Gerhardus Petrus "Gert" Potgieter (14 November 1929 – 2 July 1977) was a South African opera tenor who had a great influence on Afrikaans culture.

When PJ Lemmer, Inspector of Music in the Orange Free State, wanted to stage a performance of the cantata Vasco da Gama in 1949; he chose Potgieter for the tenor role.

[1] Andre Brink and Anton Hartman, head of music at the South African Broadcasting Corporation and the principal conductor of the SABC orchestra (and thus the most influential conductor in the country)[2] gave Potgieter the opportunity of taking part in radio broadcasts and in 1960 he sang with Mimi Coertse and George Fourie in Verdi's opera, Rigoletto.

Towards the end of 1960 he enrolled as a student at the Vienna Opera School and took part inter alia in a performance of Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride.

[1] He also sang arias from Don Giovanni by Mozart, Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni, La Boheme by Puccini and from the Afrikaans opera In die Droogte by John Joubert.

[1] His repertoire also included extracts from the oratorios of Handel and Mendelssohn, Britten's War Requiem, and the radiophonic opera Asterion by the Dutch composer Henk Badings based on the lyrics of NP van Wyk Louw [1][2].