register, has enormous sonic reserves at its disposal."

Paul Witzel, Die Rheinpfalz, September 19, 2019  

Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf's "Il tribunale di Giove", Janáček May Festival, May 2019

"Fascinating was the immersion into the role, including select Baroque gestures, by Colombian soprano Leandro Lafont. ... The trio was completed by Fate, portrayed by Colombian soprano Leandro Lafont. His almost imperceptibly darker voice handled the relatively highest registers with incredible ease, and his immersion into the role, including select Baroque gestures, was literally fascinating. ... In the role of Apollo, Lafont demonstrates a wide palette of characteristic techniques including sighs and trembling tones in an interpretation that listeners rarely encounter."

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Exsultate, Jubilate", MOTET Concert Series in the Collegiate Church of Tübingen 2018

"A sensation at the end was the masterful tone control and security in the high register of Colombia-born soprano Leandro Lafont, a student of Nathalie Stutzmann. Mozart's 'Exsultate, jubilate' was composed in 1773 for the castrato singer Venanzio Rauzzini. Today, the solo motet is mostly sung by female sopranos or boy sopranos. A flawlessly pure timbre, astonishingly light, beguilingly beautiful the delicately soaring, increasingly rapid coloraturas. Artful as well was the recitative with its agile parlando, caught in a subito pianissimo. One would have gladly heard Lafont perform Baroque soprano arias and cantatas as well."

Achim Stricker, Südwestpresse / Schwäbisches Tagblatt, May 22, 2018

Leonardo Vinci's "La contesa de' numi", Chrudim Baroque Summer 2017

"Another positive aspect are the female vocal parts excellently mastered by male singers: the soprano of Leandro Lafont (originally from Colombia, now based in Germany) and Filip Dámec was splendid, and Jan Mikušek's alto was wonderfully transparent."

Jan Hocek, jazzport.cz, August 22, 2017

"Leandro Lafont as Jupiter and Dora Rubart-Pavlíková as Astrea were particularly striking in terms of acting..."

Boris Klepal, Hospodářské noviny, July 11, 2017

Lukáš Pavlík, casopisharmonie.cz, July 12, 2017

Francesco Cavalli's "Veremonda", Mainz Staatstheater

"Exquisite is the dream-lost alto of Alin Deleanu as the lachrymose King Alfonso, and soprano Leandro Bermudez Lafont, who introduces another wonderful accent into the play with gender roles as the sergeant of the Amazons."

Axel Zibulski, Op-online.de, June 22, 2016

Schwetzingen Festival 2016

"Leandro Bermudez Lafont has taken on the 'soprano role for castrati' of Furore and the Sergente Maggiore, presiding over the Amazons in an extravagant black dress and earning their respect with his beautiful, high countertenor."

Friedeon Rosén, Online Merker, May 5, 2016 

The Age of Castrati, Bad Kissingen 2015

"Already very impressive on stage through his costumes and the unusual vocal register, Leandro Lafont navigated the stage. He guides his soprano securely and managed, for instance in the aria of Iarba from Johann Adolph Hasse's opera 'Didone', to effortlessly and with absolute intonation security wind the intricate ornaments with an agile throat not only up into the heights but also down into the tenor register."

Gerhild Ahnert, Mainpost, June 16, 2015

Sophie Kassies' "Schaf", Junge Oper Stuttgart

"The music however—excellently sung by young soprano Csilla Csövari and countertenor Leandro Bermudez Lafont—seemed to captivate the children."

Thomas Rothschild, Financial Times Deutschland, November 13, 2012

"Colombian countertenor Leandro Bermudez Lafont sings with a high voice and speaks with a low voice quite wonderfully, and plays the title role quite charmingly to boot."

Dietholf Zerweck, Ludwigsburger Kreiszeitung, October 24, 2012

"Yet Schaf, to whom Leandro Bermudez Lafont gives a wonderfully sounding voice with his countertenor beneath black curls and a white floppy-eared cap, finds Prince."

Brigitte Jähnigen, Stuttgarter Nachrichten, October 20, 2012

“Schaf” de Sophie Kassies, Junge Oper Stuttgart

«Sin embargo, la música —interpretada de forma excelente por la joven soprano Csilla Csövari y el contratenor Leandro Bermudez Lafont— pareció cautivar a los niños».

Thomas Rothschild, Financial Times Deutschland, 13/11/2012

Johann Sebastian Bach's "Vergnügte Ruh", St. Nicholas Church, Basel

"A contemplative conclusion had been chosen with Johann Sebastian Bach's solo cantata 'Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust'. The Colombian alto Leandro Samuel Bermudez Lafont sovereignly interpreted this cantata, held in emblematic Baroque language, with a beguiling alto voice. The ensemble placed itself entirely at the service of the singer and, together with him, was able to reap long-lasting applause at the end of the concert."

Thomas Brunnschweiler, WochenBlatt für das Birseck und Dorneck, December 21, 2011

Francesco Cavalli's "La Calisto", Wilhelma Theater Stuttgart

"Countertenor Leandro Bermudez (Endimione) sings sensationally..."

Frank Armbruster, Stuttgarter Zeitung, February 8, 2010

"And the discovery of the evening? Undoubtebly the young countertenor Leandro Bermudez, who as a guest from Basel played the handsome shepherd with the holey socks: It is only rarely that one hears a man sing in head voice so unaffectedly, so naturally."

Verena Großkreutz, Eßlinger Zeitung, February 9, 2010

"...and Leandro Bermudez is an alto with great potential."

Susanne Benda, Stuttgarter Nachrichten, February 8, 2010

Alessandro Scarlatti's "Penelope la casta", Wettsteinsaal, Basel

"Foremost among the often so delicate countertenors, two powerful performers stood out: the radiantly high Leandro Bermudez and the born comedian Flavio Ferri Benedetti, who conversed in the most beautiful Italian and whose careers one can look forward to with great anticipation."

Jenny Berg, Basler Zeitung, June 2, 2009