Praised for his “carrying power as well as subtle sensitivity to sound” (Philadelphia Inquirer), German-American baritone Dennis Chmelensky is a graduate of the Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artist Program and an alum of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Mikael Eliasen and Marlena Malas.

This season, Dennis will make his debut as Marquis de Corcy in Le postillon de Lonjumeau by Adolphe Adam at Tiroler Festspiele Erl directed by Hans Walter Richter and conducted by Beomseok Yi. He will also join Curtis on Tour in Athens, Greece for a recital with Pallavi Mahidhara, perform music by Graun, Bach and Charpentier at the Berliner Philharmonie, and debut at Oper Frankfurt as Don Polidoro in Cimarosa’s L’Italiana in Londra under the baton of Julia Jones and directed by R.B. Schlather. He will also portray Orlik in Tchaikovsky’s rarely performed opera Mazeppa at Tiroler Festspiele Erl under the baton of Karsten Januschke and in a production by Matthew Wild.

In the 2021/22 season, he made his debut at the Philips Collection with Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte and workshopped the role of Sensor in Jeanine Tesori’s new opera Grounded that was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. He also made his debut at the Verbier Festival as Peter in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel conducted by Stanislav Kochanovsky, as well as in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera as Tom under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda.

Dennis made is Kennedy Center debut in the 2020/21 season as Internet in Amber Vistein’s The Barrens. He also performed Elephant Gerald in Slopera by Carlos Simon and Mo Willems at the Washington National Opera. Covid cancellations include his debut as Eisenstein in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus with the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy in Japan, and Schaunard in La bohème with the Washington National Opera.

Highlights from the 2019/20 season include his debut as Don Giovanni with Opera Philadelphia conducted by Karina Canellakis, as well as later in Mexico City and León, Guanajuato under the baton of Gustavo Rivero Weber. He performed Mahler’s Rückert and Kindertotenlieder with players of the National Symphony Orchestra. In collaboration with Curtis on Tour, Dennis made his Konzerthaus Berlin debut during a tour throughout Europe with stops in Berlin, Kempten, Paris, Teulada and Athens. He also appeared with Opera for Peace in Sochi, Russia, where he was featured on the Leading Young Voices of the World Gala with the Novaya Rossya State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dmitry Korchak.

Previous operatic credits include Junior (A Quiet Place), The Clock (L’enfant et les sortilèges), Junius (Rape of Lucretia), Paul (Empty the House), and Mr. Gobineau (The Medium) with Opera Philaldephia, Blansac (La scala di seta), First officer (Dialogues of the Carmelites), Spinelloccio (Gianni Schicchi), and Trio (Trouble in Tahiti) with the Curtis Opera Theatre, and Papageno (Die Zauberflöte) with the Chautauqua Music Festival.

Beyond the operatic stage, Dennis has demonstrated his profound commitment to song, chamber, orchestral, and contemporary repertoire throughout his career. From 2016-19, he toured extensively throughout the United States to perform Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch alongside pianist Mikael Eliasen and soprano Ashely Robillard. In 2016, Dennis made his Carnegie Hall debut performing Berio’s Sinfonia conducted by Ludovic Morlot.

He is an alum of the the Franz Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien, where he studied with Robert Holl, Helmut Deutsch, Julius Drake, and Elly Ameling, and of the Internationale Meistersinger Akademie in Neumarkt, where he studied with Edith Wiens, Brigitte Fassbaender, Tobias Truniger, and Malcolm Martineau. At the Verbier Festival, Dennis was mentored by Thomas Hampson, Barbara Frittoli, Anne Sophie von Otter, Ken Noda, Tim Carroll, Caroline Dowdle and James Garnon, and at the Washington National Opera by J’Nai Bridges, Isabel Leonard, Christian van Horn, and Renée Fleming. At the Curtis Institute of Music mentors included Stephanie Blythe, Mitsuko Uchida, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Barbara Hannigan.

He has worked with conductors such as Pierre Vallet, Corrado Rovaris, Daniela Candillari, Michael Hofstetter, Timothy Myers, Geoffrey McDonald, Ludovic Morlot, Kai-Uwe Jirka, and Gábor Takács-Nagy, and with directors such as Chas Rader-Shieber, Daniel Fish, Emma Griffin, Jordan Fein, and R.B. Schlather.

Dennis received the Prix Thierry Mermod at the 2022 Verbier Festival and was a National Semifinalist in the 2022 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. He also won a second prize at the 2019 Young Concert Artist’s competition with pianist Michal Biel in New York and has been awarded grants from the Gerda Lissner Foundation in New York and the Bürgerstiftung Siegen. Dennis is a 2018 Opera Awards career grant recipient and was awarded a Bayreuth Scholarship from the Richard Wagner Verband Berlin in 2012.

Dennis was born in Berlin, Germany, and started singing as a chorister at the Berlin State Opera and at the Staats- und Domchor Berlin. As a boy soprano, he won a first prize at the 2008 Jugend Musiziert Competition in Germany. In 2009, he was awarded the Europäischer Hoffnungspreis, and his debut album, DENNIS, was released by Sony Music.