A superb singer and actor, bass-baritone Dean Elzinga is regularly
welcomed on concert and opera stages, often in contemporary works requiring his unique dramatic conviction, presence and assured
musicianship. He enjoyed international acclaim for Peter Maxwell Davies’ fiendishly difficult Eight
Songs for a Mad King, performing it in New York (Manhattan and East Hampton), Cleveland and Santa Monica.
He sang the title role in Harold Farberman’s A Song of Eddie and Schoenberg’s Die glückliche
Hand at New York’s Bard Festival, and Elliott Carter’s What next? at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw
(recorded commercially) and more recently in its Italian premiere in Turin.
In the 2007-2008 season
Mr. Elzinga added to his repertoire Elgar's Dream of Gerontius (Vancouver Symphony), Jesus in Bach’s St.
Matthew Passion (National Philharmonic), Vaughan-Williams’ A Sea Symphony (Rochester Philharmonic), the
Verdi Requiem (debut with the Santa Rosa Symphony) and Horace in Blitztein’s Regina (debut with Canada’s
Pacific Opera Victoria), in addition to reprising the Brahms Requiem with the distinguished Baltimore Choral Arts
Society.
Summer 2006 returned Mr. Elzinga to Des Moines Metro Opera for Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The
Rake’s Progress, following last summer’s Four Villains in the company’s Les contes d’Hoffmann
of Offenbach. Reinvitations in 2006-2007 included the Edmonton Opera (where he sang Nilakantha in The
Pearl Fishers and Nick Shadow) for Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni; the Reading Symphony (for an evening
of opera arias and duets), and the National Philharmonic (for Mozart’s Figaro, coming after his debut with the orchestra
in the title role of Don Giovanni). In addition he made his Pittsburgh Opera
debut as the Speaker in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, a role he also performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic
under Leonard Slatkin at the Hollywood Bowl and at Michigan Opera Theatre. Mr. Elzinga’s opera credentials
include the Los Angeles and Metropolitan Operas, the San Diego Opera (the King in Aida), Seattle Opera (Hoffmann
Villains), Arizona Opera (Leporello and Figaro), Hawaii Opera Theatre (Almaviva in Figaro), Sacramento Opera (Leporello,
Méphistophélès in Gounod’s Faust), Glimmerglass and New York City Operas (Polyphemus in
Handel’s Acis and Galatea), Opera Omaha (Raimondo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor),
Opera San Jose (title role of Il Turco in Italia) and Vancouver Opera (Ramfis in Aida).
Of special note was his participation as Hagen in the Long Beach Opera’s reduction of Wagner’s Ring
cycle.
Equally adept at concert literature, Mr. Elzinga has been repeatedly invited by Leon Botstein and the
American Symphony Orchestra, including Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg in Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center.
He is one of the country’s most sought-after Beethoven #9 basses, having performed this work with the Reading,
Vancouver, Long Beach, New West, Phoenix, Pasadena, San Diego Symphonies, Minnesota Orchestra, and Rochester and Naples Philharmonics.
He is equally acclaimed and in demand for Messiah (Toronto, Pacific, Baltimore and Ann Arbor Symphonies and
Florida Philharmonic), Haydn’s Creation (Florida Orchestra and Amarillo Symphony), Britten’s War
Requiem (Nashville Symphony), Brahms’ Requiem (Memphis Symphony), Berlioz’ Roméo et Juliette
(Portland Symphony). At the Vienna Volksoper he sang Mozart’s Figaro, Escamillo in Carmen,
Leporello and Méphistophélès. Conductors with whom he has worked to date include Bramwell
Tovey, James Levine, Christopher Seaman, John DeMain, David Lockington, Bertrand de Billy, Asher Fisch, Jorge Mester, Boris
Brott, Emmanuel Villaume, Yves Abel and Maximiano Valdes.
