For Bass-Baritone, a Welcomed High Note
Posted on November 21, 2025
Playing football at Theodore High School, just south of Mobile, and driving race cars at Mobile International Speedway, Nick Brownlee never dreamed he would grow up to be Nicholas Brownlee, international opera star.
And yet here he is, newly crowned as 2025 Male Singer of the Year at November’s International Opera Awards in Athens, Greece. During the livestreamed ceremony in Athens, Greece, Brownlee sang the aria “Te Deum” from Giacomo Puccini’s opera “Tosca.” His performance as the villainous, love-tortured police chief Scarpia earned an ovation from the audience.
As a bass-baritone, he has to maintain the richness of his voice even in its lowest register. The average operatic role for a tenor or soprano requires about an octave and a fourth of range, he said. “Every role that I sing, it’s a two-octave range. For me, man, that’s thrilling. I love that challenge.”
Earlier this year, he won the prestigious 2025 Richard Tucker Award, given to an American singer considered to be on the verge of superstardom.
Receiving that honor felt especially gratifying, Brownlee said, and not just because of the $50,000 cash prize. “They don’t give it every year,” he said. “It’s one of those awards where, if they don’t deem someone worthy of it, they don’t give it out.”
Brownlee spoke from his apartment in Frankfurt, Germany, where he lives with his opera-singer wife, American mezzo-soprano Jennifer Feinstein, and young daughters Madeline and Lillian. The location, near the Frankfurt Airport, is strategic. Several times each month, he, Jennifer or both will travel to performing engagements. (He’s currently booked into 2032.)
To make such a hectic life manageable, he narrows his focus to whatever he has to do next. “If I fly back home on a Monday,” he said, “I don’t think about that next plane flight on Wednesday morning, or I will spiral into a puddle.”
Two things provide the joy that keeps him going: intimate moments like joining Jennifer in putting Madeline and Lillian to bed — and stepping out onto the stage.
He grew up in tiny St. Elmo, Alabama, near the Mississippi line. “To this day, we don’t have internet in my family home.”
Music caught his attention when he joined the high school choir. “It was like finding my people for the first time,” he said. “My dark, weird humor was accepted, and my spazzy, crazy, no-filter brain.”
The choir director, Karen Combs, further enriched his life. “She was the one who introduced me to classical music. She saw the light in my eyes.” Combs, who died in 2023, held Bachelor of Music and Master of Education degrees from South. She lent him CDs for listening at home and discussed them with him afterward.
Brownlee enrolled at South with the intention of becoming a conductor. Then Dr. Thomas Rowell, professor of music, intervened. “It’s impossible to overstate his importance in my life,” Brownlee said. “He married my wife and me. The guy’s as close to me as any other human in the world.”
Rowell steered him toward performing. He enticed Brownlee to sing in the chorus of an opera. The $500 payment clinched the deal. So, Brownlee said, “The first opera that I ever saw, I was in.”
It was Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata,” the tragic tale of a high-class Parisian courtesan who finds true love but, alas, too late. “There’s this beautiful death scene at the end of ‘Traviata,’” Brownlee said, “and it just moved me beyond belief.”
He still gets a thrill whenever he takes the stage. “Every single time I do it — and I really mean this from the bottom of my heart — it is a deep honor and a privilege.
“I feel incredibly, incredibly lucky.”
