Leonie Rysanek, whose father was of Czech descent, studied with her younger sister Lotte (her own first name was a contraction of ‘Leopoldine’) at the Vienna Academy of Music, where her teachers included Alfred Jerger and Rudolf Grossmann. She made her operatic stage debut in 1949 at Innsbruck as Agathe / Der Freischütz and between 1950 and 1952 was a member of the Saarbrücken Opera.

Here Rysanek was spotted by Wieland Wagner, who invited her to sing Sieglinde / Die Walküre at the reopening of the Bayreuth Festival in 1951. Having now attracted international attention, she returned to Bayreuth to sing Sieglinde (1958, 1965–1969), Elsa / Lohengrin (1958), Senta / Der fliegende Holländer (1959, 1969–1970), Elisabeth / ...