"Jansen’s staging of Nixon in China is ingenious in its simplicity".
Volkskrant
"Great to be able to, once again, undergo a scenic version of Nixon in China, after Peter Sellars historic staging of the world premiere of 1988. Memories relived but by no means overpowered the images of this beautiful new show. "
Trouw
Opera director Elsina Jansen made her debut with the opera Nixon in China by John Adams in 2005. In the press some aspects of her directing work are recurring pointed out: her subtle direction, the inventive, strong images with minimal resources and its musicality. Elsina is versatile, inventive and passionate about working with singers.
Elsina Jansen studied theatre science at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Kent in Canterbury. To learn the profession in practice, she worked as an Assistant Director with among others: Monique Wagemakers, Giuseppe Frigeni, Pierre Audi, Peter Greenaway and Saskia Boddeke, David Pountney, Porgy Franssen and Christopher Alden at major opera houses as the National Opera & Ballet, Dutch Touring Opera, the Flemish Opera, Opera Zuid and Schauspielhaus Frankfurt.

Elsina Jansen worked at companies such as the Dutch Touring Opera (La Barca, revival director for La Traviata and La Traviata RAP), Opera Trionfo (Zaide, Les adventures du roi Pausole) at The Dutch National Opera Academy (Cosi fan tutte), Orkest van het Oosten (Die Fledermaus, Coppelia), the Dutch Philharmonic Orchestra (Heroes, musictheatre for young people) and the North Netherlands Orchestra (Die Fledermaus, Love is in the air). She worked with conductors such as Jan Willem de Vriend, Robbert van Steijn, Mark Shanahan, Balázs Kocsár, Ed Spanjaard and Henrik Schaefer.
One of her specialties is creating new music theatre. Elsina made two special productions with KamerOperaProject in co production with the Grachtenfestival in Amsterdam. In these two projects she combined short operas and songs to a new storyline. I'm very lonely in my way, about America of the fifties and Vloed! in which several short operas and songs of composer Boris Blacher created a new perspective on Berlin of the 1940s.

As artistic director, director and producer Elsina created her own company; Opera op Zak. Opera op Zak produces small-scale opera and music theatre performances with young singers and actors, mostly on location. For more information see www.operaopzak.nl
Recently Elsina directed three opera performances with CamerOpera with young singers in new Dutch translations. La Scala di Seta (Rossini), Don Pasquale (Donizetti) and Hänsel und Gretel (Humperdinck) are characterized by inventive modern design which turns the classics into fresh contemporary opera. 
In 2016 Elsina made her international debut with Puccini’s La Bohème in Vaasa, Finland. Conductor Dmitry Sitkovetsky.

In addition to her work as a director and producer, Elsina works as a drama teacher at the vocal department of the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and at the Prins Claus Conservatoire in Groningen. She also teaches and organizes an annual summer course Zen, Singing and Acting with voice teacher Margreet Honig and Zen teacher Marc Brookhuis. Together with David Prins, Elsina is artistic director and teacher of PERFORMING OPERA, Summer school for Singers. The Summer school is part of the Grachtenfestival Amsterdam.
Future plans: 
Together with Domestica Rotterdam, Elsina will direct a newly written performance based on Bach’s Goldberg variations. This production will be presented at Operadagen Rotterdam 2017. 
In 2018 Opera op Zak will produce an exciting co-production with recorder quartet Brisk. Composer Hans Koolmees will write a new one act opera. 

For the Flamenco Biënnale 2019 Elsina has started working on a concept for a new musictheatre production with dancers based on La Vida Breve by De Falla.