Christian Elsner

The tenor Christian Elsner, who comes from Freiburg im Breisgau, studied with Martin Gründler at the Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main, where he also graduated from the lieder class led by Charles Spencer; he gained important inspiration from lessons with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in Berlin as well. From the start, the lieder and concert repertoire has formed the focus of his artistic activity, which has taken him to Carnegie Hall in New York, La Scala in Milan, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Christian Elsner has worked with such conductors as Herbert Blomstedt, Marek Janowski, Mariss Jansons, Lorin Maazel, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Sir Simon Rattle. With such pianists as Hartmut Höll, Gerold Huber, and Burkhard Kehring, he has given lieder recitals in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Dresden, Munich, and Brussels and at the Schubertiade in Feldkirch. In addition to these activities, Elsner has also accepted several operatic engagements and has sung Siegmund in Wagner’s Die Walküre at the Sächsische Staatsoper, Parsifal at the Vienna Staatsoper and the Teatro Real in Madrid, and Florestan in Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. In the last two years, Christian Elsner has performed in Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Berlin Philharmonic under Bernard Haitink, Haydn’s Creation with the Staatskapelle Berlin under Zubin Mehta, and Dvořák’s Requiem under Hartmut Haenchen at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie. In April 2018 he will sing in Beethoven’s Missa solemnis under Ma-rek Janowski in Weimar, and in May he will take part in a performance of Mendelssohn’s Paulus conducted by Fabio Luisi at the Maggio Musicale in Florence. Christian Elsner, who teaches voice at the conservatories of Karlsruhe and Würzburg, is the author of several children’s books; the most recently published of these is Lennie und Der Ring des Nibelungen.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 31 August 2003 in Liszt’s A Faust Symphonie led by Ingo Metzmacher.

February 2018