Johanni van Oostrum to sing the role of Senta in Der fliegende Holländer

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Acclaimed South African born soprano Johanni van Oostrum will join the cast of Cape Town Opera’s forthcoming production of Der fliegende Holländer (17-26 August) in the role of Senta, Cape Town Opera has announced.

Ms van Oostrum replaces Swedish soprano Elisabet Strid who, due to unforeseen personal circumstances, has withdrawn from the production.

CTO’s Artistic Director Matthew Wild says: “Ms van Oostrum is one of the finest South African singers working in Europe.  Senta is the ideal role for her to make her CTO debut, and will offer South African audiences a rare opportunity to hear Ms Van Oostrum in her country of birth.”

Van Oostrum seized the attention of the international opera scene in 2012 when, at short notice, she successfully took over the role of the Marschallin in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. Since then she has earned widespread critical acclaim for singing leading soprano roles by Mozart, Wagner and Strauss, including her first Senta in Theater Heidelberg in 2016, a role she repeated at Oper Bonn.

Van Oostrum’s 2016-17 season has included return engagements at the Komische Oper Berlin for her role debut as Eva in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; the Bayerische Staatsoper as Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro; the Hessische Staatstheater Wiesbaden for her role debut as Ellen Orford in Britten’s Peter Grimes and Countess Almaviva; and as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.