Leow Siak Fah, born and raised in Malaysia, was known as a pioneer of Western Opera in Singapore. A Western-Opera lover and a successful businessman, he established himself over the decades as a serious amateur opera singer, director, producer and presenter through the three pioneering Western Opera companies he founded—the Liberal Arts Society in Kuala Lumpur in the early ’60s; Singapore’s first Western Opera company, the Singapore Lyric Opera (SLO) in 1990; followed by OperaViva in 2008. With OperaViva, founded together with playwright-poet and librettist Robert Yeo and composer John Sharpley, he created Singapore opera featuring local narratives and music by Singapore librettists and composers.

Leow Siak Fah was born and raised in Malaysia where he got his first taste of the stage starring in a school Shakespeare production in 1955. He was also an avid listener of pop songs, but movies starring popular tenor Mario Lanza soon introduced him to opera music. These experiences growing up would come to influence his life significantly.

As a young man, he studied in London for a period of time. While there in 1956, he attended his first opera Madame Butterfly, and since then, he never looked back and went on to bigger things in opera, becoming a performer, producer, director and presenter.

After his studies in London, Leow studied law at the University of Singapore and upon graduation, was called to the Malaysian Bar. While back in Malaysia in the early ’60s, he founded the Liberal Arts Society in Kuala Lumpur and directed, performed in and staged several operettas and works of musical theatre. Later on, he took private voice lessons and travelled to London and Rome to be trained by renowned Hungarian singer and coach Vera Roza and Italian tenor Angelo Marenzi respectively.

After relocating to Singapore, Leow established himself as a businessman as well as a serious amateur opera singer. His early involvement in Singapore productions included 1982’s landmark multilingual The Samseng and the Chettiar’s Daughter, which starred Leow in the lead role of The Samseng and Alex and Jacintha Abisheganaden as The Chettiar and his Daughter—staged at the 1982 Singapore Arts Festival. He also performed in, produced and directed many operas for the National University of Singapore Society (NUSS) and the National Theatre Trust.

Encouraged by the small but passionate band of fellow opera enthusiasts he met in his experiences with NUSS and National Theatre Trust and keen to create more performing opportunities for opera amateurs, Leow founded the Singapore Lyric Theatre (subsequently renamed Singapore Lyric Opera (SLO) under the auspices of NUSS in 1990) with Toh Weng Cheong, Choo Hwee Lim and Lim Yau. This was Singapore’s first professional opera company and aimed to promote and present Western Opera in Singapore. Funding for the company in its early days came from Leow’s own pocket and he headed the society as Chairman for many years while producing and directing most of its productions and performing in major tenor roles. He also invited many Filipino and other Asian opera talents to perform alongside Singapore performers in SLO’s productions and initiated collaborations with several Asian opera companies.

With and outside of SLO, he directed The Merry Widow in Penang and Ipoh, Gounod’s Faust for the Singapore Arts Festival and Tosca in Chengdu with the Sichuanese Opera Troupe. He also produced the first Singapore Western-styled opera, Leong Yoon Pin’s Bunga Mawar (based on a libretto by Edwin Thumboo), Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, Puccini’s La Boheme, Il Trovatore (in collaboration with the Philippines Symphony Orchestra) and Carmen.

In the late 2000s, Leow stepped down from his role as SLO Chairman. In 2008, encouraged by new SLO Chairman Toh Weng Cheong and together with composer John Sharpley and playwright-poet Robert Yeo, he established OperaViva, Singapore’s second opera company. It aimed to complement SLO by focusing on early (baroque) and contemporary opera, operettas and musicals as well as works by Singapore and Asian composers and librettists. John Sharpley serves as OperaViva’s artistic director while its main librettist is the poet Robert Yeo who in 2004 wrote Fences, an opera set in tumultuous 1960s Singapore and Malaysia.

Leow continued to serve as director and honorary advisor to SLO. In 2010, at SLO’s 20th anniversary gala featuring highlights from twenty operas, operettas and musicals, he gave a spirited reprisal of roles he had sung in his younger days such as Don Jose (Carmen), Count Danilo (The Merry Widow), Tevye (Fiddler On The Roof) and The Student Prince.

For his contributions to opera in Singapore, Leow received the Bintang Bakti Masyarakat (Public Service Star) in 1996, the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award in 2000, the Champion of the Arts Award in 2003, and the Arts Supporter Award in 2012.

Apart from the arts, Leow had over 50 years of experience in the insurance industry. He was the executive Chairman of the international insurance establishment, Citystate Management Group Holdings Pte Ltd, and founded many insurance companies in several countries.

Leow did not see any distinction between his life in insurance and in the arts. He believed in pursuing his passions to the fullest, and he found great pleasure in seeing an opera audience rapt with attention and enjoying themselves.

On 14 Apr 2015, Leow passed away from illness in Germany at the age of 75.