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 continues as a Handorf Company Artist with Opera Memphis where he will be featured in their remount of La Calisto as Giove during the Opera America Conference. Feng will also join Chautauqua Opera Company as an Apprentice Artist performing the roles of Benoît/Alcindoro in La Bohème, Ensemble in Missy Mazzoli’s Lincoln in the Bardo and Ensemble in Jeremy Gill’s Sitcom. Most recently, Robert participated in the Joyce DiDonato Masterclass at Carnegie Hall.

Performance highlights include The Rake’s Progress (Nick Shadow) and Carmen (Zuniga) with Opera Memphis, La bohème (Colline), An American Dream (Papa), Carmen (Zuniga), 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 at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts/Vision Into Art/Beth Morrison Projects, Robert le Diable (Bertram) with St. John's 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), and the world premiere of Carl/Banks’ Harmony (Rev.Joseph Twichell) with Seagle Festival, Lucero/Gaspar de Alba's Juana (Padre Antonio), Il ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria (Il Tempo), and Anna Bolena (Rochefort) with Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble, Les pêcheurs de perles (Nourabad) and Don Giovanni (Il Commendatore) with Kor Productions, and Prince Igor (Khan Konchak) with Russian Opera Workshop. 

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.

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). Chew on This is part of the Silk Roads Trilogy: a collection of semi-factual stories of Asians in America.

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 supernatural horror opera You Do Not Recognize the Bodies in the Water, workshopped at OPERA America in 2022. Upcoming projects include Extinction Event, a one-act opera to be set to music with Meilina Tsui, the Sci-Fi operetta Pathfinder, to be set to music by Jane Kozhevnikova, Annihilation: A Nuclear Oratorio for the End of Days to be set to music by Scott Wheeler, and The Ming and I, commissioned by Boston Opera Collective for their 2026 Opera Bites Showcase to be set to music by Ben Yee-Paulson. Feng will join the Alliance of New Music-Theatre for their Composer/Librettist Lab in June 2025.

Robert is the Grand Prize winner of the 2025 Burbank Philharmonic Hennings-Fischer Young Artist Competition, and the first place winner of the Martorella Scholarship in Classical Voice (HI Chapter), the Dorothy Lincoln Smith Regional Voice Competition (HI Chapter), and the Mozart International Competition Vienna. Feng also placed second in the NY Classical Music Society International Voice Competition, third in the Beethoven Club of Memphis Savell Vocal Competition, third in the Lyra Mozart International Voice Competition, and third in the Opera for Earth Vocal Competition.

Robert holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University - Peabody Institue and Manhattan School of Music. Robert is an alum of the Seagle Festival and Hawai'i Opera Theatre's Young Artist Program. Additionally, Feng was a Librettist Fellow for Lyric Opera of Kansas City 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.