EmaNikolovska

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  • Mezzo-Soprano

About Ema

This season, Ema returns to the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin for Cherubino/Le Nozze di Figaro and to the Canadian Opera Company for her role debut as Komponist/Ariadne auf Naxos. She sings Phèdre in Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie with Marc Minkowski and les Musiciens du Louvre in Paris and Purcell’s Dido with les Violons du Roy and Bernard Labadie in Quebec City and Montrèal. In its 300th anniversary year, Ema tours Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Asia with the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra and Andreas Reize.

An internationally celebrated recitalist, Ema partners Andras Schiff and Jonathan Biss for two recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall and tours in the U.S. and Canada with guitarist, Sean Shibe, in their celebrated Orlando programme.

Ema is based in Berlin

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Contact

Ivo Ivanov

Ivo Ivanov

Assistant Artist Manager

Representation

General management with Askonas Holt Partner Managers: Johanna Herbst Artist Management (concerts in Germany & Austria) Étude Arts (United States, Canada, Central & South America)

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Season Highlights

Oct 2026
Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin
Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro (Cherubino) Marc Minkowski (Conductor)
Oct 2026 - Nov 2026
Various
US Recital Tour - 'Orlando' programme with Sean Shibe (Guitar)
Nov 2026
Wigmore Hall, London
Solo Recital - Sir Andras Schiff (Piano)
Feb 2027
Canadian Opera Company, Toronto
Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos (Komponist) [Role Debut] Johannes Debus (Conductor)
Mar 2027
Various
Asia Tour - Bach - St Matthew Passion - Leipzig Gewandhaus Andreas Reize (Conductor)
Apr 2027
Palais Montcalm Quebec
Purcell - Dido and Aeneas (Dido) Bernard Labadie (Conductor)

Video

Audio

  • Scriabin: Symphony No. 1 in E Major, Op. 26: VIa. Andante. Hymn to the Arts
    Credit: Deutsche Grammophon GmbH Recorded: 23 October 2025

Photos

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Selected Repertoire

Benjamin

Picture a Day Like This (Woman)

Berlioz

La damnation de Faust (Marguerite)*

Debussy

Pelléas et Mélisande (Mélisande)*

Gounod

Faust (Siebel)*   •   Roméo et Juliette (Stefano)*

Handel

Semele (Juno)*   •   Alcina (Ruggiero/Bradamante)*   •   Ariodante*

Henze

Cubana (Lucile)

Humperdinck

Hänsel und Gretel (Hänsel)

Janáček

The Cunning Little Vixen (Fox)

Massenet

Werther (Charlotte)*

Mozart

Così fan tutte (Dorabella)*   •   Idomeneo (Idamante)*   •   Le Nozze di Figaro (Cherubino)*   •   La Clemenza di Tito (Sesto)*

Purcell

Dido and Aeneas (Dido)*

Rameau

Hippolyte et Aricie (Hippolyte)

Ravel

Le Heure Espagnolle (Concepción)*

Strauss

Der Rosenkavalier (Octavian)   •   Ariadne auf Naxos (Komponist)*

Tchaikovsky

Pique Dame (Polina)*

Verdi

Rigoletto (Giovanna)

Vivaldi

Orlando*

Weber

Oberon (Fatima)*

News

Press

  • Neuwirth - Orlando (Title Role)

    Komische Oper Berlin
    May 2026

    • The title role, however, is a challenge that Ema Nikolovska carried with admirable intensity... Nikolovska mastered all of this with technical mastery and remarkable stage presence.

    • Ema Nikolovska’s Orlando made a positive impression thanks to her warm mezzo, finely controlled vibrato and a chameleonic sense of different music styles. Her stage presence, veered towards the youthful and idealistic of a typical mezzo role, was also convincing.

  • Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro (Cherubino)

    Opernhaus Zürich
    Jan 2026

    • It began almost by chance that Ema Nikolovska stood that evening in a long undershirt and trousers on a small wooden table. Right in the middle of the stage of the Zurich Opera House, in Mozart's opera "Le Nozze di Figaro". And with a bright and supple voice, she sang the part of the adolescent boy Cherubino: "You women, who know what love is, see what is happening in my heart." Yet when Ema Nikolovska sings, one really feels as if looking into the heart of this young man. You see all the love and the pain, feel the restlessness and all the bliss. In Mozart's opera, the role of Cherubino, traditionally sung by a woman, is a minor role. Yet on this evening in Zurich, it becomes the secret lead. This is due to the Macedonian-Canadian singer Ema Nikolovska, her bright and crystal clear voice. But not only that. It is as if an uncompromising quality emanates from the 32-year-old. As if something truthful is revealed in her singing and acting, something that goes beyond the three.

  • BBC Proms

    The Glasshouse, Gateshead
    Jul 2025

    • Ema Nikolovska navigated the complexities of the vocal part with remarkable skill and artistry.

    • Nikolovska’s mesmerising vocal contributions

    • Ema Nikolovska... displayed a range of expression and colour in four of the nine movements, music that bursts forward tantalising the taste buds, rhythmically intricate, and lyrical if strangely beautiful, engagingly performed over forty minutes

  • Aldeburgh Festival

    Aldeburgh Festival, Aldeburgh
    Jun 2025

    • Nikolovska’s rich-toned mezzo blended ideally with the ensemble’s middle registers, and shaped Char’s bizarre poetry with the requisite detachment, the close of ‘l artisanat furieux’, just one example of perfection where Nikolovska and Adam Walker’s flute were flawlessly together.

  • Boulez Centenary Year Concerts with Sean Shibe

    Wigmore Hall, London
    May 2025

    • 'Time slows down to allow for an engagement with detail, for a submersion in the sound, and for meditative stillness.’ That is very much what we experienced, time slowing, even near-repeating, as if a record were stuck; and yet, it moved. There was something dream-like, even epiphanic to Nikolovska and the instrumentalists’ revelation.

    • Ema Nikolovska has a commanding presence and an intriguing and touching vocal instrument.

  • Ema Nikolovska in recital with Sir Andras Schiff

    Wigmore Hall
    Jun 2024

    • An artistic event of top quality to cherish ... Nikolovska performed all songs from memory, all in original language. She clearly fully understood and thus presented all emotions within the text/music with dramatic flair but, at the same time, with disciplined style of the period. There were some appropriate operatic gestures while dynamics as well as tone colours were plentiful and delivered with care ... Nikolovska is a great communicator within the performance but also off-performance. She talked to the audience from the stage with ease, flair, and plenty of humour.

  • Orlando: The Adventurer - Song and Guitar

    Bath Festival
    May 2024

    • this was all part of a remarkable concert by the mezzo Ema Nikolovska and the guitarist Sean Shibe at the Bath Festival — and if I say that the experience felt like being awake in a vivid dream, I do so as a compliment.

  • Vancouver Recital

    Vancouver Playhouse
    Mar 2024

    • Nikolovska’s voice is focused, rich, and velvety. Though she is at the beginning of her career, her sound is mature and her instinct for interpretation highly developed.

  • Janáček - The Cunnning Little Vixen (The Fox)

    Canadian Opera Company
    Jan 2024 - Feb 2024

    • When she falls for Fox, her spirited soprano combines with Nikolovska’s spacious mezzo to spin a cocoon of love that’s in a totally different world from that of the brutish humans.

    • Soprano Ema Nikolovska was a bright voiced, endearing Fox.

    • Ema Nikolovska, who rounds out the main company, is particularly wonderful as the Fox with whom Sharp Ears falls in love. Their perfectly delivered second-act love duet is among the highlights of the evening.

    • Ema Nikolovska is another standout as the Fox, with whom the Vixen falls madly in love. In what is technically a trouser role (a funny thought when foxes are concerned), Nikolovska shines with a clear, powerful mezzo that soars high with ease. This is a COC debut for her, and a total treat to hear.

    • Fox, a trousers-role sung with vitality and emotion by Ema Nikolovska. Nikolovska’s bright mezzo-soprano blends well with Archibald’s high soprano…. Archibald and Nikolovska display their fine acting skills

  • Benjamin - Picture a Day Like This (Woman)

    Linbury Theatre
    Sep 2023

    • As the Woman, mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska is both vulnerable and stoical, responding to this rollercoaster day with a voice of many colours.

    • Ema Nikolovska gave an outstanding performance as Woman, caressing Benjamin’s sinuous writing with an unbearable tenderness.

    • Ema Nikolovska sings with poise and impact throughout. Simply dressed in a frock and trench-coat, she is urgent but never over-emotional, only rising to fury in a central aria in which she expresses her disillusionment that her quest is futile and condemned to fail. Instead, she uses nuanced vocal colours and beautiful phrasing to delineate her changing moods.

  • Strauss - Der Rosenkavalier (Octavian)

    Berlin Staatsoper
    Apr 2023

    • Stichwrot Octavian: Wie ein furchtloser Ritter beherrscht Ema Nikolovska jugendlicher Graf den Abend fast schon im Alleingang. Mit seinen siebzehn Jaren ist er her rim Haus, und die Sangerin Herrscherin der Buhne. Keyword Octavian: Like a fearless knight, Ema Nikolovska, the youthful count, almost single-handedly dominates the evening. At seventeen he is the master of the house, and the singer ruler of the stage.

    • Y que bien estuvo Ema Nikolovska como el joven adolescente lleno de si mismo y lleno de vigor sexual. La voz corrio clara y audible por el escenario del Staatsoper Unter den Linden, sabiendo como indicar cambios de humor y en lod duetos con Sophie supo como manejar el registro agudo sin problemas. And how well was Ema Nikolovska as the young adolescent full of himself and full of sexual vigour. The voice ran clear and audible across the stage of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, knowing how to indicate mood swings and in duets with Sophie he knew how to handle the high register with ease.

  • Rameau - Hippolyte et Aricie

    Philharmonie de Paris
    Nov 2021

    • Ema Nikolovska une Diane au riche médium qui détaille superbement la noble complexité de son personnage. Ema Nikolovska a Diana with a rich medium who superbly details the noble complexity of her character.

    • La Diane de Ema Nikolovska a toute l’assurance et l’aisance d’une déesse, ainsi que la surface vocale. Ema Nikolovska’s Diana has all the confidence and ease of a goddess, as well as the vocal surface.

    • Ema Nikolovska prête sa voix intense et vibrante au personnage de Diane. Personnage réconfortant, elle déclame le texte au plus près des intentions théâtrales et ses vocalises agiles s’envolent joyeusement pour annoncer la bonne nouvelle qu’Hippolyte n’est pas mort. Ema Nikolovska lends her intense and vibrant voice to the character of Diane. A comforting character, she declaims the text as closely as possible to the theatrical intentions and her agile vocalisations joyfully take flight to announce the good news that Hippolyte is not dead.

    • ma Nikolovska déploie dans le rôle de Diane son soprano lumineux et homogène. Elle est également une des seules ce soir à faire preuve d’une prononciation à l’intelligibilité appréciable. Ema Nikolovska displays her luminous and homogeneous soprano in the role of Diana. She is also one of the few tonight to demonstrate an appreciably intelligible pronunciation.

  • Ema Nikolovska & Malcolm Martineau BBC Proms

    Cadogan Hall
    Sep 2021

    • Nikolovska is the possessor of a beautiful, versatile and technically assured instrument with gorgeous colours to it ... She has a winning and communicative persona ... Nikolovska gave a contained yet dramatic reading that made one eager to see her on the dramatic stage.

  • Leeds Lieder Gala

    Wigmore Hall
    Jun 2019

    • ...her exceptional communication and dramatic skill...was a tour de force of quite terrifying skill.

Discography