Keith Klassen

Tenor Keith Klassen has emerged to become one of Canada’s busiest vocal artists. Since graduating with honours from the Opera Division at the University of Toronto in 2002, he has performed over one hundred roles from the standard and new operatic repertoire. He has been engaged across Canada, as well as in Scotland, Ireland, Germany, the United States, the Czech Republic, and the Bahamas. He has received rave reviews, praised as a  “tour de force, a commanding presence with superb vocal skills” (The Ontario Arts Review), for being “a skilled tenor, vocally spirited and robust, who works his emotional range with depth and authenticity” (For The Record), and as “one of the country’s most versatile artists, whose leading-man swagger, comic panache and solid-brass vocals steal the show whenever he appears” (The Toronto Star). NOW Magazine went so far as to rate Keith as one of Toronto’s top ten theatre artists.

Keith has also continued to create auteur short films, often with an operatic slant, including: ‘Silly Distance’ – a singer considers what to do with new ideas when they enter our brains whilst running a marathon; ‘Big World’ – two caterpillars express what they hope will happen to their failed relationship; and ‘Odd’ – a man tricks another man, and secretes him under a tree.  Works in production include ‘A Silent Opera’ – a man tries to find success by singing opera in a voiceless scape; ‘COOOA’ – a choose-your-own operatic adventure for live audiences; and ‘Best Men’ – featuring one of Canada’s favourite baritones, Alex Dobson, playing a man, waiting for a wedding reception, who can’t get enough of his own alliterations.