Based: Cape Town
“But it is Janelle Visagie who outshines everything and everybody on stage.” – LEON VAN NIEROP
“Die gehoor het geen geheim daarvan gemaak dat die moederowerste (Janelle Visagie) hul gunsteling is nie. Haar soet, suiwer stem het elke vorige weergawe van “Climb ev’ry Mountain” die loef afgesteek. Visagie se moederowerste is ’n vrou met ’n hart wat deur haar vredige, glimlaggende gesig weerspieël word.” – Mariana Malan, DIE BURGER
Award winning soprano Janelle Visagie started singing and taking piano lessons while still at school, and later on through UNISA, as a student of Prof. Virginia Davids. She has obtained her Licentiate Diploma in Performance from the Trinity/Guildhall School of Music with distinction. Janelle’s already remarkable stage career started as a member of the Cape Town Opera Chorus and later their Young Artist Programme, taking up main roles in several productions including Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Verdi’s Rigoletto, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly as well as the title role in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, and the female lead in Kern’s Show Boat, the latter on tours to Sweden and France.
In 2009 she was the first recipient of the Johan Botha Bursary and the Helderberg Rotary Bursary for young upcoming singers, and soon thereafter she had the opportunity to attend masterclasses with Madame Montserrat Caballé in Spain.
Her regular oratorio performances include Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Mass in C and Choral Fantasia, Mozart’s Requiem, Solemn Vespers, Missa Brevis and Coronation Mass, Vivaldi’s Magnificat, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Mendelssohn’s Elijah.
Janelle performed as soloist with the world renowned Johan Strauss Ensemble from Vienna (Austria) on their South African tour to great critical and popular acclaim. She was also a recurring member of the Kanna award-winning and Fiesta nominated “South African Sopranos”.
In March 2015 Janelle was awarded the prestigious Fleur du Cap Award for best actress in a musical, and was nominated for a Naledi theatre award, for her unanimously acclaimed role as Mother Abbess in Toerien and Davis’ production of The Sound of Music, which ran extensively in Cape Town and Johannesburg as well as touring to New Zealand, Singapore, China, Hong Kong and Indonesia in the following years.
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