Pretty Yende

Pretty Yende, OIS (born 6 March 1985) is a South African operatic soprano. She has performed leading roles at opera houses internationally, including La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera.

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.

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.