Emma Ritto

• Recipient of the 2023 UK International Music Competition's Absolute First Prize in the Modern B category.
• Librettist of the new operatic work, The Promise, which first premiered at the Envision Vocal Conservatory at CCA in 2019.

Emma Ritto, soprano, is a first year graduate degree student at Manhattan School of Music under the instruction of Ruth Golden. Originally from Rancho Santa Fe, California, she began her music studies at the young age of four. Performing in musical theatre productions throughout her childhood, she began to train in classical voice at the age of fourteen after entering the Canyon Crest Academy’s Envision Vocal Conservatory. During her time at the conservatory she did scene work at the Lamplighter’s Gilbert & Sullivan Scenes Program which included Patience from Patience. She also attended the NYU Steinhardt Classical Voice Intensive in 2018. At the end of her time at the conservatory she produced, directed, and wrote the libretto for a new operatic work entitled The Promise, which premiered in February of 2019 at the institution. Afterwards, she went on to attend the Curtis Mikael Eliasen Voice Program during the summer of 2019 before beginning her studies at the Manhattan School of Music later that same year.

While at MSM she performed scenes from Offenbach’s La Périchole starring as La Périchole and Viardot’s Cendrillon as the role of Le Prince Charmant in 2022. Attending the Respiro NYC 2022 Summer Vocal Intensive, she performed scenes from both Massenet’s Werther as Sophie and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro as Susanna. In January of 2023 she published her first poetry collection entitled Passion and The Shadow and later went on to star as Lucano in the Manhattan School of Music’s Undergraduate Opera Theatre production of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea in May of the same year. Her most recent performance was as Barbarina in the Saluzzo Opera Academy’s production of Le Nozze di Figaro in July of 2023

Moving forward, she will be continuing her studies at the Manhattan School of Music in pursuit of her Master's degree.