“The night was Elza van den Heever’s, though. As the Empress, she turned in technically polished, empathetic and outlandishly beautiful singing from her first line to her last. By the third act, when most singers would be flagging, van den Heever emerged as only more vocally poised, lending a combination of propulsive torque and sweetness that endeared and delighted. The Empress’s ultimate refusal to buy her happiness at the expense of the Dyer and his Wife’s marks her as a true heroine; van den Heever made her both ethereal and earthly.”
“Who is the star of the show? […] this time around, it was van den Heever, whose voice poured out like there was no tomorrow as the Empress and made her a figure to relate to…”
“Elza van den Heever’s voice proved the sweetest of the dramatic sopranos, her high notes the purest in execution… She perfectly embodied coolness in Act one, both vocally and physically, but there was greater warmth in her voice and concern in her face as she watched the drama unfold in Act two. But in Act three, she came alive with the dramatic and musical potency few singers have managed at the Met in quite some time. It starts before her “Vater, bist du’s” but there’s no doubt that this long musical section was the moment that truly crystallized what a special performance she was giving. Her singing started with hushed tones as she spoke to her invisible father, assuredness coming through the sense of emotional trepidation, the Empress confronting her fear and ready to seize it. Her voice blossomed throughout this passage. As the music grew, so too did her soprano, the legato line so fluid, so pure. When the Emperor appears as a Stoneman, the music erupts in waves, the soprano forced to speak the text and as noted earlier, Van den Heever delivered a tour-de-force moment, her body throwing about as she hurled out the text with increased fury. It was magical.”
Operawire
“The soprano was fantastic all night, with a glowing sound that was consistently full throughout her range, her top tessitura seemed limitless. The Empress has an entrance and aria in Act I that is one of the most difficult in the literature, and van den Heever not only sounded effortless but beyond human. It was stunning and powerful to hear this music sound so natural. As shining at the conclusion as at the beginning, her energy never dropped.”
New York Classical Review
“As the Empress, the soprano Elza van den Heever shimmers with purity and throws spears at the top of her range.”
The New York Times
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“…the clear star of this production is Elza van den Heever, who artfully combines body language and communicative singing to portray the hope and determination of Leonore but also her doubts and obvious discomfort with a disguised identity[…] The South African soprano is at her absolute best in Leonore’s big aria in Act 1, drawing on a range of sometimes dark-tinged vocal timbres to subtly and powerfully inhabit all the character’s contradictory emotions, generating an unusually long and well-deserved ovation.”
“The role of Leonore is taken on by the formidable soprano Elza van den Heever, whose performance is a masterclass in both vocal dexterity and emotional depth. Her rendition of “Abscheulicher!” was breathtaking, filled with passion and dramatic tension, perfectly conveying Leonore’s unwavering determination to save her beloved.”
“Elza van den Heever’s Sieglinde was as theatrically intense as a concert performance allows and vocally resplendent throughout. A highlight of her singing – amongst many – was its culmination and a most rapturous ‘O hehrstes Wunder!’.”
“Elza van den Heever was a radiant Elizabeth. The soprano’s voice was thrilling in “Dich, teure Halle,” as she sang of Elizabeth’s joy upon Tannhäuser’s return.”
“Die aus Südafrika stammende Elza van den Heever ist eine kraftvoll singende Kaiserin, die die in der Höhenlage besonders fordernde Partie mit imponierender Leichtigkeit meistert und über dem Orchester wie zu schweben scheint. Atemberaubend, wie sie in der Schlussszene, alle und alles überstrahlend, das hohe C erklingen lässt, nicht schrill, sondern markig und hell. Ein Rollendebüt als mitreißendes Ereignis”
“La Senta d’Elza van den Heever, enfin, domine les débats. Inévitablement doublée par une fillette, vêtue comme elle, dont la présence perturbe l’écoute pendant l’Ouverture, la soprano franco-sud-africaine chante avec éclat et ardeur, osant même attaquer la « Ballade » un ton plus haut que d’ordinaire (une variante prévue par Wagner, lui-même). Sa mise en valeur des mots est, par ailleurs, remarquable.”
Opéra Magazine
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“As Senta, the woman who returns the apparitional captain’s obsessive attention, Elza van den Heever sang with a ductile soprano. In “Senta’s Ballad,” she catapulted into high-lying phrases with strength and point and drew her voice into a slender thread for beautifully formed pianissimo high notes. As infatuation consumed her, van den Heever summoned the tonal amplitude to fill out Wagner’s portrait of a love that is annihilating in its totality.”
The New York Times
“Van den Heever offered an interpretation that worked for her. She was girlish and untroubled in the Ballad, singing it to the girls like a scary campfire story for kids, until she was overcome during the third verse. The duet with the Dutchman was a bit shy, a bit “Well, here I am,” but the finale was passionate… she sang the Ballad in the 1841 version, a tone higher than usual, to splendid effect.”
Opera News
“As Senta, Elza van den Heever delivered everything one would want from a Wagnerian singer. Clear top notes; vocal mass and volume to ride the orchestral tidal waves; rich legato that gives this music its life; towering stage presence.
This was all on display during her famed Ballad. This aria is a monster for sopranos with phrases starting right in the passaggio on G5 only to descend right away. As such, a lot of sopranos sound trepidatious to start, especially during that opening stanza. Van den Heever was anything but. She jumped right into the torrent of the aria, her voice pointed and direct as she recounted the Dutchman’s tale, her singing growing over the chromatic orchestral churn. This passage is interrupted by a Più lento one but gets repeated three times, albeit with different text, and on each reiteration, van den Heever’s voice grew in intensity and force; it helped that she was closer to the stage each time, but her singing had more potency behind it. You could feel Senta becoming increasingly enraptured by the tale, possessed by it. Only during that third iteration, where she sings “er freite alle siben Jahr,” did her voice shift toward a pianissimo color, suddenly shifting the direction of the narrative ever so slightly.”
Operawire
“Bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny—a veteran Wagner singer—sang the cursed sailor and soprano Elza van den Heever was Senta, the young woman who wants to rescue him from his ghostly fate to haunt the fjords of Norway every seven years. Both were excellent… van den Heever was superb in her important Ballad of the Dutchman, the musical key to the drama in that it both explains his fate and her own place in resolving it. Her sound was lovely and her succinct phrasing and perfect intonation was a small thrill in itself, the feeling of care she put into the singing an expression of the character’s motivations.”
New York Classical Review
“Van den Heever enacted a convincingly girlish, impulsive Senta; her voice, most colorful at its top, dispatched the difficult high notes and triplets with aplomb (a real feat in the Ballad, bravely essayed up a tone in A minor).”
Wagner Notes
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“Was man aber hört bei der phänomenalen Elza van den Heever als Kaiserin, das ist eine Stimme, die „eines Vogels leichten Leib“ zu tragen scheint. Denn genau zu diesen Worten schwingt sich der Sopran der Sängerin auf zu einem perlend-prickelnden Triller auf dem hohen A, der nur als Sprungbrett dient zum noch höheren, dreigestrichenen D, von dem herab sie in graziler Kaskade, oktavab, quintauf, septab, quintauf, die Töne hüpfen lässt wie achtlos hingeworfene Saphire.
Am Ende der Oper wird sie eine Hundertschaft von Orchester und drei weitere, stimmstarke Solisten überstrahlen mit einem blitzblanken, aber gar nicht schrillen hohen C im Fortissimo wie eine Königin der Nacht mit Walküren-Booster. Eine phantastische, hinreißende Stimme!”