The daughter of an international lawyer, Eames was born in Shanghai, China, and raised in Portland and Bath in the American state of Maine.

Eames made her professional operatic debut in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at the Paris Opéra's headquarters, the Palais Garnier, in 1889.

(She agreed to sing again in Paris in 1904, in a benefit performance of Puccini's Tosca, but this production was staged at La Salle Favart rather than the Palais Garnier.)

She sang there intermittently from 1891 to 1901 and established herself as a genuine rival to Covent Garden's reigning diva, Nellie Melba, whom she heartily disliked.

[6] Covent Garden: Gounod's Faust, April 7, 1891: "debut... immediate and very great success... middle notes of the voice, which have a peculiarly beautiful quality... approaching the timbre of the mezzo-soprano... the organ as a whole, though exceedingly sweet, is not very powerful, but the singer's method leaves nothing to desire, and her execution of brilliant passages is neat and accurate... [and although] no very striking amount of tragic power... charming and sincerely artistic".

Emma Eames sings and acts most charmingly as Charlotte ... the beautiful quality of the singer's lower notes.. her performance was entirely successful".

It began as a purely lyric instrument but increased in size over time, enabling her to sing parts as heavy as Aida, Sieglinde, Santuzza and Tosca in large auditoriums.

In addition to Tosca and Romeo et Juliette, Eames' repertoire featured a comparatively small but stylistically diverse group of operas, ranging from works composed by Mozart, through Verdi and Wagner, to Mascagni.

Eames married twice, firstly to a society painter named Julian Russell Story, and then to the famous concert baritone Emilio de Gogorza, with whom she made some records of duets.

Her niece, actress Clare Eames, was the first wife of the noted playwright and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Sidney Howard.