Biography

Dr. Elena Stabile (she/they) is a dynamic performer of a wide range of musical genres, with specializations in twentieth-century and contemporary classical compositions. Elena currently resides in St. Paul, MN, and can be frequently seen in collaboration with local and regional ensembles and arts organizations.​ She serves on the music faculty at Normandale Community College and is the Administrative Coordinator of the Mount Olivet School of Music and Arts.​ During the 2024-25 season, Elena will sing in performances and workshops with ensembles such as the Mirandola Ensemble, Balkanicus Ensemble, and Lake Pepin Chamber Music while she also serves as the Interim Executive Director of Opera Reading Project. 

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Elena is an active advocate of and in-demand soloist for modern classical music and opera, and her self-produced work features new compositions as much as it does masterworks of the classical canon. She has premiered works by composers including JoAnne Harris, Zachary Detrick, Mikeila McQueston, Thomas Peters, Ben-Yee Paulson, Clover Nahabedian, Paul Smith, Anthony Green, Florence Anna Maunders, Daniel Vinetz, and Matt Frey. Her concert credits include Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, Mahler's Symphony No. 2 , Pamela Madsen's Why Women Went West, Steve Reich's Drumming and Music for 18 Musicians, Baljinder Sekhon's Twelve Virtues, Jacques Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne, and Handel's Messiah. Elena is a featured singer in Marco Real-d'Arbelles and SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE's "Seeds of Culture," a groundbreaking Baroque and hip-hop fusion narrative presented by the Bach Society of Minnesota. As a recording artist, she is featured on the album flora/fauna, performing works by Twin Cities based composer William Gamble. 

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Elena's operatic credits include Tatyana in Eugene Onegin with Skylark Opera, Almira in Dark Sisters with Journey North Opera, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus and Linda Larsen in Laura Kaminsky's Hometown to the World with the University of Minnesota Opera Theater, Evelyn in the stage-adaptation of Alan Smith's Vignettes: Letters from George to Evelyn with Marble City Opera, Annina in La Traviata with Opera on the James, the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro and Dorothea Brooke in the collegiate premiere of Allen Shearer and Claudia Stevens's chamber opera Middlemarch in Spring with the University of Tennessee Opera Theater, the title role of Alcina with Red River Lyric Opera, and Polly Peachum in The Beggar's Opera and Rose Maurrant in Street Scene with the Lawrence University Opera Theater. ​Elena has additionally self-produced a semi-staged performance of Poulenc's La voix humaine, which she featured in one of her doctoral recitals the University of Minnesota

Elena grew up in New York City and Long Island and spent her early years studying both the piano and violin and singing in many choral ensembles before beginning private voice studies. She received her undergraduate education from Lawrence University and Conservatory of Music and graduated summa cum laude  with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Creative Writing in addition to a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance. She holds a master's degree in Voice from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in Voice Performance with a secondary area in Musicology. She defended her doctoral thesis in January 2024 on the subject of operatic adaptations, utilizing Brett Dean and Matthew Jocelyn's 2017 opera Hamlet as case study on the cross-genre adaptive process. Elena has also received operatic training at La Musica Lirica and as a Young Artist at Red River Lyric Opera, and she is a three year performance fellow with the Nief Norf Summer Festival. She is a vocal student of John De Haan, Karen Holvik, Kathryn Armour, Andrew Wentzel, John. T. Gates, and David Jorlett.