BIOGRAPHY
Hailed as "a booming, well-crafted bass"
(Opera News) with a “strong presence,” (S.Fairbank) Chinese-American singer and librettist Robert Ellsworth Feng creates powerful performances from coast to coast.
Robert's 2024-2025 season begins as a Handorf Company Artist with Opera Memphis where he will be featured in their 30 Days of Opera and Variations on a Theme concert series, the Mozart Requiem (Bass Soloist), The Rake’s Progress (Nick Shadow), Soluri's Figaro's Last Hangover (Bartender), Carmen (Zuniga), and La Calisto (Giove). Feng will also join to Hawai’i Opera Theatre for their production of Carmen as Zuniga in 2025.
Performance highlights include La Bohème (Colline), An American Dream (Papa), Gianni Schicchi (Betto di Signa), Gasser/Harrison's The Secret Garden (Ben Weatherstaff), The Pirates of Penzance (Pirate King), Dichterliebe (Soloist), and Madama Butterfly (Bonze/Prince Yamadori) with Hawai'i Opera Theatre, the co-production of Prestini/Shaughnessy’s Sensorium Ex with Washington National Opera/Vision Into Art/Beth Morrison Projects, Robert le Diable (Bertram) with St.Johns in the Village, the Mozart Requiem (Bass Soloist) with Mid America Productions and the Glens Falls Symphony respectively, The Garden of Alice (Mad Hatter & Others) with City Lyric Opera, Roméo et Juliette (Frère Laurent), Fiddler on the Roof (Constable/Russian Solo), and the world premiere of Carl/Banks’ Harmony (Rev.Twichell) with Seagle Festival, Juana (Padre Antonio), Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria (Il Tempo), and Anna Bolena (Rochefort) with dell’Arte Opera Ensemble, and Les pêcheurs de perles (Nourabad) and Don Giovanni (Il Commendatore) with /Kor/ Productions.
Not limited to performing standard repertoire, Feng remains active in premiering and performing works by living composers. These include the aforementioned Harmony and Sensorium Ex, Yunfei Li’s Chew On This (Shou Zi Chew) with Lyric Opera of Kansas City/No Divide KC, Felix Jarrar's You do not recognize the bodies in the water (Body/Interviewer) at OPERA America, and Tony Small’s Qadar (Detective/Body Guard) with the Smithsonian Museum.
Robert placed first in the Dorothy Lincoln Smith Regional Voice Competition, first in the Mozart International Competition Vienna, second in the NY Classical Music Society International Voice Competition, third in the Beethoven Club of Memphis Savell Competition, third in the Lyra Mozart International Voice Competition, and third in the Opera for Earth Vocal Competition. Robert is also a recipient of the MI Opera Role Award, Seagle Festival Guild Scholarship, the George Woodhead Prize in Voice, and the Peabody Career Development Award.
Robert holds degrees from Peabody Conservatory and Manhattan School of Music. He is a proud alumnus of the Seagle Festival where he was an apprentice artist in 2021 and 2023, and the Hawai'i Opera Theatre Young Artist Program where was a resident artist between 2022-2024.
Photo by Drew Feng
Photo by Marlyn Woo and Joanne Wilborn
As a librettist, Feng creates impactful and entertaining works that have been described as “relatable and fresh.” His comedies are noted for being “quick-witted and layered”, and his horror as “hauntingly engaging.”
His goal is to help move this industry toward a more inclusive direction, where the stories we tell and who gets to tell them are as diverse as the audiences today.
Robert’s political satire micro-opera Chew On This premiered in June 2024, (with composer Yunfei Li) commissioned by Lyric Opera of Kansas City and No Divide KC for their Come As You Are (CAYA) Festival, described as “truly an operette for our times” (S. Fairbank).
Robert began writing libretti while attending the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where he collaborated with several composers to premiere their works including Terrence J. Martin’s song cycle “Projections” for bass voice and piano, and Nick Bentz’s monodrama “Mikylvxka Hllupo” for bass voice and Pierrot Ensemble.
Feng’s first opera (with composer Nick Bentz) Having Guests for Dinner is a 1-act horror/comedy. It premiered virtually with New Opera West in 2020 and has since been performed live with them as well as Hartford Opera Theater and Hillman Opera at SUNY
Fredonia in 2024 where a 90 min version was commissioned by Kor Productions. It will be performed at Central Washington University in October 2024 for their chamber opera showcase. Feng and Bentz’s second opera Salmo, a grand space opera in prologue and four
acts, was commissioned by Brown University for their 2026/27 Academic Year.
Feng has also collaborated with prolific NYC based composer Felix Jarrar on the art song When They Killed Us, Did You Say They Killed Americans? about the 2021 Atlanta Spa Shootings and rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the Covid Pandemic, and the supernatural horror opera You Do Not Recognize the Bodies in the Water, which was workshopped at OPERA America in 2022. Upcoming projects include the Sci-Fi operas There’s Something Wrong with Silvia Price and Pathfinder, to be set to music by Jamey Guzman and Jane Kozhevnikova respectively.
Robert holds degrees from Peabody Conservatory and Manhattan School of Music and is a recipient of the Peabody Career Development Award. Feng was a Librettist Fellow for Lyric Opera of KC and No Divide KC’s CAYA Festival Fellowship, and is an alum of Really Spicy Opera’s Aria Institute for Composers & Librettists: Sci-Fi Edition, and Librettist Workshop.