The following is extracted from Volume I of the 1986 edition of South African Music Encyclopedia (J.P. Malan, ISBN 0 86965 586 8
DALBERG, EVELYN, mezzo-soprano, born 23 May 1939 in Leipzig, Germany
A daughter of Frederick Dalberg and the German soprano Ellen Winter, Evelyn was trained as the Guildhall School of Music in London (1956-7) where she obtained a Performer's Diploma. Her professional career began in the extra chorus at Covent Garden in 1953. After moving to Germany in 1957, she sang in Tannhäuser (Wagner), The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), and other works at the Coblenz Opera, but she also had further tuition in singing in the centres Munich, Mannheim and Coblenz.
Some months after her marriage to the German bassoonist Werner Eichler (later also a member of the Cape Town City Orchestra), she came to South Africa (1964). Until her appointment at the South African College of Music as a lecturer in singing (1967), she sang mezzo-soprano roles for PACT (Performing Arts Council of Transvaal). In addition to her work at the College, she continued to sing for CAPAB (Cape Performing Arts Board) - in 1971 she sang the role of Amneris (Aida) at the opening of the new Nico Malan Opera House in Cape Town. In 1970 she also sang in a production of NAPAC (Natal Performing Arts Council). She has also sung in Handel's Messiah and Bach's St John Passion, and taken part in Bach Cantatas performed by Barry Smith's St George's Singers. The operas in which she has appeared in South Africa include Un Ballo in Maschera, Falstaff, Martha, Madama Butterfly, Macbeth, Aida and Jenufa.
