©Photo: Matthu Placek

Anthony Roth Costanzo

Counter-tenor

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“Costanzo is a commanding vocal and stage presence. His Act 2 Hymn to the Sun was unforgettable – exposed, sotto voce but focused and utterly compelling; a man alone with his god.”
(Opera Magazine, April 2019)

Anthony Roth Costanzo was named Musical America’s 2019 Vocalist of the Year and in 2020 was honoured with both the Beverly Sills Award from the Metropolitan Opera and the Opera News Award. Grammy-nominated Costanzo came to international attention in 2010 when he took First Prize at Operalia, going on to cement his reputation as one of the most versatile, innovative and creative artists of his time through numerous high-profile debuts and trailblazing special projects.

A multifaceted and engaging performer, early European debuts took Costanzo to the Glyndebourne Festival as Eustazio (Rinaldo), Teatro Real Madrid as Apollo (Death in Venice), English National Opera as Ixbalanqué (Indian Queen), and Finnish National Opera as Spirit/Angel in Saariaho’s Only the sound remains. At home in the USA, recent operatic highlights include Giulio Cesare for Houston Grand Opera, Armindo (Partenope) at San Francisco Opera, and the world premiere of John Corigliano’s Lord of Cries at Santa Fe Opera in the summer of 2021, marking his Festival debut.

Anthony’s stand-out performances for English National Opera, the Metropolitan Opera and Los Angeles Opera as Philip Glass’ Akhnaten have earned him universal acclaim for his “touchingly vulnerable portrayal” (Telegraph). Costanzo reprises the role at The Met this season along with performances there in Rodelinda, and at Teatro Real Madrid in a new staging of Partenope, conducted by Ivor Bolton.

Excerpt from Le Grand Macabre © NDR Elbphilharmonie

During the pandemic, Costanzo conceived and produced the New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s Bandwagon initiative, an innovative and ongoing response which spontaneously takes its musicians to every borough of New York City, ensuring classical music continues to be heard. As the Orchestra’s artist-in-residence in the 2021/22 season, he curates and features in a series of special concerts with Jaap van Zweden and other collaborators as part of a two-week festival entitled “Authentic Selves: The Beauty Within”.

Elsewhere on the concert platform, Anthony has performed Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre under Sir Simon Rattle with both Berliner Philharmoniker and London Symphony Orchestra, and under Alan Gilbert with both NDR Elbphilharmonie and New York Philharmonic. With the Cleveland Orchestra he has sung Carmina Burana and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and he is a regular soloist in Handel’s Messiah, most recently at Carnegie Hall. Among other concert and recital appearances in North America and Europe this season, he re-opens New York’s St Ann’s Warehouse in a staged concert.

As an exclusive recording artist for Decca Gold, Anthony’s first album Glass Handel, in collaboration with Les Violons du Roy and Jonathan Cohen, was Grammy-nominated and launched to universal acclaim as a multi-disciplinary and immersive run of performances at Opera Philhadelphia and New York’s St John the Divine. His second album, a collaboration with Justin Vivian Bond, will be released in the winter of 2021.

A uniquely collaborative artist, Costanzo has been part of the creation of numerous special projects including The Tales of Genji that incorporated traditional Kabuki, Noh actors, dancers and western music and played to sold-out houses in Kyoto, and, as a member of their Artistic Council, two critically-acclaimed shows at New York’s National Sawdust: Aci, Galatea e Polifemo and and Matthew Aucoin’s Orphic Moments.

Gallery

The Hymn to the Sun extract, Akhnaten © Metropolitan Opera

Duparc: L’invitation au Voyage © WQXR

“Dionysus was written for the specific and spectacular gifts of Anthony Roth Costanzo, making his Santa Fe Opera debut. Mr Costanzo does not disappoint, deploying his warm countertenor with assurance and purpose…Anthony’s appealing instrument almost works against the nefarious intent of the character, but he is such an accomplished stage creature that he compensates with barely controlled menace.”

(Opera Today, July 2021)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo, as Dionysus, applied the same steely sensuousness”

(The New Yorker, July 2021)

“Superstar Anthony Roth Costanzo, with his flamboyant stage presence, captures the mysterious and supernatural nature of the demigod, capable of charming and later destroying. This type of androgynous voice could not be better suited for the role.”

(ConcertoNet, July 2021)

“The role of Dionysus was written specifically for Costanzo and he supplied just the right degree of androgynous otherworldliness for the part, never venturing into caricature. His voice, secure and powerful, cast a spell on the room.”

(Classical Voice North America, July 2021)

“Of course it helps when the countertenor is Anthony Roth Costanzo. [His voice] filled the huge Met theatre admirably and eerily.”

(Opera Mag, Jan 2020)

“Mr Costanzo sings the opening phrases of a hymn of acceptance with gleaming high notes and melting sound the cut through the orchestra with surprising ease…Mr Costanzo sings with exceptional tenderness while bringing out inflections in the music that hint at the character’s isolation and insecurity.”

(Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, Nov 2019)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo was a perfect choice, as he is a distinctive artist with a flair for self-presentation and a firm, light voice, which projects power without ever letting the audience forget the underlying vulnerability of his own naked body beneath the robes.”

(Anne Midgette, Washington Post, Nov 2019)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo repeats his eerie, evocative countertenor singing in the title role”

(FT, Nov 2019)

“Costanzo has a remarkable control over dynamics, more-so than most countertenors, and this makes him a more dramatic singer than others. Listening to the soft, sweet “Lascia ch’io pianga”, the words sewn together with an impeccable legato, one is touched by sadness…The vengeance aria “Vivi, tiranno” from Rodelinda is delivered with passion and rage. Cascades of perfectly placed notes, flawless diction, trills and endless breath turn this into the showpiece it ought to be.”

(Classics Today, April 2019)

“Costanzo is a commanding vocal and stage presence. His Act 2 Hymn to the Sun was unforgettable – exposed, sotto voce but focused and utterly compelling; a man alone with his god.”

(Opera Magazine, April 2019)

“Very few singers can bring such high-calibre acting to a concert appearance as does the American countertenor…Costanzo conveyed overwhelming despair and longing in Tolomeo’s gut-wrenching poison aria, “Stille amare.” In “Vivi, tiranno” from Handel’s Rodelinda, Costanzo’s runs built on one another to tell a story that mirrored the exasperated drama of the text”

(Opera News, March 2019)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo sings Akhnaten with a penetrating countertenor that can fill the theatre.”

(Financial Times, Richard Fairman, February 2019)

“… as dignified and vulnerable in his robes of state as he is in his nakedness. His protracted death scene is weirdly moving.”

(Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, February 2019)

“In the title role, the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo acts with fabulous control and sings with an otherworldly bareness of tone that captures the Pharoah’s increasing remoteness from his warring nation.”

(The Guardian, February 2019)

“Costanzo convinces us that the aria couldn’t be sung any other way…The album is engaging from first note to last.”

(Opera News, Critics Choice, January 2019)

“The Costanzo countertenor is remarkable for its purity, sweetness, its ethereal, rather disembodied sound, not to mention an exemplary capability for fioritura…This discis a pleasure and one of the best countertenor albums in recent memory.”

(Opera Canada, January 2019)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo’s sexless, disembodied countertenor is exactly right for the Voice of Apollo”

(George Hall , Opera Magazine, February 2019)

“With so much going on, one might have wondered where to look, except for the fact that Costanzo, with his charisma, sensitivity, plangent sound and communicative power, magnetized attention. He alone would have been more than enough, but it’s unlikely that many audience members had any regrets about being treated to this excessive, ultimately joyous experience.”

(Opera Magzine, December 2018)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo – his countertenor ample, generous and characterful – brings real vocal brilliance to the roll of Roane, the stage manager.”

(Opera Magazine, September 2018)

“Star countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo created a frightening and compelling Nero. He caressed notes and phrases with an exquisite attention that was never pretentious…hurling out vocal runs and high notes as breathtaking as they were chilling. His lithe presence and catlike grace endowed Nero with even more menace.”

(Cincinnati City Beat, June 2018)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo’s portrayal of Nero, the tyrannical emperor of Rome, was searing.”

(Cincinnati Business Courier, June 2018)

Anthony Roth Costanzo, making his Florida Grand Opera debut as Orfeo, scored a triumph with his strong, sustained singing, and some hauntingly beautiful piannissimi in ‘Che faro senza Euridice.’ Blessed with natural acting abilities, and using lithe movements, he achieved a complete characterization.”

(Opera, August 2018)

“In a star turn, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo dominated the stage, giving a memorable vocal and dramatic performance as Orfeo…his voice is large and voluptuous. Costanzo’s trills and ornaments were assayed with spot-on accuracy in a voice that is superbly controlled”

(South Florida Classical Review, March 2018)

“As the Boy and First Angel, the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo adroitly navigates the luminous and piercing, the gentle and chilly sides of his two-sided character.”

(Zachary Woolfe, New York Times, February 2018)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo cut the air with his first, unnerving note. He gave his sound cottony softness for intimate moments, but brought back its thrilling steel for dramatic crises.”

(Bachtrack, February 2018)

“Agile and athletic, Costanzo fills the Resilience Theater with a commanding Caesar, able to blaze through Handel’s fiendish coloratura with breath to spare, then quieting the house with subdued ardour when wooing his Cleopatra.”

(Houston Press, October 2017)

“Leading the countertenor charge was the handsome, charismatic Anthony Roth Costanzo, who dug fearlessly into Caesar’s wide dramatic and musical range. His pointed, clear-toned voice was haunting in his Act 3 lament, then thrilling as he dispatched slithery melismas with abandon in ‘Quel torrent, che cade dal monte’

(Houston Chronicle, October 2017)

“as usual, Costanzo was extraordinary. He sang with plush yet virile sound while merging into his character, holding back nothing.”

(Anthony Tommasini, New York Times, July 2017)

“Costanzo’s voice is still very much in its prime, but since the time when he first dazzled audiences, at The Met in 2011, it has acquired a touch of grit in its lower reaches, and a bit of a wild edge on top.”

( The New Yorker, July 2017)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo put his penetrating countertenor and astringent diction to find use as the petulant Prince Go-Go”

( Classical Source, January 2017)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo gives Prince Go-Go luminous pathos”

(The Arts Desk, January 2017)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo stood out as Prince Go-Go as his countertenor displayed exceptional style and precision.”

(Music OMH, January 2017)

“Costanzo captures perfectly the other-worldliness and sexual ambivalence of Akhnaten.”

(San Francisco Classical Voice, November 2016)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo shone with a beautiful, penetrating countertenor as Akhnaten”

(Classical Voice North America, November 2016)

“Dulcet-voiced countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo sang Roane with bell-like tones”

(Opera Today, May 2016)

“Costanzo was vocally impressive and dramatically engaging as Scott’s close chum Roane Heckle.”

(Bachtrack, May 2016)

“Anthony Roth Costanzo was touchingly vulnerably”

(Telegraph, March 2016)

“Costanzo brings to the title role a voice that packs more raw power than any countertenor I can remember”

(Bachtrack, March 2016)

“As Akhnaten, Costanzo seemed perfect for the role, his voice not only blessed with the requisite strength, but also of a decidedly otherworldly quality.”

(Seen & Heard, March 2016)

“Leading the cast is the American countertenor, Anthony Roth Costanzo, whose ethereal tones embody the doomed Akhnaten.”

(The Stage, March 2016)