Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo began performing professionally at the age of 11 and has since appeared in opera, concert, recital, film, and on Broadway. In June 2024, he began his tenure as the General Director and President of Opera Philadelphia. He has appeared with many of the world’s leading opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Opera National de Paris, 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, Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, 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, Jordan Hall in Boston, Wigmore Hall in London, National Sawdust, Minamiza Kyoto, Joe’s Pub, The Guggenheim, The Park Avenue Armory, and Madison Square Garden.
A champion of new work, Mr. Costanzo created roles in the world premieres of John Corigliano’s The Lord of Cries and Gregory Spears’ The Righteous 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, Carlos Simon, Suzanne Farrin, Bernard Rands, Scott Wheeler, Mohammed Fairouz, Steve Mackey, and Nico Muhly.
Mr. Costanzo works as a producer and curator in addition to his singing, creating shows for The BBC Proms, 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 utilize the resources of the Philharmonic to center and amplify the voices of the community.