Robert Macfarlane
Tenor, Voice Teacher, Composer and Stage Director Robert Macfarlane enjoys a busy, multi-faceted career in works from the late renaissance to the present day. He studied at the Elder Conservatorium, The HMT Leipzig “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” and was a Young Artist of the National Opera of Lyon. He was also a protégée of the late, great German tenor Peter Schreier. He has won numerous awards including the 2020 Bayreuth Young Artist Award from the Wagner Society of Victoria. He holds a Bachelor of Music with 1st Class Honours, and will soon complete a Masters of Music Teaching at Victoria University.
Robert made his role debut as Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca in November 2024, signalling an exciting new direction towards more dramatic repertoire. 2025 will see Robert continue this trajectory with his debut as David in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for Melbourne Opera, and planned performances as Herod in Strauss’ Salome in Asia and the UK. Other recent roles include Tanzmeister in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos conducted by Simone Young, the Japanese Envoy in Robert Lepage’s production of Stravinsky’s The Nightingale (Adelaide Festival/Canadian Opera Company), Malcolm/Macduff in Bruce Beresford’s production of Verdi’s Macbeth, Pong in Puccini’s Turandot for New Zealand Opera, Bob Boles in Britten’s Peter Grimes for the Sydney Symphony (conducted by David Robertson) Eisslinger in Wagner’s Meistersinger for Opera Australia (conducted by Pietari Iniken)and his widely celebrated portrayal of Mime in the Melbourne Opera Ring Cycle directed by Suzanne Chaundy and conducted by Anthony Negus. For Melbourne Opera, his home company, he has also sung Arturo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Fatty (cover Jimmy) in Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and Loge (cover) in Wagner’s Das Rheingold. Robert has a passion for contemporary opera, and has created roles in works such as Luke Styles’ Ned Kelly (Perth Festival), Gordon Kerry’s Ingkata (Adelaide Festival) and sang the second performances of the late John Haddock’s masterpiece Madeline Lee (State Opera South Australia. He is equally at home in early music and has sung Orfeo/Apollo in Monteverdi’s Orfeo (Australian Brandenburg Opera), Hasse’s Semiramide Riconosciuta (Graz, Austria) and Haydn’s Infedelta Delusa (Weimar, Germany) and Judas in Handel’s Judas Maccabeus (Bari, Italy) to name just a few.
As a voice teacher, he has held posts at institutions such as Melbourne’s Monash University, and his students have gone on to be professional singers in their own right. In March 2025, he led a successful masterclass for the young artists of Opera Hong Kong with Soprano Elena Xanthoudakis. He continues to teach in his private studios internationally. His instructional videos on Instagram and YouTube have amassed more than 100,000 views, and his students are currently singing professionally in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America.
His concert work includes the Evangelist in the Passions of J.S Bach, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in C Minor, Missa Solemnis, Christus am Ölberge and 9th Symphony by Beethoven, Schubert’s Winterreise and the tenor works of Benjamin Britten for Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, New Zealand and Darwin Symphony Orchestras, the Magdeburg Philharmonie and Collegium 1704 (Prague). Important concert venues include the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Chapelle Royale Versailles, St. Thomas’ Church, Leipzig and the Sydney Opera House.
His work as a stage director has showcased a fascinating cross-disciplinary approach, with his dramatisation of Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri, Arms of Love, with Song Company and indigenous dance group Karul Projects being hailed ‘a revelation’ and his Circus and Schubert Lieder rumination on mortality More Guilty Than The Poet described as ‘Ingenious and thought-provoking’. Operatic credits as a director include Handel’s Radamisto (Sydney) and Acis and Galatea (Genesis Baroque) which was described as a ‘fantastically inventive theatrical transformation’. He will soon direct Britten’s Turn of the Screw for iOpera.
His original music, both classical and popular, has been performed all over the world and his hilarious Covid anthem ‘My Opera Career’s Over’ was a grand finalist and prize-winner in the 2021 International Songwriting Competition. He is a passionate teacher of singing and works with the methods of laryngeal depth and release pioneered by the great Italian voice technician Arturo Melocchi.
