Nombulelo Yende
Soprano
© Barbara Aumüller
This season South African soprano Nombulelo Yende, who joined the ensemble in 2024/25, can be heard singing Michaëla again in Carmen and two new roles: Angèle and Lady Macbeth's Lady-in-Waiting in Kurt Weill's The Tsar wants his Photograph Taken and Verdi's Macbeth. Last season she enjoyed great success with the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, Nastasia (title role) in Tchaikovsky's The Sorceress and a Flowermaiden in the new production of Parsifal. These were preceded by her triumphant first Tatianas in Eugene Onegin, the Sandman in Hänsel und Gretel and roles in Schreker's Elusive Sound. She made her European debut here in 2021/22, while a member of the Opera Studio, singing the Guardian of the Temple's Threshold / Falcon in Die Frau ohne Schatten, took part in Il tabarro and sang Suor Dolcina in Suor Angelica. These were followed by Polya and The Overseer inTchaikovsky's Sorceress (get the DVD!) and a new Strauss' Elektra, She enjoyed another triumph at the 2024 Tirol Summer Festival in Erl, where she also enjoyed success with Kupawa in Tchaikovsky's Snowflake, singing Maria in a hugely successful new production of Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa. She makes her debut at the Teatro maggio musicale in Florence later in 2025, singing Mimì in La boheme. She sang several roles at at the Artscape and Baxter Theatre Centre in Cape Town and Youngblood Arts and Culture Development and appeared in the RMB Starlight Classics in Johannesburg. She studied at Cape Town University. A finalist at the 2018 Tbilisi International Voice Competition, she won the 2017 Schock Foundation Prize, the 2016 Heidelberg Scholarship Prize, 2015 Ruth Ormond Prize and a prize at the Concours International de Belcanto Vincenzo Bellini in France. She also reached the finals of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, won several prizes at the 11th International Stanisław-Moniusszko singing competition and the audience prize at the 2019 Bertelsmann Foundation's International Neue Stimmen competition in Gütersloh.