Serbian baritone Nikola Mijailovic has received accolades for his operatic and concert performances throughout the world. A versatile artists equally at home on both concert and opera stages, Mr. Mijailovic has collaborated with some of the most eminent conductors of our day including Giuseppe Sinopoli, Riccardo Muti, Leopold Hager, Zoltan Peszko, Stefano Ranzani, Arthur Fagen, Michail Jurowski, Nicola Luisotti to name a few.
Mr. Mijailovic was bom in Belgrade, Serbia in 1973. After taking a diploma in piano, he continued vocal studies at the University of Arts with his mother, a renowned serbian soprano Radmila Smiljanic. He shortly after made a debut at the age of 19 as Conte Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at the Vienna Conservatory in 1992., under the guidance of Ks. Waldemar Kmentt. He holds a Bachelor's Degree from the Vienna Conservatory and Master's Degree from Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with Galina Vishnevskaya, Edward Zambara and Michael Eliasen. In 1995 and 1996 he participated in Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, CA where he studied with Marilyn Horne. Nikola Mijailovic completed his studies at Academia di perfezionamento per cantanti lirici del Teatro alla Scala in Milano, under the vocal guidance of Leila Gencer and Luigi Alva in 1999.
Nikola Mijailovic is a World Winner of the 5th Luciano Pavarotti Intemational Voice Competition in Philadelphia in 1995, First Prize winner of Mario Lanza Competition in Philadelphia in 1994, and a Third Prize winner of Leyla Gencer Intemational Voice Competition in Istanbul in 1997.
Nikola Mijailovic made his professional debut at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow as Schaunard in Boheme in 1996, and sang Marcello next to Luciano Pavarotti's Rodolfo the same year in Academy of Music in Philadelphia. Since then, he appeared throughout the world in major opera houses of Milano, Verona, Venezia, Montreal, Hamburg, Hannover, Bonn, Dresden, Catania, Lima, Havana, Moscow, Rome, Vienna, Tokyo, Montpellier, Las Palmas, Malaga, Peking, Shanghai, Rotterdam, Raverma, Tel Aviv to name a few. His repertoire include around 40 major operatic roles such as Rigoletto, Jago, Conte di Luna, Eugen Onegin, Escamillo, Enrico, Belcore, Prigioniero, Macbeth, Posa among others, performed next to singers like Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Cura, Juan Diego Florez, Lucia Aliberti, Cristina Gallardo Domas, Ruggero Raimondi, Denia Mazzola Gavazzeni, Ian Storey and stage directors like Giancarlo del Monaco, Yuri Alexandrov, Giulio Chazalletes, Christoph Nell, to name a few. He has also appeared in concert perfomances of Carmina Burana (Rome, Ravenna, Pavia, Belgrade, Sarajevo), The Bells by Rachmaninoff (Milano), Messa di Gloria by Puccini (Lima, Belgrade), Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen by Mahler (Monte Carlo, Belgrade), Dichterliebe (Philadephia, Belgrade), Liebesliederwaltzer (Stresa) and gave recitals for Marilyn Home's Foundation in New York and Renata Scotto Opera Academy in Albissola with Giovanni Reggioli and Ridotto dei palchi in Teatro alla Scala with Roberto Negri.
In the past few seasons he has appeared as Jago in Peking, China and Craiova, Romania, Conte di Luna in Nürnberg, Nabucco in Belgrade, Germont in Copenhagen, Scarpia in Tokyo, Seoul, Leipzig and Sofia, Alfio and Scarpia on Sofia National Opera tour in Japan and Rigoletto in Leipzig, Belgrade and Novi Sad. Nikola Mijailovic has performed as Tonio and Alfio in Pagliacci and Cavalleria rusticana at the Summer Opera Festival in Heidenheim, Germany as well as Escamillo in Carmen in Poznan, Poland and Georges Germont in Traviata with the Sichuan Philharmonic in Chengdu, China. In July 2015 he has performed a title role in Verdi's Rigoletto at the Klosterneuburg Summer Festival near Vienna in Austria.
There are a few DVD's available on market with Nikola Mijailovic: Boheme (Luciano Pavarotti's staging from Teatro della Fortuna in Fano 2004), Samson et Dalila (Vlaamse Opera Antwerp 2009), Carmen (Color Line Arena Hamburg 2006) and CD's of Juan Diego Florez's Una furtiva lagrima (Decca 2002), Le Trouvere (Martina Franca 1998), Cassandra (Montpellier 2000), La volpe astuta (Teatro la Fenice Venezia 1999), Gli esiliati di Siberia (Montpellier 1999), Stabat Mater by Pergolesi (2000) and Sadko (Teatro la Fenice Venezia 2000).
Paralel to his singing carrier Nikola Mijailovic has been a full time professor at the Vocal department of the Faculty of Music at the University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia since 2003. Many of his students became professional opera singers and perform regulary at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Carnegie Hall, Salzburg Summer Festival, Vienna State Opera, Plzen Opera House in Czech Republic, Koburg in Germany, National Theater in Belgrade and Serbian National Theater in Novi Sad, among others.