Erica Eloff
Encyclopedia
Erica Eloff
Erica Eloff is a South African sopranoSoprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
specializing in opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, lieder and oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
, currently residing in England. She made her professional debut in the UK during the summer of 2008 at Garsington Opera
Garsington Opera
Garsington Opera is an annual open air summer opera festival founded in 1989 by Leonard Ingrams. For twenty one years it was held in the gardens of Leonard Ingrams' home at Garsington Manor in Oxfordshire. Since 2011 the festival is now held in Wormsley Park, the home of the Getty family near High...
as Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
. She also made her Wigmore Hall debut in their 2008/09 season with the pianist James Baillieu as a Kirckman Concert Society Artist and made a critically acclaimed return in their 2009/10 season.
Eloff graduated with distinction from the North-West University
North-West University
The North-West University is a newly merged institution from 1 January 2004 onwards with four campuses at Potchefstroom, Mafikeng, Vanderbijlpark and Mankwe. The Potchefstroom Campus is the largest, and the head office of the University is situated at this location...
, Potchefstroom, where she earned multiple prizes and scholarships. She also won numerous singing prizes including the London Handel Singing Competition (2008), the UNISA National Singing Competition (2005), the UFAM Concours Internationaux de Chant, degré Honneur (2003) in France, and the Singing Category and Overall winner of ATKV Forté (2000) (renamed ATKV Muziq). In the UK she was also selected by Making Music as a Philip and Dorothy Green Young Concert Artist. Eloff has been featured on BBC Radio 3's In Tune and interviewed by Bob Jones for ClassicFM.
Eloff works extensively as oratorio singer and recitalist in the UK, Germany, Belgium and South Africa and has also performed for various smaller opera companies in the UK. Her performance credits include Belinda in Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
's Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at Josias Priest's girls' school in London no later than the summer of 1688. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid...
, The Queen of the Night and First Lady in Mozart's Zauberflöte and Violetta Valéry in Verdi's La Traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
. She also understudied the title role in Beethoven's Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
for Garsington Opera
Garsington Opera
Garsington Opera is an annual open air summer opera festival founded in 1989 by Leonard Ingrams. For twenty one years it was held in the gardens of Leonard Ingrams' home at Garsington Manor in Oxfordshire. Since 2011 the festival is now held in Wormsley Park, the home of the Getty family near High...
.
Discography
- Somerkersfees - Christmas compilation with Singkronies Chamber Choir, 2000
- Songs – Lieder by Grieg, Wolf, Rachmaninov, Wilding and de Villiers, 2010