Yvonne Fay Minton, also known as Yvonne Minton, was born on December 4, 1938, in Sydney, Australia, and is an Australian-British mezzo‑soprano or contralto who trained at the Sydney Conservatorium and won the Canberra Opera Aria Competition in 1960 before receiving the Kathleen Ferrier Award in London in 1961. She began her stage career in 1964 as a contralto in The Rape of Lucretia by Benjamin Britten, later joining Covent Garden and performing roles such as Marina, Ascanio, and Octavian. Her discography includes Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung. Her recordings under Pierre Boulez, including Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, remain reference works, and she has contributed masterclasses at the Centre National d'Artistes Lyriques from 1998 to 2013.
