Read about Anthony Roth Costanzo

Anthony Roth Costanzo

Countertenor – Producer – Creator – Educator

'The countertenor voice exists on the fringes of the operatic mainstream, and opera itself is already a rarified form. Early on, it became clear to me that if I wanted to have a bigger impact, I was going to have to chart my own path. I grew up premiering new plays, performing musicals on Broadway, acting in films, and singing in ballets. My education at Princeton allowed me to absorb a diverse set of academic influences and put high value on innovative, out-of-the-box ideas. When I got my master’s degree at Manhattan School of Music, I spent two years laser-focused on the traditions, nuances, and innerworkings of classical singing that were central to its execution at the highest levels. To pay the bills during school, I wound up as the executive director of a dance company in New York, where I rapidly gained an understanding of successful creative producing and arts administration, be it curating, fundraising, marketing, management, budgeting, or engagement. The accumulation of all these experiences fueled a kind of cognitive dissonance when I started to have success as an opera singer. I saw that large cultural institutions had a unique megaphone that amplified brilliant artists and the beauty they radiate, but I also felt unfulfilled by the ways in which I saw that platform underutilized creatively and practically. My artistic and academic education made me value the crosspollination that comes from creating community, from interdisciplinary approaches, and from understanding and incorporating disparate perspectives, and yet those attributes were often absent. In short, a lot of the art being made wasn’t the art I wanted to see, and when it was, it wasn’t being shared in a way that was truly inclusive. The work I have gone on to do producing and creating performances, and working with large institutions to slowly and systematically change their outlook, centers around one goal: creating points of access. This consists of finding innovative ways for people to see a connection between themselves and an artform or a specific work, and also, crucially, for the codified industry and systems of classical art to be influenced by the voices of those that stand outside its confines. It is my belief that expanding outward in this way generates more creativity, deeper beauty, and makes the impact of art both wider-reaching and transformative. I summarize my performance accomplishments, my educational and advisory roles, and highlight select projects I’ve created below:'

• Opera: As an opera singer, Anthony Roth Costanzo has performed with opera companies around the world, including major roles at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, English National Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Los Angeles Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, Dallas Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, Spoleto Festival USA, Glimmerglass Festival, Finnish National Opera, Dallas Opera, Seattle Opera, Florida Grand Opera, New York City Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Boston Lyric Opera, Cincinnati Opera, and the White Lights Festival at Lincoln Center.

• Concert: In concert, he has performed as a soloist with leading orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, where Anthony will be the Artist-in-Residence for the 21-22 Season, The Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, NDR at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and the London Symphony Orchestra.

• Performance: Anthony has performed in a variety of other venues and contexts, including in a Merchant Ivory Film (Independent Spirit Award Nomination), on Broadway, at Versailles, Madison Square Garden, Carnegie Hall, Kabuki-Za Tokyo, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Joe’s Pub, The Park Avenue Armory, The National Performing Arts Center Beijing, and the Guggenheim.

• Producing: When producing and creating shows, Anthony Roth Costanzo conceive ideas, bring together artists, curate, fundraise, administrate, budget, market, and bring institutions together. He has created shows for Opera Philadelphia, The New York Philharmonic, National Sawdust, St. Ann’s Warehouse, WQXR, The State Theater in Salzburg, Kabuki-Za Tokyo, Master Voices, Princeton University, and Philharmonia Baroque. He also served as the executive director of Armitage Gone! Dance (led by Karole Armitage) for over 2 years.

• Education: He graduated with Matna Cum Laude from Princeton University where Anthony received the Lewis Sudler Prize in the Arts. Master’s Degree from Manhattan School of Music where he received the Hugh Ross Award for a singer of unusual promise.

• Awards: 2020 Beverly Sills Award from the Metropolitan Opera, 2020 Opera News Award, 2019 Vocalist of the Year from Musical America, 2019 Grammy Award Nominee for best Classical Solo Vocal, Grand Finals Winner of The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, First Place at Operalia, George London Award, Richard Tucker Career Grant, First Place and audience choice in the Houston Grand Opera Eleanor McCullom competition, a Sullivan Foundation Award, First Place in the Opera Index Competition, First Place in the National Opera Association Vocal Competition, First Place in the Jensen Foundation Competition, among others.

• Teaching: He was given a special appointment by the President of Princeton University to teach a course there and have appeared as a guest lecturer or teacher at many universities and conservatories including: Harvard University (college and Kennedy School), UCLA, Duke University, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College of Music at the New School, Columbia University, The Curtis Institute of Music, Bard College, Rice University, Notredame, Youngstown State University, Temple University, Brooklyn Music School, and Longy School of Music.

• Advisory Roles: Anthony sits on the Board of Trustees of Manhattan School of Music, the Advisory Council for the department of music at Princeton University, the Artistic Advisory Board of Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the Artistic Advisory Board of The Glimmerglass Festival, the Artistic Advisory Council of National Sawdust, the Board of Directors of American Opera Projects, the Advisory Board of the Brooklyn Music School, and the Advisory Board of the Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation.

SELECT PROJECTS:

• Bandwagon: In the midst of the pandemic, Anthony convinced the New York Philharmonic to launch an initiative he created called Bandwagon. It began with a small pickup truck bringing live music, by way of 81 pop-up concerts, to neighborhoods throughout all five boroughs. Crucially, they commissioned new works from composers whose voices expanded the cannon, and we partnered with organizations and individuals connected to communities we visited. Bandwagon became one of the most widely covered projects by the media in recent Philharmonic history, and also brought joy to thousands of people, many of whom had no relationship to the orchestra or to classical music. Anthony then expanded the initiative to create Bandwagon 2, changing the format to mini-festivals created in partnership with six community and arts organizations, delegating artistic stewardship to them. This meant that the Philharmonic was presenting poetry, dance, rock music, and more, centering artists that were not a part of the orchestra. They used the resources of the institution to generate art that went beyond their normal scope, and in so doing formed meaningful and sustainable bonds with communities, organizations, and artists across a diverse spectrum. Working with every department, these projects were able to make engagement not the side dish, but the main course.

• New York Philharmonic Artist-in-Residence: In his capacity as artist-in-residence with the Philharmonic next season, Anthony will have a chance to deepen the relationships established during Bandwagon and find ways to make them a fixture of the institution. He will also curate programming with the orchestra and music director Jaap van Zweden and will be involved in education and engagement. As part of the programming, Anthony has commissioned two texts from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, which will be set by two composers, Joel Thompson and Gregory Spears.

• Comet Poppea: Working with composer George Lewis, director Yuval Sharon, poet Douglas Kearny, designer Mimi Lien, producer Cath Brittan, The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, The American Modern Opera Company, Long Beach Opera, and the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation, Anthony spearheaded a project called Comet Poppea. The newly commissioned opera takes a W.E.B. Du Bois story as scored by Lewis and mashes it up with a Monteverdi opera. The project serves a nuanced rebuke of opera’s codified exclusion, but also celebrates its artistic form. It centers around issues of race in America, and juxtaposes them with structures of power in corrupt European society. The large-scale work will premiere in 2023

• Akhnaten at the Met: When bringing Philip Glass’ Akhnaten to the Metropolitan Opera, He knew he wanted to find a way to incorporate education, community engagement, and novel press and marketing strategies, to see if we could bring new audiences to a contemporary work and draw a line between engagement and ticket sales. After making a proposal to the Met’s education department, Anthony involved the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the Mannes Orchestra, the Brooklyn Museum, director Miguel Castillo, Gandini Juggling, and amateur jugglers from all over New York. They created a 30-minunte response piece to Akhnaten, and premiered it as a free performance that was part of Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturdays. They reached thousands of museum goers that day, many of whom wound up coming to the Met for the opera. More importantly, over a hundred kids involved were immersed in the music and themes of the opera and had agency in creating and expressing them in their own way. Anthony’s other efforts around unconventional press, marketing, and social media strategies constituted a year of preparation and work to maximize the impact. For example, he was able to convince a producer at Vox, a powerful entertainment website and YouTube channel with millions of young followers, to do an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to put on an opera like Akhnaten. The producer said that the only way it would be compelling was if they had access to orchestra and chorus rehearsals, dress rehearsals, and backstage goings on. While the Met has customarily reserved exclusive access for loyal press like the New York Times, together they were able to change the norm for an outlet like Vox, capitalizing on a singular opportunity to reach different audiences in a compelling way. The video went on to garner half a million views, and to create points of access for a new flock of opera goers. All these efforts combined helped propel us into a completely sold-out run, and one performance which holds the record as the best sold performance in Met history.

• Only an Octave Apart: As Anthony contemplated a second album with Decca Gold / Universal he wanted to find a way to inject some humor, and some contemporary poignancy into a classical record. Anthony reached out to the queer icon, and renowned trans performer, Justin Vivian Bond who, like Anthony, looks very different from the way they sound. Together they recorded an album with hysterical juxtapositions of high and low, both in terms of pitch and perceived echelon of music. Hearing their two voices and styles intertwine is surprisingly moving as it highlights questions about identity, and thoroughly entertaining as it shows the similarities between classical and popular idioms. Constructing a show around the album, Only an Octave Apart, helmed by Zack Winokur, they will reopen St. Ann’s Warehouse in the fall of 2021, and then take a version of it to the New York Philharmonic in 2022.

• Glass Handel: Anthony’s first album focused on the different forms of repetition that Glass and Handel both use to construct their music. The huge project he built around its release, Glass Handel, was an opportunity to capture “gateway audiences”, those interested in other forms of art but who might not have discovered opera. In order to lure them in, Anthony asked renowned artists in other fields to interpret the music in their medium. Nine filmmakers and artists, the likes of Mickalene Thomas, Tilda Swinton, James Ivory, and Maurizio Cattelan, made classical music videos that were both projected to accompany the live music, and served as digital assets to reach farther afield. Painter George Condo made a different painting on a huge canvass every night in tandem with the music. Choreographer Justin Peck devised a ten-minute dance phrase that was repeated with variations by a cast of luminary dancers. Fashion icon Raf Simmons made 500 costume pieces worn by the entire orchestra as well as a cast of performers who used dollies to move the audience around both vast spaces at the Barnes Foundation, and St. John the Divine. Collaborating with the art and fashion publication Visionaire, as well as with Opera Philadelphia, The Knights, National Sawdust, and the two venues, they were able to sell out 7 shows and bring in a diverse audience who came for the art, the film, the dance, or the fashion, and got to know the impact that opera can have.

• Tales of Genji: When Anthony met one of the greatest Kabuki writers of this generation, Shige Imai, he asked him if there was ever an attempt to fuse Kabuki and opera, both of which began at almost exactly the same moment in history on two different continents. Anthony subsequently developed and co-wrote a show with Imai based on The Tales of Genji which found a novel way to weave opera into the traditional artform of Kabuki. Superstar Ebizo Ichikawa headlined the production, and it was presented by the biggest purveyor of traditional Japanese performance in Japan, Shochiku in Kyoto at Minamiza and in Tokyo at Kabuki-Za. After three years of developing the show, not only did they go on to sell nearly 70,000 tickets, and introduce western opera to an audience, many of whom had never encountered it, but he became the first western performer to appear at Kabuki-Za, Japan’s principle Kabuki theater. Anthony was welcomed into an artform that is notoriously exclusionary, and he was able to incorporate Japanese traditions that he learned into his performance while, in turn, imparting some of my classical music methodology to their practice.

• American Modern Opera Company: In 2017, Anthony introduced director Zack Winokur and composer Matthew Aucoin, and they all began discussing how there was not an interdisciplinary company that represented the artistic approach and general aesthetic that we all shared. They began to assemble a diverse band, not only of opera singers, but also of pioneering instrumentalists, dancers, and choreographers and formed a company led by Zack and Matt. AMOC, as it is now called, will be the Ojai Festival’s music director in 2022, and since its founding, has performed at The Park Avenue Armory, Toronto’s Luminato Festival, Lincoln Center, The American Repertory Theater, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Caramoor Festival, The San Diego Symphony, the Guggenheim, the Clark Museum, Harvard University, and many other venues.

• The Double Life of Zefirino: After studying the lives and repertoire of the castrati intensively for two years at Princeton, Anthony wanted to create a performance that strung together forgotten repertoire of the baroque beasts with spoken dialogue and dance. It was an intersection of arts and academics. He was able to interest artists like choreographer Karole Armitage, film director and designer James Ivory, and architect Andrea Branzi, in collaborating to make a show with students from the university. After the music department told him that there was not a big enough budget to execute what Anthony had devised, he was able to recruit the participation of 11 different departments, and the help of some departmental discretionary funds, to bring it to fruition. Anthony also convinced the president of the university to fund a documentary about the process of creating the show, and subsequent filming in Italy to flesh out the academic and historical aspects of it. The resulting short-length documentary went on to win several festivals, was accepted at the Cannes Film Festival, and later aired on PBS affiliates.