Emma Matthews

soprano

“...Holding a large audience utterly captivated for two hours, she luxuriated in an emotionally diverse, technically demanding and delightfully vivacious program... With an earthy lower register and a glittering coloratura that combines strength, control, agility and a vast expressive range, Matthews is not so much vocalist as instrument: a whole-of-body conduit for ideas and emotions. She inhabits roles completely, with vivid vocal characterisation and nuanced inflection” 

- Eamonn Kelly, The Australian, April 17, 2017

Australia’s most highly awarded soprano, Emma Matthews performs with all the Australian opera companies, orchestras and festivals, and is Head of Classical Voice and Opera Studies at West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Perth. She has won seven Helpmann Awards, nine Green Room Awards, the Remy Martin Australian Opera Award and Limelight Awards for Music Personality of the Year and Australian Artist of the Year.

Her  repertoire includes the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Opera Australia); for Opera Australia: Lulu, Lakmé, Lucia di Lammermoor, Partenope, (title roles); Amina (La sonnambula), Philomele (The Love of the Nightingale), the four heroines (The Tales of Hoffmann), Violetta (La traviata), Fiorilla (The Turk in Italy), Gilda (Rigoletto), Giulietta (I Capuletti e i Montecchi), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), Almirena (Rinaldo), Morgana (Alcina), Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Juliette (Roméo et Juliette), Marie (La fille du regiment), Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Pamina (The Magic Flute), Zwaantie (Batavia), Leila (The Pearlfishers), Rosina (The Barber of Seville).

Other highlights have included Mahler’s Symphony no. 4 with Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo conducted by Yakov Kreizberg and with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Ismene (Mitridate) for Sydney Festival.

Emma’s recordings include Emma Matthews in Monte Carlo (Deutsche Grammophon/ABC Classics), Mozart Arias and Agony and Ecstasy (ABC Classics) and Opera Australia productions of La traviata and Lakmé on DVD. 

Representation: World

Emma’s Personal Site