Christian Elsner

Born: Freiburg, Germany

The German tenor, Christian Elsner, studied singing with Martin Gründler, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Neil Semer, who is still his teacher.

After winning prizes at the Walther Gruner-Liederwettbewerb in London and the ARD-Competition in Munich, Christian Elsner made his professional operatic debut as Tabarco in Georg Frideric Handel's first opera Almira at the Händel-Festival in Halle, Germany. Later on was invited to sing roles like Lenski, Macduff or Idomeneo at the operahouses in Heidelberg, Darmstadt, Munich, Oslo and Paris (Bastille).

Because of his great vocalism, combined with his broad concert-repertoire Christian Elsner has worked in all important centres of classic music like the Philharmonie Berlin, the Musikvereinssaal Wien, the Royal Festival Hall London or the Carnegie Hall New York with some of the world's finest conductors like Christoph Eschenbach, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, Herbert Blomstedt, Fabio Luisi, Sir Neville Marriner, Marcello Viotti, Manfred Honeck, Marek Janowski, Sir Roger Norrington or Carlo Maria Giulini.

A dedicated Lied interpreter, Christian Elsner has given amongst others recitals in Fankfurt, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Colone, Bruxelles, London, Ravinia and the Schubertiade Feldkirch with such wonderful pianists like Graham Johnson, Charles Spencer, Hartmut Höll, Eugen Wangler and Burkhard Kehring.

Christian Elsner's recordings include Schubert's Schöne Müllerin (Naxos) and Winterreise (version for tenor and string quartet with CPO), Schumann's Dichterliebe and Liederkreis op.39 (Ars Musici) and selected songs and ballads of Hessenberg, Kreutzer, Lehar, Carl Loewe, Alma and Gustav Mahler, Schubert and Zemlinsky. He also wrote the children-books Lennie und die Zauberflöte and Lennie in der Wolfsschlucht, both published by Thiasos.

Christian Elsner's outstanding ample lyric voice and deep musicianship enable him all facets of singer's art. He devides his time between orchestra-, recital- and opera-performances and statements like "rare musical sentivity" (Financial Times London), "starhour of liedersinging" (FAZ) or "impressing stagepresence" (Die Welt) show the critical and popular acclaim.