Elza van den Heever returns to the Bayreuth Festival as Sieglinde in Wagner’s Die Walküre. She made her highly anticipated festival debut last season as Elsa von Brabant in Lohengrin.
Van den Heever has previously performed Sieglinde at the Opéra National de Paris, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, and with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Her portrayal of the Wagnerian heroine has been described as “rapturous and devastatingly sorrowful” (Financial Times), with DrehPunktKultur saying she sang the role “as if it had been composed for her and no other soprano.”
Under the baton of Christian Thielemann, van den Heever is joined by Klaus Florian Vogt as Siegmund, Mika Kares as Hunding, Michael Volle as Wotan, Anna Kissjudit as Fricka, Camilla Nylund as Brünnhilde, Magdalena Hinterdobler as Helmwige, Brit-Tone Müllertz as Ortlinde, Martina Welschenbach as Gerhilde, Karis Tucker as Waltraute, Alexandra Ionis as Siegrune, Natalia Skrycka as Rossweisse, Marie Henriette Reinhold as Grimgerde, and Freya Apffelstaedt as Schwertleite.