Gala Concert / The Metropolitan Opera

Pretty Yende and Maruisz Kwiecien were simply adorable (and vocally agile) in their Don Pasquale duet.”

Ilana Walder-Biesanz – Opera-Online

Comments Off on Gala Concert / The Metropolitan Opera

Il Barbiere di Siviglia / The Metropolitan Opera

I loved her “Una voce poco fa,” which showed off her technique while drawing a clear picture of the character’s independence and smarts, but I’d happily listen to any of her arias again. And she looked gorgeous in her costumes by Catherine Zuber.”

Comments Off on Il Barbiere di Siviglia / The Metropolitan Opera

“A Journey” / Album Review

What’s not to love about Pretty Yende? Her voice is delightful, her personality sparkles, and her story is inspiring.

Just 31, Yende has gone from life in a South African township to stardom on the world’s opera stages. Now her first album, titled “A Journey,” documents her impressive lyric abilities, her lustrous tone and especially her mastery of coloratura. Runs and trills are tossed off with seeming ease, and she can soar to a high E natural without sounding strained.

The seven selections, mostly bel canto arias by Rossini, Donizetti or Bellini, reflect stages of her story, triumphs in vocal competitions or important debuts. She sounds lovely …

In keeping with her personal narrative, she includes the “Flower Duet” from Delibes’ “Lakme,” with mezzo Kate Aldrich as partner. It’s by now part of Pretty Yende lore that her interest in opera was sparked by hearing the tune in a British Airways TV commercial when she was 16.

The most interesting choice in the album is the “Poison Aria” from Gounod’s “Romeo et Juliette,” which requires a heavier lyric voice than bel canto. Yende does a good job of capturing Juliette’s fearfulness and determination, and her voice is surprisingly robust in the climaxes.

-Associated Press

Comments Off on “A Journey” / Album Review

“A Journey” / Album Review

Her album, with almost 80 minutes of music, is called A Journey because it charts a course through the music that has featured in significant milestones in her career.

The Act I aria from Bellini’s Beatrice Di Tenda was the piece with which she won three major prizes at Plácido Domingo’s prestigious Operalia competition in 2011.

And it was with Rossini’s Count Ory that she made such a successful debut at the Met in 2013.

Most touchingly of all, in a story that deserves to be true, the 16-year-old Pretty heard on the radio at home in a Zulu township the duet from Delibes’ Lakmé – widely known for its use in a British Airways advert – and promptly asked to be given the opportunity to train as an opera singer.

So what’s so special about Pretty Yende? Her voice is hugely flexible and here used without strain in even the most demanding passages. She displays not only a top-class vocal and dramatic technique but also a high-wire artist’s courage and confidence.

It’s the sheer brilliance of her attack that leaves audiences around the world clamouring for more. If she sticks to repertory her voice can handle without damage, a triumphant career is guaranteed.

-The Daily Mail

Comments Off on “A Journey” / Album Review

Concert with Juan Diego Flórez / Concertgebouw

Tuesday night marked the somewhat long overdue debut of bel canto royalty Juan Diego Flórez and rising star Pretty Yende at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. The programme consisted mainly of arias and duets by Bellini and Donizetti, with a French interlude (Offenbach, Gounod and Massenet) … during almost three hours, Juan Diego Flórez and Pretty Yende, alone or in duet, repeatedly descended and ascended the infamous red-carpeted stairs that lead to the great hall’s stage – a particularly perilous-looking exercise for Ms Yende in her lovely fuchsia gown … from the instant she started singing, the young South-African soprano had the public around her finger. How not to fall under her charm? Ms. Yende is a most endearing and generous performer …

… the sheer joy of listening to such a beautiful voice: a silky soprano with shimmering colours, luminous high notes and a rich bottom, superbly suited to bel canto music. The Donizetti heroines were lovely and, especially as Adina in the L’elisir d’amore duet with Mr Flórez’s Nemorino, she demonstrated she acts the comedy well too. But it is her Bellini arias I loved the most, because they showcased the voice, with its rich colours and admirable legato, best. Amina’s aria from La sonnambula “Ah! Non credea mirarti”, which she sang after a dreamy recitative, was particularly delightful. Her singing as much as her obvious joy of performing on stage unleashed loud enthusiasm from the public and, without waiting for the concert to end, a fan approached the stage to offer her a bunch of flower between two numbers.

-Bachtrack

Comments Off on Concert with Juan Diego Flórez / Concertgebouw

Le nozze di Figaro / Los Angeles Opera

Pretty Yende’s smooth, crystalline-voiced Susanna hit the spot …

-Los Angeles Times

 

South African soprano Yende lived up to her first name musically with sweetly melodious phrasing, and her duet with Yu, “A Little Song on the Breeze,” was beyond enchanting.

-LA Weekly

Comments Off on Le nozze di Figaro / Los Angeles Opera

Recital / Vocal Arts DC

For years, Vocal Arts DC has been championing promising singers, such as the now-celebrated artists Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson and Matthias Goerne. On Thursday night, the group put another winner in the spotlight — soprano Pretty Yende. She performed with American pianist Kamal Khan, who now lives in her native South Africa, at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater.

Yende has been making waves in the concert world, making a buzzed-about debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera last year and her Carnegie Hall recital debut last month. She’s now back at the Met as the cover soprano for the role of Pamina in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”

Yende has a powerful and versatile, yet controlled, voice that can reach to the stars. Her confident and agile coloratura perfectly suited zarzuela composer Gerónimo Giménez’s “Me llaman la primorosa” (“They call me exquisite”) and Vincenzo Bellini’s “Oh, se una volta sola” (“Oh, if I could see him again”). And Yende’s voice has a deeply luminous tone. In a set of atmospheric chansons by Debussy, including “Beau Soir,” she captured all of the tonal innuendos of the French text, delivering it with tempered, rather than unbridled, expression.

In Liszt’s “Benedetto sia ‘l giorno” (“Blessed be the day”), Yende’s sprinting leaps and chromatic descents were met with Khan’s strongly supportive prelude, interlude and postlude, further emphasizing — in German lieder fashion — the soaring emotions in her vocals. As a whole, the performance showed the power of Yende’s gorgeous voice in dramatic operatic style.

-The Washington Post

Comments Off on Recital / Vocal Arts DC