Biography

Elisa De Toffol

Current as of July 2022

The Italian mezzo-soprano Elisa De Toffol graduated with a Masters degree in early music singing from The Royal Conservatory of The Hague (Netherlands) after having completed her classical singing studies at the Conservatory of Brescia (Italy).

She made her stage debut as Second Witch in Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the Festival dei Punti Cardinali in 2016, and subsequently sang the role at the Riga Historical Music and Dance Festival in 2017 with Coin du Roi Milano, Christian Frattima and Marco Bellussi. Two years later she appeared as the Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas under the musical direction of David Prins (Woerden), as Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto in a production by Robin Coops (Rotterdam) and as Juno in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen in a production at The Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where she worked with Michael Chance.

Her rich and versatile voice allows her to enjoy a wide repertoire that embraces Monteverdi (Ottavia in L’incoronazione di Poppea, Messagiera in L’Orfeo), Purcell, Handel (Sesto in Giulio Cesare), Mozart (Sesto in La clemenza di Tito), Bizet (Carmen) and Stravinsky (Jocasta in Oedipus Rex).

Between 2019 and 2021 she performed in the most important early music and contemporary music festivals in the Netherlands: Utrecht Early Music Festival, Opera Forward Festival Amsterdam, O. Festival Rotterdam, Grachtenfestival Amsterdam, Gaudeamus Muziekweek and November Music. Her performance of Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna on the television show Podium Witteman was awarded Best Performance of the Year (2019) in the category ‘melancholy’.

Her interest in the vocal works of Luciano Berio and Luigi Nono led her to obtain the Lion Club Corsico scholarship for her interpretation of Berio‘s Folk Songs and Sequenza III (2017), and to perform Guai ai gelidi mostri by Luigi Nono with SWR Experimental Studio Freiburg (2020). In 2021 she recorded the album Waanzee with the Rosa Ensemble, a contemporary opera also performed at O. Festival Rotterdam and at Melkweg, Amsterdam.

As part of the Kasteelconcerten’s programme of sacred music in 2022 she sang the alto solos in Bach’s St John Passion and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. In June she appeared as one of the Ursulines in Krzysztof Penderecki’s Die Teufel von Loudun in a production by Simon Stone for Bavarian State Opera, under the musical direction of Vladimir Jurowski.

read more collapse

Photos and Videos

Elisa De Toffol alto
open gallery
open gallery