Elza van den Heever

The soprano Elza van den Heever comes from South Africa and is one of the leading sopranos worldwide in the jugendlich-dramatische voice type. From 2008 to 2013 she was an ensemble member of the Frankfurt Opera, where she was able to cultivate a wide repertory of roles. Since then, she has appeared at renowned opera houses such as the Vienna and Bavarian State Operas, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the San Francisco Opera, the Zurich Opera House, the Hamburg State Opera and the Opéra National de Bordeaux.

In the 2024/25 season she sang Leonore (Fidelio) at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, her signature role of the Empress (Die Frau ohne Schatten) and the title role of Salome in New York and Elettra (Idomeneo) in San Francisco, and made her house debuts as Sieglinde (Die Walküre) at La Scala, Milan, under Simone Young, and as Elsa (Lohengrin) at the Bayreuth Festival under Christian Thielemann. She also appeared at Carnegie Hall in works by Strauss under Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Previous highlights have included Empress at the Vienna State Opera, Elisabeth (Tannhäuser) and Senta (Der fliegende Holländer) at the Metropolitan Opera, Chrysothemis (Elektra) at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival and the Berlin Philharmonie, Salome at the Paris Opéra, Sieglinde with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Julia in Spontini’s La Vestale at the Theater an der Wien.

Her repertory also includes the title roles of Rodelinda, Norma, Anna Bolena and Suor Angelica, as well as Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Elisabetta (Don Carlo), Desdemona (Otello), Elvira (Ernani), Leonora (Il trovatore), Giorgetta (Il tabarro), Marie (Wozzeck) and Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes).

She is equally at home on the concert platform, and works regularly with conductors such as Bertrand de Billy, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Kirill Petrenko and Simone Young. Her concert repertory includes Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Mahler’s Eighth Symphony and Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder.

Her discography includes a CD recording of Puccini’s Il tabarro with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra from the Vienna Konzerthaus (2018, Capriccio) and a live recording of her debut at the Met as Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda in 2013.