Dennis Chmelensky is a German-American baritone renowned for his commanding stage presence and versatile artistry across opera, recital, and concert repertoires. He has performed internationally at prestigious venues including Oper Frankfurt, The Kennedy Center, and the Berliner Philharmonie.

A recipient of the Verbier Festival’s Prix Thierry Mermod and a 2022 National Semifinalist in the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, Chmelensky will open his 2025/26 season workshopping the newly commissioned opera The Mothers of Kherson at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The work will premiere at the Polish National Opera in the 2026/27 season and at the Met in 2027/28. In the workshop, he will portray the roles of Rescue Planner and Camp Guard, collaborating closely with the composer, librettist, and creative team in a process culminating in a presentation for Peter Gelb, conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, and the Met’s Artistic and Production teams.

Recent highlights include debuts at Oper Frankfurt as Don Polidoro in Cimarosa’s L’Italiana in Londra under Julia Jones in a production by R.B. Schlather; at Tiroler Festspiele Erl as Le Marquis de Corcy in Adam’s Le postillon de Lonjumeaudirected by Hans Walter Richter and conducted by Beomseok Yi; and as Orlik in Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa directed by Matthew Wild and conducted by Karten Januschke. He also debuted at the Berliner Philharmonie with the Berliner Oratorienchor, performing works by Bach, Charpentier, and Graun, and gave a recital with Pallavi Mahidhara and Curtis on Tour in Athens, Greece.

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

Chmelensky made his 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 included debuts 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, with subsequent performances in Mexico City and León, Guanajuato, under Gustavo Rivero Weber. He performed Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder and Kindertotenlieder with players of the National Symphony Orchestra. With Curtis on Tour, he debuted at Konzerthaus Berlin during a European tour with stops in Berlin, Kempten, Paris, Teulada, and Athens. He also appeared with Opera for Peace in Sochi, Russia, featured in 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 (The Rape of Lucretia), Paul (Empty the House), and Mr. Gobineau (The Medium) with Opera Philadelphia; Blansac (La scala di seta), First Officer (Dialogues of the Carmelites), Spinelloccio (Gianni Schicchi), and Trio (Trouble in Tahiti) with Curtis Opera Theatre; and Papageno (Die Zauberflöte) at the Chautauqua Music Festival.

Beyond opera, Dennis has demonstrated a profound commitment to song, chamber, orchestral, and contemporary repertoire. From 2016–19, he toured extensively across the U.S. performing Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch alongside pianist Mikael Eliasen and soprano Ashley Robillard. In 2016, he made his Carnegie Hall debut performing Berio’s Sinfonia under Ludovic Morlot.

He is an alum of the Franz Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien, where he studied with Robert Holl, Helmut Deutsch, Julius Drake, and Elly Ameling, and the Internationale Meistersinger Akademie in Neumarkt, where he studied with Edith Wiens, Brigitte Fassbaender, Tobias Truniger, and Malcolm Martineau. At the Verbier Festival, he was mentored by Thomas Hampson, Barbara Frittoli, Anne Sofie von Otter, Ken Noda, Tim Carroll, Caroline Dowdle, and James Garnon. At the Washington National Opera, mentors included 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 Michael Hofstetter, Pierre Vallet, Corrado Rovaris, Daniela Candillari, Timothy Myers, Geoffrey McDonald, Ludovic Morlot, Kai-Uwe Jirka, Julia Jones, Geoffrey Loff, and Gábor Takács-Nagy, and with directors including Matthew Wild, 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 won second prize at the 2019 Young Concert Artists competition with pianist Michal Biel in New York, and has received grants from the Gerda Lissner Foundation (New York) and Bürgerstiftung Siegen. He was an Opera Awards career grant recipient in 2018 and was awarded a Bayreuth Scholarship from the Richard Wagner Verband Berlin in 2012.

Born in Berlin, Germany, Dennis began singing as a chorister at the Berlin State Opera and the Staats- und Domchor Berlin. As a boy soprano, he won first prize at the 2008 Jugend Musiziert Competition. In 2009, he received the Europäischer Hoffnungspreis and released his debut album, DENNIS, with Sony Classical.