Born in Freiburg im Breisgau, tenor Christian Elsner has been an internationally sought-after soloist and successful vocal coach for many years. As a professor of voice, he passionately passed on his experience to the next generation at the University of Music in Würzburg from 2006 to 2017 and has been doing so at the University of Music in Karlsruhe since 2018. Many of his alumni sing at opera houses such as the Hamburg State Opera, the Zurich Opera House, and the Semperoper Dresden.
After studying singing with Prof. Martin Gründler, the singer deepened his passion for the interpretation of art song, which is still very close to his heart today, in Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's song class. Thanks to awards at international competitions such as the ARD Competition in Munich and the Walther Gruner Song Competition in London, Christian Elsner soon began working with accompanists such as Charles Spencer, Hartmut Höll, Gerold Huber, and Burkhard Kehring, and gave numerous recitals at venues including the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Kölner Philharmonie, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Semperoper Dresden, the Théâtre de la Monnaie Brussels, the Philharmonie Paris, the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the Schubertiade Feldkirch, and the Tokyo Spring Festival.
Christian Elsner's opera career developed from Tabarco in Handel's Almira at the Theater Bremen and Pedrillo in Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio at the Staatstheater Darmstadt to Lenski in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and Macduff in Verdi's Macbeth at the Theater Heidelberg to the title role in Mozart's Idomeneo at the Oslo Opera and the First Armored Man in Mozart's Magic Flute, which the now youthful heroic tenor sang at the National Theater in Munich, at the Salzburg Festival, and at the Opera Bastille in Paris. From 2007 onwards, Richard Wagner's operas became the focus of his opera repertoire with performances as Siegmund and Parsifal at the German National Theater in Weimar, the State Theater in Kassel, the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, the Semperoper in Dresden, the Vienna State Opera, and the Teatro Real in Madrid. Inspired by this, the artist published the children's book Lennie and the Ring of the Nibelung.
Numerous CD and DVD recordings of songs, concerts, and operas, including Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with the Dresden Staatskapelle under Fabio Luisi, the Ninth Symphony with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Herbert Blomstedt and with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich under David Zinman, Mendelssohn's Lobgesang with the MDR Symphony Orchestra under Jun Märkl, Dvorak's Stabat Mater under Mariss Jansons, Schubert's Mass in E-flat major with the Berlin Philharmonic under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mozart's Idomeneo with the Danish Radio Sinfonietta under Adam Fischer, Wagner's Parsifal, Florestan in Beethoven's Fidelio, and the Witch in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel with the RSB Berlin under Marek Janowski, as well as recordings of Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, Brahms's Vier Ernste Gesänge, Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Rückertlieder, Schubert's Winterreise (version for string quartet), Schumann's Dichterliebe and Liederkreis op.39, and Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder testify to his diverse repertoire.
Among the numerous concerts in all major classical music venues such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich's Herkulessaal, Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Vienna's Musikverein, Salzburg's Festspielhaus, New York's Carnegie Hall, Madrid's Teatro Real, Milan's La Scala, and Tokyo's Suntory Hall, highlights include Beethoven's Missa Solemnis under Carlo Maria Giulini and Lorin Maazel, Haydn's Creation under Zubin Mehta, Dvorak's Stabat Mater under Mariss Jansons, Mahler's Song of the Earth under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Schmidt's Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln under Manfred Honeck, Wagner's Parsifal under Semyon Bychkov, and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as part of a world tour with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle.