Elsabé Richter bears an MMus degree in Vocal Performance from the North-West University, where she studied under baritone Werner Nel. During her studies she was awarded numerous prizes and bursaries, most notably a Norwegian scholarship for a year’s academic study at the Norwegian Academy of Music during her master’s degree. Here she studied under the guidance of Svein Bjørkøy, Håkan Hagegård and Mona Julsrud. She has received masterclasses from various singers and musicians including Kobie van Rensburg, Marcel Beekman, Maarten Koningsberger, Albie and Hanna van Schalkwyk, Mimi Coertse, Erica Eloff, Eric Müller, Patricia Misslin, Paul Kiesgen and Lawrence Zazzo.
Her repertoire encompasses a wide range of early music, art songs and opera as well as oratorio and other sacred works. Prominent operatic roles include Susanna (in Mozart’s ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’); Galatea (in Handel’s ‘Acis and Galatea’), as well as Belinda in Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas’. She also performed in the South-African production, ‘Lamento’ – a pastiche Monteverdi opera arranged by Kobie van Rensburg, featured on the January 2017 Front page of Opern Welt Magazine and nominated for the 2017 YAMawards. Her sacred repertoire includes Handel’s Messiah, Vivaldi’s Gloria, J.S. Bach’s Passions and Motets, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Keiser’s St. Mark’s Passion, Charpentier’s Te Deum, Haydn’s Little Organ Mass, as well as Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate, Regina Coeli (K127) and several of his masses. In 2021, Elsabé performed as soloist with Cape Town Opera and the Cape Town Baroque Orchestra in a filmed production of Monteverdi’s ‘Vespro della Beata Vergine’, broadcast on KykNET and DStv.
Elsabé was nominated for a 2017 kykNET Fiësta Award together with the Cape Town Baroque Orchestra for their Art Festival programme titled ‘Handel in die Voorkamer’, as well as for a 2017 WOORDtroFEE as part of the Cape Town Camerata’s production ‘Boerneef sing Palissandertaal’. At 2015’s kykNET Fiësta awards, ‘Bloed en Rose: Die Lied van Jeanne en Gilles’ was crowned the best South African theatre production of that year. Elsabé formed part of the SU Vocal Ensemble that featured throughout this theatre production. For artistic excellence, the SU Vocal Ensemble received a nomination for a special award, ‘Die Blou Stoel’.
Elsabé regularly performs with various ensembles, choirs and orchestras.