biography

Bass-baritone Dean Elzinga has appeared in featured roles at Metropolitan Opera and Los Angeles Opera and has taken leading roles with Seattle Opera, NY City Opera, Glimmerglass, Vancouver, Pittsburgh, Des Moines Metro, and other opera companies across the USA, Canada, and in Europe. At the Vienna Volksoper he sang Mozart's Figaro, Leporello and Méphistophélès (Gounod). He has garnered praise in a wide repertoire from Bach to Wagner.

Elzinga is a champion of new music. He has earned international notice in Peter Maxwell Davies' challenging Eight Songs for a Mad King (New York City, Cleveland, East Hampton, and Santa Monica). He created the title role in Harold Farberman's A Song of Eddie, performed the central role in Schoenberg's Die glückliche Hand at Bard Festival, and starred in Elliott Carter's What next? at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and RAI Torino (also commercially available on ECM Records).

Dean Elzinga is one of the country's sought-after Beethoven #9 basses.

He has taken principal solo bows in some of the world’s great concert halls, such as Avery Fisher and Alice Tully in New York, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, RAI Torino in Italy, Disney Hall, and the Hollywood Bowl.

Mr. Elzinga is one of the country's sought-after Beethoven #9 basses, having performed it with Minnesota Orchestra and dozens of other symphony orchestras. Other principal concert appearances include Verdi Requiem (Santa Rosa Symphony, Florida Orchestra), Messiah (Toronto, Pacific, Baltimore, Ann Arbor, Jacksonville symphonies, and Florida Orchestra), Mahler Eighth Symphony, Haydn Creation (Florida Orchestra and Amarillo Symphony), Britten War Requiem (Nashville Symphony), Brahms Requiem (Memphis Symphony), Berlioz Roméo et Juliette (Portland Symphony). Mr. Elzinga has been repeatedly invited by Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra, including a leading turn in Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg at Avery Fisher Hall.

He has worked with many noted conductors, including James Levine.