Anthony Roth Costanzo


Anthony Roth Costanzo is an American countertenor. He began his career in musical theater at the age of 11. Costanzo is a graduate of Princeton University and of the Manhattan School of Music. In 2012, he won first place at the Operalia competition. In 2009, he was a Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. He has been an actor in film and a producer and curator. He is the designated general director and president of Opera Philadelphia, where he has instituted a flexible ticket pricing policy.
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Early life

Costanzo grew up in Durham, North Carolina. Both of Costanzo's parents were professors of psychology at Duke University. His mother was Hungarian-Jewish, and his father Italian.
Costanzo became active in the arts at a young age. He performed on Broadway and in Broadway national tours including A Christmas Carol, The Sound of Music, and Falsettos. He sang backup for Michael Jackson and the Olsen Twins, as well as a duet with Deborah Gibson. He began his opera career while still a teenager, performing the role of Miles in The Turn of the Screw. Costanzo also performed with Luciano Pavarotti in the Opera Extravaganza production by the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.

Education

Costanzo graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University in 2004 with a degree in music. He was awarded the Lewis Sudler prize in the arts. Costanzo frequently returns to Princeton to teach courses and master classes. After Princeton, Costanzo attended the Manhattan School of Music, where he received his Masters of Music and earned the Hugh Ross Award.

Career

Opera

Costanzo has appeared in numerous roles at the Metropolitan Opera. He has appeared as both Ferdinand and Prospero in the world premiere of The Enchanted Island. He also performed as Prince Orlofsky in a production of Die Fledermaus after making his debut as Unulfo in Rodelinda.
Costanzo has appeared in many venues throughout North America. He performed the title role in Philip Glass' Akhnaten at the English National Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, and again at The Metropolitan Opera in November and December 2019. He has also appeared with the San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Philadelphia, San Diego Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Palm Beach Opera, The North Carolina Opera, Cincinnati Opera, and as a guest with Juilliard Opera.
Internationally, Costanzo made his European debut at the Glyndebourne Festival in Rinaldo and later performed with the Canadian Opera Company. Costanzo appeared at the Teatro Real Madrid in Death in Venice in 2014, the English National Opera in The Indian Queen in 2015 and the Finnish National Opera in Kaija Sariaaho's Only the Sound Remains in 2017.
A champion of new works, Costanzo has created roles in Jimmy López's Bel Canto at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Jake Heggie's Great Scott at Dallas Opera. He has also premiered works written for him by Matthew Aucoin, Paola Prestini, Gregory Spears, Suzanne Farrin, Bernard Rands, Scott Wheeler, Mohammed Fairouz, Steve Mackey, and Nico Muhly.
In April 2024, Opera Philadelphia announced the appointment of Costanzo as its next general director and president, effective 1 June 2024, with an initial contract of three years.

Concert

In 2018 Costanzo made his concert debuts with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic in performances of György Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and directed by Peter Sellars. He sang Messiah at Carnegie Hall in 2009. Costanzo appeared in the New York Philharmonic's production of Le Grand Macabre in 2010. Costanzo performed Handel's Messiah, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and Orff's Carmina Burana with The Cleveland Orchestra.
Costanzo has also appeared in concert with the International Contemporary Ensemble at both the Mostly Mozart Festival and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Costanzo has also performed with Jordi Savall in Barcelona, Paris, and Versailles, with Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake at the Teatro Real, and the Spoleto Festival USA. He has also appeared with the San Francisco Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra, Trinity Church Wall Street, and the orchestras of Indianapolis, Detroit, Denver, Birmingham, and Seattle.

Collaboration

In 2018, Costanzo created an art installation with multimedia fashion and art company Visionaire, producer Cath Brittan, artist George Condo, fashion designer Raf Simons, choreographer Justin Peck, dancers David Hallberg and Patricia Delgado, and other artists including James Ivory, Pix Talarico, Maurizio Catellan, Pierpaolo Ferrari, Mark Romanek, Mickalene Thomas, Daniel Askill, AES+F, and Chen Tianzhuo. He recently helped create two unique collaborations with Kabuki and Noh actors in a presentation of The Tale of Genji, with sold-out runs in Tokyo and Kyoto. His has curated and produced two sold-out runs of performances for National Sawdust including Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, and Orphic Moments which traveled to the Salzburger Landestheater, and then Lincoln Center's Rose Theater with MasterVoices. At Princeton, Costanzo also created a pasticcio about castrati in collaboration with choreographer Karole Armitage and filmmaker James Ivory, which was chronicled by the documentarian Gerardo Puglia. The film was selected for the Cannes Film Festival and qualified for an Academy Award, airing on PBS affiliates.
In New York City, he has appeared in venues such as The Park Avenue Armory, Joe's Pub, The Guggenheim Museum, Le Poisson Rouge, Subculture, The Box Soho, Morgan Library & Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Miller Theater, The New York Public Library, and Madison Square Garden. In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Costanzo devised the 'NY Phil Bandwagon' project in collaboration with the New York Philharmonic, for small-scale, socially distanced outdoor concerts.
Costanzo was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his role of Francis in the Merchant Ivory film, A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries. He also played Simon in Brice Cauvin's film De Particulier a Particulier and portrayed Allen Ginsberg in the short film Starving Hysterical Naked.
In 2023, he collaborated with the group Princess Goes, made up of Michael C. Hall, Matt Katz-Bohen and Peter Yanowitz, on the track 'Saving Grace' for their second album 'Come of Age'.

Recordings

Costanzo is an exclusive recording artist for Decca Gold. His debut album, ARC, was released in 2018. It features backing from Les Violons du Roy under Jonathan Cohen's baton and consists of operatic works by Philip Glass and G.F. Handel. It was nominated for the 2019 Grammy Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.
Costanzo collaborated with cabaret artist Justin Vivian Bond on their show "Only An Octave Apart," which premiered at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn and went to London in the fall of 2022. They released an album of music by the same name.

Personal life

Costanzo is gay. He participated in the pride month event hosted by the Metropolitan Opera.

Major performances

Opera

Orchestra

Leadership roles