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When Pretty Yende lit up the Coronation, the South African soprano dazzled the congregation as well as viewers at home. The winged shoulders of her bright yellow dress rose like the sun’s rays from the gallery of Westminster Abbey. Tucked away near the entrance after her solo so she didn’t block anyone’s view, she was still unmissable.
‘It was amazing because everyone couldn’t not look at me. Even when they were exiting, His Majesty and the Queen looked up at me and smiled,’ she says. And yet Yende, who was the first African artist to sing a solo at a British coronation, nearly did miss the biggest gig of her life to date.
‘I almost didn’t make it, because I had an accident 48 hours beforehand.’ She winces at the memory. ‘I spent the Thursday evening in hospital in Vienna. I was singing Manon, and in one of the last scenes, when she dies, I had to twirl on the steps and make it look like I was falling. Well, that time, I literally did miss a step.
‘I hurt my knee, very badly. I was in a wheelchair at the airport in London. But I said to myself, if I have to crawl myself up to the Abbey, I will do it. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime appointments where you will do what it takes to fulfil your duty.’
King Charles wanted Yende, who grew up in Piet Retief, a small town to the east of Johannesburg, to perform after hearing the 38-year-old sing at a concert at Windsor Castle with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra last year. ‘Being asked felt like a gift,’ she says, adding, ‘I didn’t believe my manager that His Majesty had asked for me personally. I thought he was pulling my leg.’
‘Gift’ is a word that Yende, who is deeply religious, uses often. To her, opera itself is a gift to share with the world, something she can help do because she was given a voice that unleashes all manner of passions in those who hear her sing. Tears pricked my eyes as I watched a replay of her Westminster Abbey performance of Sacred Fire, a new commission for the event by composer Sarah Class.
‘I’m very grateful that my gift is to be able to do and say what I’m not able to say in words, and allows me the possibility to be in spaces and historical occasions that connect me with as many people as possible, which is why I fell in love with the feeling of the music,’ she says. This harks back to what has become the Pretty Origin Story: how she fell for opera when she heard the British Airways commercial featuring the Flower Duet from Delibes’s Lakmé. She was 16 and had no idea what it was. ‘It did not sound humanly possible. I asked a high-school teacher and he said it was called opera.’
Yende is living proof of the power of television as well as the human voice. Around 20 million people watched the Coronation in the UK, another 12 million in the US and countless more around the globe. ‘I underestimate how famous I’ve become. Even more people see me on the street and they cannot believe it’s me. There are tears; they ask, “Can I hug you?”’
Her choice of yellow for her Coronation gown – by French designer Stéphane Rolland – was symbolic. ‘Because it was a morning service, I felt it was a new dawn.’ She hopes her performance, watched by so many, will mark a ‘bridge’ to the future. ‘A better future, relationship-wise, generation-wise. We cannot go back and fix the past but from each generation we can move forward, in positivity.’ At her throat were more than 138 carats of yellow and white diamonds in a Graff necklace, with another 35 carats shining from her earlobes.
A friend of Yende’s introduced her to Graff in Stellenbosch, at the Delaire Graff Estate in the heart of South Africa’s wine country. In July, Graff, which was established in 1960 by Laurence Graff, invited Yende to give a surprise performance at its jewellery presentation in Paris during Couture Week. She sang La Vie en Rose, the Edith Piaf classic, and J’ai Deux Amours, which was first performed by the American-born French singer Josephine Baker. ‘I’m particularly in love with the yellow diamonds; they’re so delicate yet very tender… It would be wonderful to have a collaboration moving forward. Graff has never had ambassadors. Hopefully I will be one of the first.’
Jewellery and opera have a long association, notably in Charles Gounod’s Faust, from 1859. In The Jewel Song, Marguerite tries on the jewels delivered by Méphistophélès as a gift from Faust, captivated by how they enhance her beauty. Yende, who has bookings through to the 2026/27 opera season in the world’s top opera houses, will debut Faust in Barcelona, although the date is yet to be announced.
Then there is the legacy of Maria Callas, the American-born Greek soprano, who was almost as famous for her love of diamonds as for her voice. Yende smiles at the suggestion she might also become known for her jewels. ‘Any girl would be happy to wear diamonds! One of the things I love most about my job is I get to wear amazing dresses. That’s a girl thing. And now jewellery!’
We meet in London, where she is preparing for the role of Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House; it will be her third production there. She has just finished a three-hour shoot and, back in her own dress – white with a delicate black polka dot – she is matter-of-fact about her rise from church choirgirl to prima donna.
White gold and diamond Tilda’s Bow necklace, £105,000, white gold and diamond Tilda’s Bow earrings, and white gold and diamond White Pear ring, all Graff. Wool dress, £1,990, Emilia Wickstead. All prices on request unless stated.
‘Most of my mentors say that what I’ve achieved in such a short time is like two lifetimes of any opera singer,’ she acknowledges. It boils down to having ‘incredible opportunities which I took really seriously’. And she is still getting going. ‘It looks like I’m seasoned but I’m still a young singer,’ she reminds me.
Yende’s solo career started young – very young. Her grandmother would teach her hymns, which she would sing, solo, at their local church. ‘I was five or six years old. My grandmother tried to get me used to singing in front of people, not knowing she was training me for the world stage.’ She got the bug, standing there, seeing how happy her voice made people. ‘The joy of seeing people’s smiles was something that I always looked forward to whenever my grandma taught me a song.’
Standing to sing in Westminster Abbey after a 4am alarm call, painkillers dulling the throbbing pain in her knee, she was six years old again. ‘Even if to the world it was a Coronation, the girl in me was just in church and about to sing. It felt like home to my soul.’ As well as Sacred Fire, she sang two pieces by Handel: Oh! Had I Jubal’s Lyre and Care Selve. The King was ‘very happy’ with her performance, she says, adding that he plans to invite all the Coronation performers for an event to extend his thanks – schedules allowing.
White gold and diamond Tribal necklace, and white gold and diamond Tribal earrings, both Graff
She last heard from the King in July, for a devastating reason. ‘I lost my mother in July and I received condolences from His Majesty, which was really kind.’ Rose Thandi Yende, a teacher, had been ill for several months. When we meet in late September, Yende is still finding her way back to performing after taking time off to be with her family in South Africa. She sang in a concert in Lódź, Poland, two weeks before we met. Vienna, Antwerp and Amsterdam followed, but the loss is still raw. ‘I couldn’t sing, I lost my voice. I don’t have words for it but it’s a pain I can never imagine,’ she says of her dark summer. After London she heads to the Opéra Bastille in Paris, to sing in Les Contes d’Hoffmann.
It was her mother who chose the name Pretty, little knowing it would make a catchy series of hashtags on social media for the #Prettyarmy to watch the #Prettyjourney. And what a journey it has been. Pretty is the eldest of four siblings: two brothers, both teachers, both keen DJs, and a sister, who is also a soprano. ‘She is extraordinary,’ Pretty says of Nombulelo Yende, 31, who reached the final of this year’s BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.
It’s little surprise, then, that theirs was a musical household. ‘We’d be washing dishes. Mum would start a song and my uncles and dad would harmonise from the living room. So melody was really something that was in my upbringing,’ she says, her soft voice a melody in itself. The song that most reminds her of that time is a hymn in her native Zulu about spreading joy and happiness. ‘Hlengiwe Limnandi Lelizwi. It was the very first song that my grandmother taught me.’
Opera competitions have been a crucial component in the #Prettyjourney. Singing in a national competition in 2002 was the first step: Nolufefe Mtshabe, a choral-music champion who became Yende’s guardian angel, helped her get to the South African College of Music in Cape Town to study opera. She had to strike a deal with her parents, who wound up driving her 18 hours to Cape Town despite preferring her previous plan of being an accountant. ‘They were like, “Isn’t opera a hobby?”’ Yende promised she’d reconsider in two years but says, ‘The minute I got there, I knew I belonged.’
Later, when she realised she needed to try her luck against the best in the world, she entered Austria’s prestigious Belvedere Singing Competition in 2010, knowing her entry would double as an audition for top casting directors. ‘I won all the prizes possible in the history of the competition,’ she says. This led to a place on the young artists’ programme at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala Academy. She has barely stopped since.
Her international breakthrough came in 2013 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York when a last-minute call to sing Adèle in Rossini’s Le Comte Ory – she had seven days to learn the role – was a critical hit. She is a lyric soprano (defined by the Opera For All website as ‘a warm, rich voice with a bright, full timbre’) but sings coloratura repertoire – elaborate melodies with runs, leaps and trills associated with stars from Callas to Joan Sutherland.
Although singers such as Leontyne Price (now 96, she was the first African American to be a leading performer at New York’s Metropolitan Opera) and 75-year-old Kathleen Battle paved the way for black artists, she is, of course, a poster girl herself. ‘When someone says, “Oh my goodness, you’re my inspiration,” I treasure it but I didn’t set out to be a role model.’
Cotton dress, £1,195, Palmer//Harding. Satin heels, £1,550, Roger Vivier
Change is afoot. Her growing list of firsts – the first black Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at the Lincoln Center, the first black person to inspire a new production of La Traviata in the Palais Garnier in Paris (by acclaimed director Simon Stone) – is making an impact. ‘The world is not even but there are a lot of African singers on stage at the moment,’ she offers. ‘Amazing singers before apartheid didn’t have the opportunity. Now the opera world is really opening its eyes and ears to South Africans.’ Underlining her point, she adds, ‘The path that I am on, no South African has ever, ever, ever achieved it, and I haven’t even peaked.’
The next mountain in her sights lies on the other side of the US from New York’s Met. ‘In the journey of music I found out that I like acting. Most of my directors notice it too. And I think, “Maybe, I need to go to Hollywood!” It would be a dream.’ She beams and waves. ‘Maybe…Bridgerton? Hello! I’m here!’
While she waits for the stars to align – or, more probably, moves them around herself – any downtime between productions means Netflix or cooking. (She won’t be drawn on her relationship status.) ‘One thing is for sure, I do not go to restaurants where it is too loud because then you’re not talking, you’re screaming. If I go out, I try and find places that are calm.’
Having had a flat in Milan for so long means she’s a dab hand at Italian dishes, but she always has some South African spices on hand if she craves home. She walks and swims, and when her knee recovers will be back doing the odd Hiit class.
‘Physically, I have to be very strong.’ Given her aptitude for languages (she learnt Italian in six months and speaks French), she will soon be chatting to her instructor in Polish: fancying a post-pandemic adventure, she moved to Warsaw. ‘It’s an amazing city, the people are so kind, and the living is calm.’
What she’d like to see now is more opera on TV, which would help expand opera house audiences. ‘If they put opera on prime time, then young people can know that it is a gift to everybody, not just a certain type of people,’ she says. ‘And it’s not boring, it’s actually cool.’
Top image outfit details: White gold and diamond White Pear necklace, white gold and diamond White Pear earrings, and white gold and diamond White Pear ring, all Graff, as before. Embroidered cotton faille dress, £3,195, Erdem
Photographs by Virginie Khateeb. Styling by Tilly Wheating. Make-up: Stefan Jemeel at Stella Creative Artists, using Dior Forever Foundation and Capture Totale Le Sérum. Stylist’s assistant: Sophie Callaghan