John Pringle started his adult life as a pharmacist for five years, with a degree from the University of Melbourne. At the age of 28 music took over and in 1967 he won the Melbourne Sun Aria award. He had been singing in some amateur shows around Melbourne, and used his friendship with John Cargher to gain some valuable contacts in the opera world.

His debut was in the Australian Opera's 1967 production of Die Fledermaus, at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne, alongside singers such as Robert Gard and June Bronhill. Gard also appeared in Pringle's final performance in 2008.

In 1973 he was part of the company's historic first season at the Sydney Opera House, singing the role of Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro. He did not appear in the very first opera production at the Opera House, Prokofiev's War and Peace, but he sang Prince Andrei in later productions of that opera.

John Pringle's repertoire included the title roles in The Barber of Seville (Rossini), Don Giovanni (Mozart), Falstaff (Verdi), Gianni Schicchi (Puccini) and Eugene Onegin (Tchaikovsky). Other roles included Malatesta and Dulcamara (Donizetti); Lescaut, Marcello, Sharpless, Ping (Puccini); Beckmesser (Wagner); Nick Shadow (Stravinsky); Golaud (Debussy); Politician in The Eighth Wonder (Alan John); Zurga (Bizet); and roles in Death in Venice and The Rape of Lucretia (Britten); Capriccio and Intermezzo (Richard Strauss); Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Shostakovich); The Tales of Hoffmann (Offenbach); and operas by Janáček, Cilea, Sullivan, Massenet and Gounod. He also appeared in musicals, such as Melvyn Morrow's and John Mallord's one-man show Postcards from Provence, based on stories by Alphonse Daudet.