Everyone who heard it must have been charmed by South African soprano Pretty Yende’s Radio 4 chat in which she recounted what hooked her on opera. It was a coup de foudre, watching a British Airways ad on telly at home in Piet Retief, and the sound of those two female voices entwined in the Flower Duet from Delibes’ Lakmé.
Quite a catchy tunesmith, that Delibes: for those of an older generation, like myself, it was Lakmé’s Bell Song which parents remembered from old films, occasioning in my case a trip to Sutton Record Library to find it on The World of Joan Sutherland. I became infatuated with opera on the spot, but I didn’t become a soprano. Yende did, and from a careful training in Cape Town and a key role as “Summertime” Clara in Porgy and Bess, she blossomed at La Scala’s Young Artists’ Training Programme under superstar eyes and stepped in with a month’s notice to sing opposite Juan Diego Flórez at the Met.
Everyone who heard it must have been charmed by South African soprano Pretty Yende’s Radio 4 chat in which she recounted what hooked her on opera. It was a coup de foudre, watching a British Airways ad on telly at home in Piet Retief, and the sound of those two female voices entwined in the Flower Duet from Delibes’ Lakmé.
Quite a catchy tunesmith, that Delibes: for those of an older generation, like myself, it was Lakmé’s Bell Song which parents remembered from old films, occasioning in my case a trip to Sutton Record Library to find it on The World of Joan Sutherland. I became infatuated with opera on the spot, but I didn’t become a soprano. Yende did, and from a careful training in Cape Town and a key role as “Summertime” Clara in Porgy and Bess, she blossomed at La Scala’s Young Artists’ Training Programme under superstar eyes and stepped in with a month’s notice to sing opposite Juan Diego Flórez at the Met.
She hasn’t looked back, and to go with a beautiful voice that’s much richer than she or others first thought, a lyric soprano that can also cope with Sutherland-style coloratura, is a personality that’s both absolutely self-assured and totally adorable with it. Yes, she has the star quality, the professionalism and the staying power, you can be sure of that. Catch her at her second London recital in the Cadogan Hall tomorrow tomorrow; next stop, the Royal Opera (though she can’t as yet reveal in what). When I met her – she was on a flying visit from Milan – I had to start at the usual place.
DAVID NICE I was instantly captivated by what you said on the radio, and I apologise, it’s probably a bit boring for you, especially at the end of a long day of interviews, but it was so charming what you recounted about how you came to opera. Would you mind repeating that, and then I’m sure we can take a different line from there. You came from a non-operatic background, didn’t you?
PRETTY YENDE Definitely, but music has always been in the house, and I’ve always been singing in church, gospel and church hymns – I was in the congregation, but I was also the youth leader, and in the Sunday school I used to be the soloist starting off the choir, so my singing career came from there, and that’s where I got my confidence from [big laugh]. I only got to know about opera in 2001 when I heard the British Airways music and that was only 10 seconds for me that were so amazing. It spoke to my soul, somehow I knew what it was, but my mind didn’t understand. So I went to my high school teacher and asked him what it was. He told me it was from an opera and I said, wow, can human beings do it? I was 16 at the time, because it sounded so supernatural to me. Somehow it just made everything else stop and love beyond measure, joy beyond measure, beyond the love of my family, I was always lucky to have such a loving family and to live in such a beautiful town, but it was beyond all that.
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Image: Jonathan Rose