Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo began performing professionally at the age of 11 and has since appeared in opera, concert, recital, film, and on Broadway. He is a recipient of the 2020 Beverly Sills Award from the Metropolitan Opera, and a winner of the 2020 Opera News Award.
This season, Mr. Costanzo makes his debut at the Paris Opera in Thomas Adès’ The Exterminating Angel and returns to the Metropolitan Opera as the title role in Orfeo ed Euridice following two sold-out runs of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten. He also returns to the Teatro Real as Medoro in Orlando and the Santa Fe Opera for the world premiere of The Righteous by Greg Spears. His many concerts this season include his debut at the famed Wigmore Hall in London, recitals at the Kennedy Center, the Phillips Club, and at Boston’s Jordan Hall, his critically acclaimed show Only an Octave Apart with Justin Vivian Bond in Dublin, a performance with the Met Opera Chamber Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, and appearances with the Cincinnati Symphony, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, and as part of the inaugural season of the Perelman Center in NYC. Additionally, he will give lectures at Harvard University as this year’s Christoph Wolff Distinguished Visiting Scholar.
Mr. Costanzo has appeared with many of the world’s leading opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, English National 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 (where he served as the 2023 Artist in Residence), and Finnish National Opera.
In concert he has sung with the New York Philharmonic (where he was named The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence for the 2021-22 season), The Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Boston Baroque, Berlin Philharmonic, NDR at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and the London Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has also been presented in recital in Vancouver, Princeton University Concerts, Duke Performances, and at the Morgan Library in New York. He has performed at a wide-ranging variety of venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Versailles, The Kennedy Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Sawdust, Minamiza Kyoto, Joe’s Pub, The Guggenheim, The Park Avenue Armory, and Madison Square Garden.
Mr. Costanzo is an exclusive recording artist with Decca Gold. His most recent album, Anthony Roth Costanzo & Justin Vivian Bond: Only an Octave Apart was released in January 2022. His first solo album, ARC was released in September 2018 and nominated for the 2019 GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. He also stars on the Metropolitan Opera’s recording and DVD of Akhnaten which won the 2022 GRAMMY® Award for Best Opera Recording.
A champion of new work, Mr. Costanzo created roles in the world premieres of John Corigliano’s The Lord of Cries at the Santa Fe Opera, Jimmy Lopez's Bel Canto at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Jake Heggie's Great Scott at the Dallas Opera. He has also premiered works written for him by Joel Thompson, Matthew Aucoin, Paola Prestini, Gregory Spears, Viet Cuong, Suzanne Farrin, Bernard Rands, Scott Wheeler, Mohammed Fairouz, Steve Mackey, and Nico Muhly.
Mr. Costanzo has begun working as a producer and curator in addition to his singing, creating shows for The New York Philharmonic, Opera Philadelphia, National Sawdust, the Philharmonia Baroque, The Barnes Foundation, St. John The Divine, Princeton University, WQXR, The State Theater in Salzburg, Master Voices and Kabuki-Za Tokyo. During the 2020-21 season, he created and produced the New York Philharmonic’s Bandwagon initiative, the orchestra’s innovative response to the pandemic. It began with 81 impromptu concerts in all five boroughs of New York City, where Mr. Costanzo, musicians from the orchestra, and other special guests performed a wide range of repertoire, including world-premiere commissions. It evolved into a series of festivals created with partner organizations throughout the city, which utilizes the resources of the Philharmonic to center and amplify the voices of the community. In film, he played Francis in the Merchant Ivory film, A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, for which he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, and Simon in Brice Cauvin’s De particulier a particulier. He is also the first countertenor to host Met Opera Live in HD Broadcasts.
Named 2019 Musical America Vocalist of the Year, Mr. Costanzo’s many other awards include first place in the 2012 Operalia competition, a Grand Finals Winner of the 2009 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, a George London Award, a career grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation, and the first countertenor to win First Place in the Houston Grand Opera Eleanor McCullom competition, where he also won the audience choice prize. He has also received a Sullivan Foundation Award, and won First Place in the Opera Index Competition, the National Opera Association Vocal Competition, and the Jensen Foundation Competition.
Mr. Costanzo graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University where he was awarded the Lewis Sudler Prize for extraordinary achievement in the arts and where he has returned to teach. He received his Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he now serves on the board of Trustees. In his youth, he performed on Broadway and in Broadway National Tours including A Christmas Carol, The Sound of Music, and Falsettos. He began his operatic endeavors playing Miles in The Turn of the Screw and shortly thereafter sang alongside Luciano Pavarotti.
Photo credit: Matthew Placek
