She has sung leading romantic roles opposite great artists like José Carreras, Mario del Monaco, Giuseppe Di Stefano, and Plácido Domingo.
Smiljanić studied singing at the Sarajevo Conservatory where she was a pupil of Bruna Spiler.
She made her professional opera debut at the Sarajevo National Theatre in 1965 as Đula in Jakov Gotovac's Ero s onoga svijeta.
She taught for more than 20 years at the University of Arts in Belgrade where one of her students was her own son, internationally acclaimed baritone Nikola Mijailović.
[2] She has been a member of the Managing Board of the leading Serbian media group Politika AD since 2009.