Stéfan Louw

Biography of Stéfan Louw

Stéfan Louw is recognised as the leading Lyric tenor in South Africa and has been performing opera all over the world since 1999. The Sunday Times newspaper wrote of his Rodolfo (2005) that his voice should be declared a national treasure.

His opera career started off in 1995 as a member of the Pretoria State Theatre Ad-hoc Opera Chorus and only a year after joining the chorus, received the Chorister of the Year Award. During the five years he was a member of the Opera Chorus he sang in more than 20 productions.

In 1999 Stéfan made his debut as Beppe in I Pagliacci, for which he received the prestigious FNB Vita Opera Award for Most Promising Newcomer.

Since then Stéfan made a living singing opera and his repertoire includes roles such as Alfredo in La Traviata, Barinkay in Der Zigeunerbaron, Cavaradossi in Tosca, Duncan in Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Tebaldo in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, The Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto, Tonio in La Fille du Regiment, Pang in Turandot, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, Radames in Aïda and Rodolfo in La Boheme.

Stéfan has also performed the tenor solo roles of Puccini's Messa di Gloria, Handel's Messiah, Rossini's Stabat Mater, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Mozart’s Petite Masse Solinelle as well as Dvorak's Mass in D-major at numerous occasions throughout South Africa and Namibia.

In September 2008 he made his international debut as Pollione in Norma at the Vichy Opera in France, followed by Radames in Aïda at the Dijon Opera in France in December of the same year.

For his role as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly at Cape Town Opera (2009) Norman McFarlane of the Kunste Bolander wrote that Stéfan invested himself in the role in such a way that his unlikeable character was the talk on more than one occasion during the short intermission. He (McFarlane) believes that this is an affirmation of the skill with which Louw acquits himself of the role.

He embarked on producing a series of concerts whereby he aims to bring true opera aficionados a measure of quality, whilst at the same time encouraging new audiences to appreciate true opera. The concert is called Stéfan Louw: Aria! and he plans to adapt the programme and supporting artists with each concert as he tours with the production.  The launch concert took place in October 2010 at the Pro Musica theatre in Johannesburg with the next concert at the Port Elizabeth Opera House on 5 April 2011.

In February 2011 Stéfan became a regular contributing writer to the Citizen newspaper's entertainment edition called CitiVibe.  His goal with the column called OperaSmalls is to educate the people of South Africa about what opera is by writing about the history of opera, the different voices in opera, the different opera styles and also bust some myths about opera.

Stéfan will be performing in the South African composition Rewind a Cantata for voice, tape and testimony at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town from 12 to 14 May 2011.