South African dramatic soprano Elza van den Heever returns to the Met this season, bringing her blazing voice to two masterpieces by Richard Strauss. Currently starring as the Empress in the mythological epic Die Frau ohne Schatten (November 29–December 19), Elza van den Heever will be back in the spring to headline a new staging of Salome (April 29–May 24), with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium for both productions. Van den Heever recently spoke with the Met’s Jay Goodwin about her love for these two powerful roles and the joy she finds in singing Strauss’s high-flying music.
Die Frau ohne Schatten isn’t Strauss’s most popular opera, but it’s one that people fall deeply in love with once they encounter it.
Elza van den Heever: That was exactly my experience. It’s not an opera that I grew up with, or that I knew at all. But since the start of my career, when people in the industry heard my voice, they always said, “One day, you’ll be singing the Empress.” And then, in 2017, there was a production in Frankfurt, and the intendant gave me his front-row ticket. I was entranced from the first chord. I couldn’t believe that music like this existed. It was such a magical experience, so overwhelmingly powerful. And then, when I heard Tamara Wilson singing the Empress, I fell in love with the role on the spot. It took me about three years to learn it, but now that it’s done, I’ve never been so in love with a piece of music. Every time I sing it, I think to myself how lucky I am that I was given the voice type for it.
Is it a particularly good fit for your voice?
Absolutely. Strauss wrote so well for the female instrument, and the three female roles in this opera are so distinct, so beautifully tailored for their specific voice types. I couldn’t sing the Dyer’s Wife—I don’t have the voice for it. But the Empress is a pleasure to sing from beginning to end. It feels like honey. It feels like medicine.
The Empress is a somewhat enigmatic character. She’s partially supernatural, a shapeshifter who has only recently taken human form. And she goes through quite a transformation over the course of the opera.
Her character development is so beautiful. At the beginning, I think of her as a teenager going through puberty, who doesn’t really know who she is or what she wants. She’s naïve and curious, and repelled by humanity. And then, in the second act, when she observes the relationship between the Dyer and his Wife, and their disagreement about the Dyer’s desire to have a child, something in her awakens. She is introduced to the feeling of guilt and the idea that actions have consequences. In the third act, she discovers that she really does want to be human, that she wants to be part of this complicated world. It’s a real voyage of discovery.
How does Strauss illustrate that journey in your music?
Her entrance music is sort of flighty, sort of magical, and sits very high. Over the course of the opera, as she discovers more of her herself, she discovers more of her vocal range. The orchestration of her music also changes, gaining depth along the way until, in the third act, she has a sort of duet with solo violin. It’s so exposed, so vulnerable, so emotional. Yet she also has many moments when the orchestration is very heavy and multi-textured. Strauss is incredible in how he makes her emotional journey clear through the variety of textures, how he paints with the orchestra.
How does it feel to let your voice ride Strauss’s big orchestral swells?
There’s nothing like it. I literally can’t describe it. I’ve never gone skydiving, but I suspect that when you are floating up there before you pull your parachute—it must feel like that. It’s the closest to flying that I can imagine. It feels so free, so liberating. It’s orgasmic.
You’re part of a remarkable cast in this run, alongside Lise Lindstrom as the Dyer’s Wife, Nina Stemme as the Nurse, Russell Thomas as the Emperor, and Michael Volle as Barak. What are you looking forward to with this group of colleagues?
I’m doing a lot of German operas these days, and one of the biggest pleasures with this repertoire is that you sing with the same people over and over again, so you get to know each other quite well. I sang my first Die Frau ohne Schatten with Lise— and Yannick conducting—on tour with the Rotterdam Philharmonic in 2020. I’ve worked with Nina many times, as Chrysothemis to her Elektra, so I know her very well. Russell and I have done Fidelio twice together, and I’ve already done Frau twice with Michael Volle. I love all of these people so much, and I cannot wait for us all to get together.
Your season of Strauss at the Met continues in the spring as you sing the title role in our new production of Salome. How does Salome compare with the Empress?
They’re so different, in their characters and in their music. Salome mostly sits quite low in my voice until the final 10 minutes. And her character is so delicious, so complicated and perverse and injured and abused. So completely three-dimensional. But once again, I just love the music. It’s such a privilege—I have to pinch myself every day that I was asked to do these two roles at this house. I still can’t believe it. To step into the shoes of the people that came before me in this repertoire is daunting, but I’m filled with gratitude, to the Met and especially to Strauss. What an absolute genius.
