[7] Garanča's international breakthrough came in 2003 at the Salzburg Festival when she sang Annio in a production of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

On 12 January 2008 Garanča made her company and house debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in the role of Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia.

[8] Of her debut, Bernard Holland wrote in The New York Times: "Ms. Garanca is the real thing ... Modern singing techniques adapt with difficulty to Rossini's early-19th-century emphasis on speed, lightness and athletic articulation, and Ms. Garanca was the only one onstage sounding completely comfortable.

[9] Garanča sang the leading role of Georges Bizet's Carmen in the 2010 and 2015 productions of the Metropolitan Opera.

In the opening concert of the 2011 Rheingau Musik Festival in the Eberbach Abbey she performed Alban Berg's Sieben frühe Lieder with the hr-Sinfonieorchester, conducted by Paavo Järvi.