Pretty Yende in concert

Internationally acclaimed soprano Pretty Yende will delight Johannesburg audiences in a one-night-only appearance at the Linder Auditorium in Parktown on 14 April at 8pm.

The concert is billed as the art of beautiful singing where Yende will be joined by another award-winning, South African rising star of opera, Levy Sekgapane. The two will sing arias and duets from bel canto operas by Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti accompanied by the 50-strong Chamber Orchestra of Johannesburg conducted by Kutlwano Masote.

“I’m excited to be working with Pretty Yende again after our successful adventure in 2013 and I can’t wait to get my teeth stuck into this wonderful music. Tenor Levy Sekgapane is already making all the right noises in Europe and he will no doubt win over Johannesburg audiences in his South African opera gala debut. I really couldn’t have wished for a better way to celebrate my 10 years as a conductor,” said Masote.

Pretty Yende first rose to international prominence in 2009 when she was awarded the top prizes in all categories of the Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna. She has since gone on to win a further six international competitions including Placido Domingo’s Operalia Competition in Moscow in 2009.

Her musical journey has a fairy tale beginning in the unlikely town of Piet Retief in Mpumalanga (WHY IS IT FAIRY TALE, AND YOU NEED TO SAY FROM BEFORE YOU USE TO SOMETHING) to conquering the glamorous opera stages of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Milan’s La Scala (where she was an artist-in-residence for four years) and the Paris Opera. She has shared the stage with some of the best names in the business like Andrea Bocelli, Juan Diego Florez and Placido Domingo.

Levy Sekgapane is a 25-year-old tenor who hails from Kroonstad. He is a double-major BMus graduate (piano and voice) of the University of Cape Town. Like Yende, Sekgapane is a Belvedere Singing Competition winner. He also won South Africa’s biggest music competition, the Samro Overseas Scholarship last year, the Mimi Coertse Singing Competition in 2013, as well as first prize at the Montserrat Caballe International Singing Competition last year. He is a tenor who is very comfortable in the bel canto medium and promises to enchant audiences with, among others, the spectacular aria, Ah! mes amis quell jour de fête (TRANSLATE) from Gaetano Donizetti’s opera, The Daughter of the Regiment, famous for its nine top C’s!

Bookings for this operatic spectacle are already open at Computicket.