Pretty Yende, 28, grew up in Piet Retief--a remote eastern province of South Africa. Her remarkable voice and passion for opera have brought her far, to the stages of La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera, with an enviable career performing in opera houses worldwide.
"When we have a gem like Pretty coming from where she does, where development never reaches, and then...boom, she goes all the way to the top, there is a lot to take from it," South African conductor Kutlwano Masote told BBC News Africa recently.
But the journey from South Africa to Milan was not always easy. Yende's grandmother introduced her to music, and Yende sang in church and at home, but her family viewed music as a hobby. Until Yende was 16, she didn't know of the existence of opera. One day, she heard the famous duet from Lakmé playing in the background of a British Airways ad. She didn't know that such heavenly singing was possible.
She asked a teacher about the music, and when the teacher told her it was opera, Yende resolved to become an opera singer one day. "When I first heard those sounds, my soul knew I had found home," she told Independent Online.
It was around this time that opera was introduced to South African schools, enabling Yende to begin her studies. She won a singing competition, and along with it, a cash prize, which she could use to help fund her college studies.
Convincing her family to let her study opera instead of accounting was a hard sell. They finally relented when she asked them to give her two years to prove herself. Yende studied voice at the South African College of Music, at the University of Cape Town. Upon graduation, she began entering competitions.
Things started falling into place for her. In 2009, she won first prize in every category at the Belvedere Competition in Germany, the first singer in history to do so. In 2011, she won first prize in Plácido Domingo's Operalia.
Yende was accepted into the Young Artists Academia of the Teatro alla Scala, and she made her debut with La Scala in 2010.
In 2011, Yende made her professional debut as Micaela in Bizet's Carmen at the National Theatre in Riga, Latvia. And she just finished singing this same role with Los Angeles Opera. Marci Weiner of Hollywood Today said about the opening night performance, "...the singer who received the most applause was Pretty Yende, from South Africa, whose outstanding performance as Micaela, had the audience standing up and cheering for 10 minutes."
Yende is now based in Milan and speaks fluent Italian. Next year, she plans to move to Paris to study French. Her remarkable success story continues to unfold, chapter by chapter. For now, her challenge is to make the most of the tremendous opportunities that have been presented to her.
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