Emiliya Boteva

Mezzo-soprano

At recent performance as Azucena at the Manitoba opera Gwenda Nemerofsky wrote, "Boteva was absolutely riveting; her dark smoky voice fulls of intense emotion, making us lives the story along with her. Her sizzling performance drew you to her whenever she stepped on stage. With her wild hair and powerful voice, she was a real showstopper."

Emilia Boteva started her carrier with Pipo in La Gazza Ladra, and Olga in Eugene Onegin at the Rousse State Opera in Bulgaria. Later her engagements have included the title roles of opera's most dramatic heroines as Azucena in Il Trovatore , Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera and Amneris in Aida.

In 2002 and 2003 at the Sofia National Opera she had the honour to perform Amneris in Aidawith Anna Tomova-Sintov, as well as Eboli in Don Carlos and Ulrica in Un Ballo in Mascherawith Ghena Dimitrova.

Her engagements include Welgunde and Rossweisse, (Das Rheingold, Die Walkure and Gotterdammerung), as well as Maddalena in Rigoletto, Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro and Teresa in Il Sonnambula for ABAO, Bilbao, Spain.

At the Las Palmas Opera, (ACO) in Spain, she sang Suzuki in the highly acclaimed production of Madama Butterfly, as well as Mercedes in Carmen and Third Lady in Die Zauberflote.

Emilia was born in the Ukraine and raised in Bulgaria. She received her high school degree from the National School of Arts Vesselin Stoyanov in Rousse, Bulgaria where she studied with Katrin Emilova; later she graduated from the National Academy of Music, Sofia, where she studied with Professor Elena Kisselova.

She had her Canadian debut in 2000 with Amneris in Aida for Opera Ontario. In 2003 she sang again for Opera Ontario in the Pop Opera. The same year she had her debut in Gala concerts for Montreal Opera, Quebec Opera and The Mississauga Symphony.

Along with her operatic commitments she has appeared widely in concerts with extensive oratorio and concert repertoire including Verdi and Mozart's Requiem, Pergolesi and Rossini's Stabat Mater, Vespres, Op.37 (Rachmaninoff). As a concert artist, she has toured Spain as soloist in Respighi's Il Tramonto, Falla's El Amor Brujo and Siete Canciones Populares Espanolas. In Salonica, Greece she performed Prokofiev's cantata Alexander Nevsky.

For the Off Centre of Music with Inna and Boris Zarankin in 2007 she performed the Canadian debut of Gavrilin's Russian Book.

Recordings include Mozart's Requiem with the National Bulgarian Radio Orchestra and Rachmaninoff's Vespres for the French National Radio-Lyon, as well as Aida with Anna Tomova-Sintov for Bulgarian Television.

Emilia made her home in Toronto with her husband and two sons.