Christian Elsner

Christian Elsner (born 11 August 1965) is a German tenor in opera and concert, and an academic voice teacher at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. He focused first on lied and oratorio, then entered the opera stage in roles such as Handel's Tabarco and Mozart's Pedrillo. From 2007, he also performed roles such as Wagner's Siegmund and at international opera houses and festivals.

Born in Freiburg im Breisgau, Elsner was a member of the boys' choir and later the cathedral choir at the Freiburg Minster, where he received first singing lessons with the American opera tenor Richard Riffel. From 1987 he studied at the Musikhochschule Frankfurt (Frankfurt University of Music) with Martin Gründler, where he studied vocology. He also studied lieder with Charles Spencer and took supplementary master classes with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in Berlin and Neil Semer in New York.

He appeared as Tabarco in Handel's Armida at the Handel Festival Halle in 1994, and as Macduff in Verdi's Macbeth at the Heidelberg Theatre. He appeared as a guest at the Frankfurt Opera, the Staatstheater Mainz and Theater Bremen. He performed the role of Pedrillo in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Staatstheater Darmstadt in the 1996–97 season. Also among his lyric roles were Lenski in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and the title role in Mozart's Idomeneo.

Since 2007, after a fach change towards Heldentenor roles, he appeared as Siegmund in Wagner's Die Walküre at the Staatstheater Darmstadt. A reviewer noted his lyrical belcanto singing based on lied technique, with many shades of the voice, precise diction, but also stable and present in the "Wälse" calls ("farbenreich, geschmeidig, textgenau und doch, wie in den "Wälse"-Rufen, stabil und präsent"). He also sang the role at the Semperoper in Dresden, and appeared in the title role of Wagner's Parsifal at the Vienna State Opera, the Deutsches Nationaltheater and Staatskapelle Weimar, and the Staatstheater Kassel.