Pretty Yende


Pretty Yende, OIS is a South African operatic soprano. She has performed leading roles at opera houses internationally, including La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera.

Early life and education

Born in Piet Retief, Mpumalanga, Yende was inspired to learn opera at age 16 after seeing a British Airways TV advertisement that featured the Flower Duet from Lakmé. She subsequently enrolled at the South African College of Music, where her teachers included Virginia Davids, and from which she graduated cum laude. She also graduated from the Accademia Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy. Her younger sister, Nombulelo Yende, is also an opera singer.
Yende won first prize in operetta and opera at the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition 2009 in Vienna, and in 2010 the first prize at the Vincenzo Bellini International Competition and the Leyla Gencer Voice Competition. In 2011, she won first prize at Operalia, The World Opera Competition, held that year in Moscow.

Career

In 2012, she sang the role of Musetta in Puccini's opera La bohème at La Scala in Milan. Yende made her Metropolitan Opera debut in New York City on 17 January 2013, in the role of Adèle in Rossini's opera Le comte Ory, as a substitute for Nino Machaidze. In 2015 she portrayed Susanna in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at the Los Angeles Opera. In 2016 she portrayed Rosina in The Barber of Seville and the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Paris Opera.
Yende is credited for her vocals in Andrea Bocelli's , and as a primary artist for the "Ode À L'Humanité" track on the Yanni/Plácido Domingo collaboration Inspirato.
In 2018, she debuted as Adina in Bartlett Sher's production of L'elisir d'amore opposite Matthew Polenzani as Nemorino at the Metropolitan Opera, which ran through January and February.

Awards and honours

Yende won an Arca d'Oro Italia Young Talents Award in 2012, and subsequently performed a recital in Turin next year on 30 March owing to the award.
She was conferred the Silver Order of Ikhamanga on 27 April 2013. In a statement by the chairperson of the National Orders Advisory Council, Dr. Cassius Lubisi, Yende was conferred the honour "for her excellent achievement and international acclaim in the field of world opera and serving as a role model to aspiring young musicians."
In September 2013 she received an Mbokodo Award in the category of opera.
Yende won the Best Recording Solo Recital Award for her album A Journey in the 2017 International Opera Awards and was awarded the International Achiever Award in the 2017 South African Music Awards. She won a Readers' Award in the 2018 International Opera Awards.

Discography

Yende signed a long-term recording contract with Sony Classical in October 2015. Her first recording under this Sony contract was "A Journey".