Ellie Dehn

Soprano

Biography

American soprano Ellie Dehn has been praised by critics as “a revelation” (Chicago Sun-Times), acclaimed for her “great stage presence and a voice combining metallic clarity and sensual richness” (Wall Street Journal). In the 2023-2024 season, Ms. Dehn returns to Opera Colorado as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Freia in Das Rheingold with the Dallas Symphony and the covers of Musetta in La bohème, and Magda in La Rondine, at the Metropolitan Opera.

Ellie Dehn’s recent seasons have included Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with Detroit Opera, Mimi in La bohème with Arizona Opera and Boston Youth Symphony, Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro with Opera Colorado, Lady Billows in Albert Herring with Minnesota Opera. As a cover at the Metropolitan Opera, Ms. Dehn has covered Musetta in La bohème, Alice Ford in Falstaff, and the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro. A busy concert artist, highlights of recent seasons have included Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the St. Louis Symphony and Stéphane Denève, Handel’s Messiah with the New Jersey and North Carolina Symphony’s, Mozart’s Requiem with the San Antonio Symphony, Britten’s Spring Symphony with the Grant Park Music Festival, Elijah with the Florida Orchestra and Mozart’s Davide Penitente with Mainly Mozart San Diego.

Career highlights include the title role in Strauss’ Arabella and Massenet’s Manon with San Francisco Opera, the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy as Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, and a return to Grand Théâtre de Genève as the Countess in Figaro Gets a Divorce; a modern addition to the Figaro trilogy composed by Elena Langer. She made her company debut at Royal Opera House Covent Garden as the Countess in Sir David McVicar’s production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, conducted by Ivor Bolton, which was broadcasted live to movie theaters around the world; her Metropolitan Opera debut as Mrs. Naidoo in Philip Glass’ Satyagraha, followed by returns as Musetta in Franco Zerferelli’s iconic production of La bohème and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni; her Teatro alla Scala debut as Antonia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann and return as Musetta; multiple appearances with San Francisco Opera including all three Mozart/Da Ponte heroines: the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, as well as Musetta in La bohème and Micaela in Calixto Bieito’s production of Carmen; her debut at Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera as Helena in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and return as Musetta; and her Houston Grand Opera debut Mozart’s Countess.

Other successes include her role debut in the title role of Dvořák’s Rusalka with Lyric Opera of Kansas City; Alice Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff with San Diego Opera, Donna Anna with the Ravinia Festival, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Opera Colorado and San Diego Opera; Donna Elvira with the Spoleto Festival USA and at Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Fiordiligi with the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, and her debut in the title role of Weber’s Euryanthe at the Bard SummerScape Festival with the American Symphony Orchestra.

Her debuts with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Teatro Comunale di Bologna as Anne Truelove in new productions of The Rake’s Progress were both under the baton of Daniele Gatti. Her numerous company debuts include San Diego Opera and Minnesota Opera as Mimì, Santa Fe Opera as Rosaura in the world premiere of Lewis Spratlan’s Life is a Dream, Le Grand Théâtre de Genève as Agathe in Der Freischütz, Bilbao Opera as Madame Cortese in Il viaggio a Reims, and LA Opera as Freia in Das Rheingold. Ms. Dehn received critical acclaim for her performances as Juliette in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette with Minnesota Opera.

Highlights of recent orchestral engagements include performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Dallas Symphony conducted by Jaap Van Zweden to conclude the Music Director’s farewell season with the company. At Carnegie Hall, she has performed Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Bach’s Magnificat, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Haydn’s Harmoniemesse. At Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, she joined the acclaimed International Contemporary Ensemble for the New York premiere of Messiaen’s Chants de terre et de ciel at the Mostly Mozart Festival, joined Eve Queler and the Opera Orchestra of New York as Inez in Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine. Ms. Dehn has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra on several occasions, most recently as the soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah and Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3. She has been a featured soloist with the Cincinnati May Festival, performing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Haydn’s The Seasons, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8. She sang Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with both the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional of Mexico and the Milwaukee Symphony. She has performed Hadyn’s Creation and Handel’s Messaiah with the Orchetra of St. Luke’s at St. Thomas Church in New York. She has sung Handel’s Messiah with New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Florida Orchestra, and performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic.

Ellie Dehn’s discography includes Ravel: Intimate Masterpieces, released on the Oberlin Music label and distributed by Naxos America, live recordings of Saint-Saëns’ Henry VIII and Weber’s Euryanthe at the Bard SummerScape Festival. She resides in Minneapolis with her daughter, Arabella.

Ellie Dehn Debuts Role of Manon at San Francisco Opera This Fall

Jul 11, 2017

San Francisco Opera has announced that soprano Ellie Dehn will step in to perform her role debut as the title role in Jules Massenet's Manon for six performances in November 2017. Ellie Dehn is excited to add Manon to her repertory and has already made plans to visit...

Reviews

“The star of the show was Ellie Dehn… a charismatic soprano with great stage presence and a voice combining metallic clarity and sensual richness.”

Heidi Waleson

The Wall Street Journal

“Ellie Dehn possesses a beautiful, bronzed and rich soprano.”

Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

New York Times

More Reviews

“Ellie Dehn’s was the standout performance as the Countess, her soprano warm and liquid, with real emotion… Her final duet, “Goodnight dear children”, with the horns luscious in the background, brought the production to a gentle and lovely close.”

Elodie Olson-Coons, Bachtrack

“The title role has been the property of Wagnerian sopranos on recordings, with Maria Reining and Jessye Norman notable interpreters. Yet Euryanthe was created by soprano Henriette Sontag (1806–54), who sang the premieres of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis in 1824. Obviously Sontag had flexibility and easy, blooming top notes; so did Bard’s Ellie Dehn, a real boon in Weber’s many quick scale-work passages. The basic purity of Dehn’s Mozart-honed sound and her very sympathetic stage persona also proved assets.”

David Shengold, Opera News

“Among its many assets, Bard’s production boasts two first class voices—tenor William Burden as the virtuous knight, Adolar, and soprano Ellie Dehn, as his much-maligned lover, Euryanthe. Dehn, in particular, has a gorgeous melting quality to her voice, and used her considerable acting skills to create an appealingly vulnerable Euryanthe.”

Laura Genero, The American Spectator

“Ellie Dehn was the lovely, corseted Euryanthe. She has a luscious, silky voice and a pleasing stage presence.”

Charles Jernigan, Opera Pronto

“There’s no better place than with Ellie Dehn’s transportingly beautiful performance as the Countess Almaviva… Dehn imbues the Countess with such purity of voice and eloquence of spirit that her dilemma pierces the heart. In every appearance, especially in her two key arias, Dehn entrances with her elegant legato and ability to express the most intense emotion with grace and composure.”

Everett Evans, The Houston Chronicle

“Also making an impressive SFO debut was Ellie Dehn as the Countess. The slender soprano has the right regal bearing for the philandering Almaviva’s long-suffering spouse, yet she also entered into the comedy surely as well. Possessed of a lovely radiant soprano Dehn’s two arias were highlights of the evening her spacious hushed Dove sono reducing the vast house to complete silence.”

Lawrence A. Johnson, The Classical Review

“As the long-suffering Countess, soprano Ellie Dehn brings regal reserve, authority, and a velvety voice to break our hearts (There wasn’t a noise to be heard during her ravishing aria “Dove sono,” her simple plea to return to times past when her husband still loved her.)”

D.L. Groover, Houston Press

“Vocally, the evening is excellent… Special mention for Musetta, spinning and perfectly sung is the young American Ellie Dehn.”

Jean-Marc Proust, OPÉRA Magazine

“In her first in-house lead, Ellie Dehn had a wonderful evening as a clearly articulated, clean-voiced Musetta, adorable but not outlandish. Can we hear this fine Mozartean singing her specialty?”

David Shengold, Gay City News

“In the role of the wronged and vengeance-seeking “Donna Anna”, soprano Ellie Dehn is a lovely presence and is vocally pleasing throughout each of her two arias. Although not as formidable as the male leads, including her suitor – “Don Ottavio” (Shawn Mathey) – Dehn is nevertheless the attractive leading lady worth waiting for.”

Sean Martinfield, San Francisco Sentinel

“American soprano Ellie Dehn’s Donna Anna was a revelation. Her horror at her father’s murder was palpable, and her satiny soprano unleashed a torrent of desperation and passion as she veered between mourning and a thirst for vengeance.”

Wynne Delacoma, The Chicago Sun-Times

“With a ravishing lyric soprano of clear international Mozartean potential, Ellie Dehn sang one of the great Elviras of my experience, fearlessly limning a sensual, funny, desperate woman worthy of Almodóvar.”

David Shengold, Gay City News

“As the jilted (and possibly crazy) Elvira, Ellie Dehn delivered rapturous tones and vocal charisma – a gorgeous talent starting to bloom.”

Pierre Ruhe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Among the ladies, Ellie Dehn’s Donna Elvira was technically and musically the outstanding role. In this production she had the advantage of her big aria (“Mi Tradi”) coming just after the intermission: it brought down the house.”

William Gudger, Post and Courier

“Ellie Dehn excelled as Cressida, a role written for Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (who recorded excerpts but declined to sing it on stage). Strong in the love music and in her impassioned reaction to Troilus’s apparent failure to write, Dehn deepened the character with telling introspective singing.”

George Loomis, Financial Times

“It’s hard to imagine the role of Cressida more gorgeously sung than by Ellie Dehn, who strings out her lines, and soars on high, with warmth and elegance.”

Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News

“Two debuts at San Diego Opera’s “La Bohème” on Saturday night: one expected, one unexpected — both impressive… She stepped onto the San Diego Civic Center stage on opening night and sang Puccini’s fragile heroine for the first time with an expansive, clear tone and simple, straightforward characterization.”

James C. Taylor, Los Angeles Times

“Great singing on the part of its leads is necessary to make a strong case for it. And in Ellie Dehn and James Valenti, Minnesota Opera struck gold… Dehn’s Juliet had the coloratura for a dazzling “Waltz Song” and a voice large enough to encompass the demands of the potion aria. “

William Randall Beard, Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine

““Dehn, an Anoka native, is plainly verging on a major career. She is equally sovereign in the brittle waltz aria of Act 1 (“Je veux vivre”) and in the more dramatically cogent potion aria of Act 4 (which, though traditionally cut, is perhaps Juliette’s finest moment). In the death scene, her singing takes on an ethereal beauty.” “

Larry Fuchsberg, Star Tribune

“Since a career on the operatic stage seems in the cards, let’s look at what this particular recital revealed about her chances for success…Confidence and professionalism. Ellie Dehn has got it. No hesitation, no self-effacement, no false modesty. She sings out with great verve and gusto. There is a star waiting to burst out here.”

Fred Kirshnit, The New York Sun

“…the soprano of Ms. Dehn, a 2007 George London award winner, sounded in radiant bloom. She ably wielded her appealingly warm, agile voice in a passionate rendition of “Amour, ranime mon courage” from Gounod’s “Roméo and Juliette. “

Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times

“Ellie Dehn’s Fiordiligi was a mesmerizing combination of vocal and theatrical know-how.”

David Patrick Stearns, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“As Fiordiligi, soprano Ellie Dehn gave her finest performance since her SFO debut in 2010. The extreme smoothness of her beautiful voice, which betrayed no hard edge, seemed ideal for such a pastel production, and her tall, graceful bearing and extraordinary neck were a joy to gaze upon.”

Jason Victor Serinus, San Francisco Classical Voice

“The evening’s pleasures lay in the remaining trio: Ellie Dehn’s sincere Fiordiligi, showing beautiful sound and musicianship throughout.”

David Shengold, Gay City News

“Typical of Queler and the overall appeal of the opera in concert, an always cut aria for Tell’s son, Jemmy was given a spectacular performance by young American soprano Ellie Dehn, whom OONY introduced to New York. Her coloratura and vocal poise stopped the show.”

John Ostendorf, Bulletin of the NY Singing Teachers Association

“The best moment of the evening, however, came from the Antonia of Ellie Dehn: vocally flawless, completely in tune and capable of phrasing pain and full of sadness. The character is revealed in all its fragility, even through tense moments during the difficult trio, where the frenzied ascent to high D flat signified a moment of musical emotion.”

Andrea Dellabianca, GB Opera

“Heading the production’s excellent cast was soprano Ellie Dehn, who lit up the main character, Violetta Valéry, with her sparkling stage presence, affecting acting and charismatic brio. With a radiant, dazzlingly agile voice that could hardly be better suited to this music, she handled every facet of the role with confidence and aplomb, from its most challenging coloratura to its most tender moments. In short, this was a star-worthy performance in every way.”

Kyle MacMillan, Opera News