14 w w w. o p e r a n o w. c o . u k

IN THE WINGS | Artist of the Month

Talk about making an entrance: Pretty Yende’s debut at the Metropolitan Opera last February

became a defining moment in her rise to international stardom. Rushing onto the stage as Countess Adèle in Rossini’s Le comte Ory, she tripped over her voluminous skirts and fell flat on her face. It was a moment that would have tested the nerve of the most experienced diva, but Yende, a 27-year-old ingénue, emerged with flying colours. Her enchanting bel canto singing and sunny stage presence won her a rousing ovation from the Met audience – not the easiest crowd to please. ‘My first reaction when I fell was to laugh,’ she recalls, ‘but then I just had to pull myself together, because I had a big aria to sing, and in a way that fall released the tension and made me pull myself together and focus.’

Yende’s Met appearance, which she took on with just a month’s notice when the original soprano, Nino Machaidze, fell ill, is part of a career trajectory that has been unconventional in many ways. There isn’t a great deal of opera in Piet Retief, a timber town on South Africa’s border with Swaziland, and Yende’s introduction to singing grew out of the religious convictions that are an important part of the Voortrekker culture of this region: ‘My favourite moments from my childhood came every night after dinner, when all my family gathered around the fireplace to sing hymns from our church. The sense of unity that I experienced through singing really helped to develop my love for music.’

A British Airways TV ad featuring the Flower Duet from Lakmé marked a watershed for the keen young singer. ‘That music stirred feelings in my soul that I didn’t really understand at the time. It sounded supernatural to me, but thankfully, my music high school teacher assured me that this sort of singing was something that humans could achieve! After that, I never looked back.’

That snippet of opera in a television commercial gave Yende a sense of her bigger destiny in life, full of zeal and wide-eyed wonder at her talent that endures as her international reputation grows. She enrolled at the South Africa College of

Music, part of Cape Town University, where she studied singing with Virginia Davids, the first black woman to have had a successful career on South Africa’s operatic stage. ‘She helped me to appreciate and love the gift that I have been entrusted with,’ says Yende.

The soprano completed her studies in Italy at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala, after which an extraordinary string of accolades and competition successes came flooding her way, from making Cosmo’s ‘Fun and Fearless Female’ list and being voted one of South Africa’s most successful women, to winning Plácido Domingo’s Operalia competition in 2011. The international recognition has been invaluable, says the singer: ‘The fact that I’m practically on the tip of Africa meant that competitions helped me to get connected with many people in one instant. I am not sure how long it would have taken me to get to where I am if I didn’t do competitions, but in any case I’m sure that my passion for music would have given me all the fuel I needed to find my path to opera.’

So far, Yende has made bel canto her calling-card in the opera house – Rossini and Donizetti in particular, with occasional excursions into soubrette-ish roles from later repertoire, including La bohème’s Musetta and Clara from Porgy and Bess. She’s just sung the title role in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor for the first time, in a concert performance at Cape Town Opera conducted by Richard Bonynge – the start, she hopes, of a more substantial engagement with this sort of repertoire: ‘I’ve just started my bel canto journey’, she says, ‘and I am looking forward to exploring more. I’d like to sing in L’elisir d’amore, I puritani, La sonnambula. Mozart’s operas appeal, as well as the French repertoire, such as Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette and Massenet’s Manon.’

As for keeping her young voice in good shape and developing her repertoire in future, Yende has an impressive list of mentors to advise her: ‘I have been very fortunate to have met Montserrat Caballé, Renée Fleming, Mirella Freni, Edita Gruberova, Anna Netrebko and June Anderson, to name just a few. All these incredible women have all said one thing: I should be honest and listen carefully to what my voice is telling me. My voice will always know when, where and how I should be moving forward in my career. So, as for heavier repertoire, not anywhere in the near future – maybe in 40 years, God willing!’

Pretty Yende will appear in the Rosenblatt Recitals series at London’s Wigmore Hall on 6 June. Her UK recital debut programme includes songs by Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti, Liszt, Debussy, Weill, Gershwin and Bernstein, accompanied by pianist James Vaughan. www.rosenblattrecitalseries.co.uk

PRETTY YENDEARTIST of The monTh

I feel pretty: Yende makes her debut in the Met’s Le comte Ory. Photo by Marty Sohl