MEET THE SOLOIST: Dean Elzinga, bass

Bass Dean Elzinga performs Handel's Messiah
December 12, 2021 at 3PM

Background:

A superb singer and actor, bass-baritone Dean Elzinga is regularly welcomed on concert and opera stages, often in 20th century works requiring his unique dramatic conviction and presence. He enjoyed international acclaim for Peter Maxwell Davies' fiendishly difficult Eight Songs for a Mad King, performing it in New York and Cleveland, with Jonathan Sheffer conducting the Eos and Red Orchestras, respectively. 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.

Highlights:

• Dean is among the most sought-after Beethoven No.9 basses, having performed this work with the Reading, Vancouver, Long Beach, New West, Phoenix, San Diego symphonies, Minnesota Orchestra, and Rochester and Naples philharmonics. Messiah engagements include the Toronto, Pacific, Baltimore and Ann Arbor symphonies and Florida Philharmonic. He has sung Haydn’s Creation with the Florida Orchestra and Amarillo Symphony, and the Mozart Requiem with the Eugene Symphony and Chautauqua Festival Orchestra.

• Equally at home on the operatic stage, Mr. Elzinga's roles include Mozart’s Figaro, Escamillo in Carmen, Leporello and Méphistophélès at the Vienna Volksoper; two roles at Des Moines Metro Opera (Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and the Four Villains in Offenbach's Les contes d’Hoffmann); Nilakantha in The Pearl Fishers at Calgary Opera; Nick Shadow and Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Edmonton Opera, the Speaker in Mozart's Magic Flute with Michigan Opera Theatre, Pittsburgh Opera and at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Leonard Slatkin. Of special note was his participation as Hagen in the Long Beach Opera’s reduction of Wagner’s Ring cycle. Conductors with whom he has worked include Christopher Seaman, John DeMain, David Lockington, Bertrand de Billy, Asher Fisch, Boris Brott, Emmanuel Villaume, Yves Abel and Maximiano Valdes.

Critical Praise:

• “Bass-baritone Dean Elzinga brought an emotional heft that drew immediate focus when the Ninth Symphony turned to vocal input in its final movement, announcing that it was time to turn to joy.” The Ventura County Star
• "Elzinga brought out this Schoenbergian range of outrage against tyranny with great immediacy...The performance will not soon be forgotten." The Los Angeles Times
• “Friday’s performance was tight and exuberant, buoyed by first-class soloists. Bass-baritone Dean Elzinga seemed tailor-made for this kind of music, with his ringing projection and emphatic declamation.” The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle