Anthony Roth Constanzo has not only released a new recording for Nonesuch, but he has written a book, also called Countertenor, which is published next week, by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The album’s astoundingly eclectic programme embraces a world premiere recording of a new song by Osvaldo Golijov; arias by Philip Glass, Mozart, Vivaldi and Monteverdi; a traditional Hawaiian song; John Dowland and Thomas Morley lute songs; a Klaus Nomi-inspired interpretation of John Madara and David White’s ‘You Don’t Own Me’; and the classic Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons’ number, ‘Walk Like a Man’.
As well as being a highly acclaimed singer and opera director, with a remarkably broad repertoire, Anthony Roth Costanzo has, since June 2024, been General Director of Opera Philadelphia. James Jolly caught up with him by Zoom during rehearsals for a new Missy Mazzoli opera, Lincoln in the Bardo, which has just opened at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
They talked about the castrato, how the countertenor re-emerged from obscurity in the middle of the last century, how his own voice has led him in many unexpected directions and how his experience in, among other things, Baroque and modern opera, shapes the way he approaches his role at the helm of Opera Philadelphia.
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