BIO
Soprano, Emma Marhefka, is a rising young artist praised for her “charismatic sound” and natural ability on stage. In her upcoming season, she will make her Santa Fe Opera debut singing Musetta in La bohème as a second year Apprentice Singer. She will also join the Arizona Opera as a Marion Roose Pullin Studio Artist, singing Musetta in La bohème, A Priestess in Aida, and Sandrina in La finta giardiniera. Following her time in Arizona, she will debut with Opera Montana as Gretel in Hansel and Gretel
This past summer, Emma joined the Santa Fe Opera as an Apprentice Singer where she covered Adina (L’elisir d’amore), and performed in the Apprentice Scenes as Nannetta (Falstaff). She ended the season as a recipient of the 2024 Outstanding First Year Apprentice Award.
Emma made her professional debut in 2022 singing Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi with Opera Tampa. That same season, she also appeared as a studio artist with Wolf Trap Opera where she covered Ännchen in Der Freischütz. She returned to Wolf Trap in spring 2024 to sing the role of Sophia in Emily: A Musical Portrait - a chamber opera about Emily Dickenson performed in collaboration with the company’s Chamber Music at the Barns series. In the summer of 2023, Emma performed the role of Frasquita in Carmen as an Apprentice Artist with Des Moines Metro Opera and was a soloist with the Kentucky Symphony and the Ocean City Pops.
A passionate lover and advocate for new opera, Emma premiered the role of Valeria in Tom Cipullo’s opera Mayo while an undergraduate. She has since gone on to perform the role of Younger Alyce in Cipullo’s Glory Denied with Knoxville Opera and Opera Roanoke. She sang the role of Mary Johnson in Gregory Spears’s Fellow Travelers at CCM and sang roles in Cincinnati Opera’s Opera Fusion: New Works workshop of Robeson/Moscow by Scott Davenport Richards. Other notable roles from her time at CCM include Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, The Vixen in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, her first Czech role, and Sandrina in Mozart’s La finta giardiniera.
In competition, Emma has been a multi-time Regional Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition and is a two-time winner in the Corbett Opera Scholarship Competition. Additionally, she was selected as a finalist in the Houston Grand Opera’s 2023 Eleanor McCollum Competition.
Emma recently left Cincinnati, OH where she was in pursuit of an Artist Diploma from the University of Cincinnati – College Conservatory of Music(CCM). Originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania, she holds a Master of Music from CCM and a Bachelor of Music from The Crane School of Music – SUNY Potsdam.