Elza van den Heever
Soprano
-Mike Silverman, The Huffington Post (Associated Press)
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Elza van den Heever's 2012-2013 Season Highlighted by Metropolitan Opera Debut
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“Blessed with a plush, dramatic voice capable of formidable power and dazzling high notes,” (Associated Press) soprano Elza van den Heever makes three major role debuts in her 2013–14 season. First is her U.K. debut as Ellen Orford in a new David Alden production of Britten’s Peter Grimes at English National Opera, a role she will perform later in the season with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. She collaborates again with Alden at Hamburgische Staatsoper as Giselda in a new production of Verdi’s I Lombardi. And on the heels of her successful Metropolitan Opera debut as Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda, Ms. van den Heever adds a second Donizetti queen to her repertoire in a role debut as Anna Bolena for Marie-Louise Bischofberger’s new production at Opéra National de Bordeaux. Her season also includes Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper and La Duchesse Hélène in Frankfurt’s Oper’s Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes.
The South African soprano’s “vocally burnished and emotionally tempestuous Elisabetta” (The New York Times) was broadcast worldwide to millions of viewers as part of The Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD Series. Audiences and critics alike lauded recent role debuts as two of Handel’s most formidable characters: Armida in Rinaldo with Lyric Opera of Chicago and the title role in Alcina with Opéra National de Bordeaux. In Europe, Ms. van den Heever has garnered critical acclaim for such roles as Desdemona in Otello where Frankfurter Rundschau praised her “huge voice, full of tenderness and precision,” in addition to Elisabetta di Valois in Don Carlo, Elsa in Lohengrin, Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito, Antonia in Les contes d’Hoffmann and Desdemona in Otello, and Elettra in Idomeneo. Her European successes have also included Elsa in Lohengrin for Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper; Agathe in Der Freischütz at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien; Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte for Opéra National de Paris; Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at Hamburgische Staatsoper; and Elettra in Idomeneo, the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos and Leonora in Il Trovatore at Opéra National de Bordeaux. (learn more) |