Anthony Roth Costanzo, Countertenor/Producer/General Director
Photo Credit: Matthew Placek
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 the General Director and President of Opera Philadelphia and the Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall’s SongStudio.
He has performed with many of the world’s leading opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, Opera National de Paris, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, English National Opera, Liceu Barcelona, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Los Angeles Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, Dallas Opera, Spoleto Festival USA, Glimmerglass Festival (where he served as Artist in Residence), and Finnish National Opera.
In concert, he has sung with the New York Philharmonic (where he was also the Artist-in-Residence), Berlin Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, Le Violons du Roi Philharmonia Baroque, Concertgebouw, NDR at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, among others. He has performed at a wide-ranging variety of venues including Carnegie Hall, Versailles, Madison Square Garden, The Hollywood Bowl, Wigmore Hall, Kabuki-Za Tokyo, The Guggenheim, The Concertgebouw, The Park Avenue Armory, and Little Island.
He stars in the Metropolitan Opera’s recording and DVD of Akhnaten which won him a GRAMMY Award, and his solo album ARC was nominated for a GRAMMY, as was his recording of the title role in John Corigliano’s Lord of Cries. Costanzo collaborated with cabaret legend Justin Vivian Bond on the album Only an Octave Apart, and in the fall of 2026 his first book, Countertenor will be released by Farrar, Straus and Giroux along with a companion solo album, released by Nonesuch.
A champion of new work, Costanzo created roles and sung the world premieres written for him by John Corigliano, Gregory Spears, Missy Mazzoli, Jimmy Lopez, Joel Thompson, Matthew Aucoin, Paola Prestini, Viet Cuong, Carlos Simon, Suzanne Farrin, Bernard Rands, Scott Wheeler, Mohammed Fairouz, Steve Mackey, and Nico Muhly.
Costanzo works as a producer and curator in addition to his singing, creating shows for The Paris Opera, The BBC Proms, The New York Philharmonic, St. Ann’s Warehouse, 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. 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 and evolved into a series of festivals created with partner organizations throughout the city.
Costanzo is a recipient of the Beverly Sills Award from the Metropolitan Opera and the History Maker Award from New York Historical. He is a winner of the Opera News Award, and the Musical America Vocalist of the Year. His many other awards include first place in Operalia competition, Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, a George London Award, a career grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation, and he was the first countertenor to win First Place in the Houston Grand Opera Eleanor McCullom competition, where he also won the audience choice prize.
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 masters and an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music, where he now serves on the board of Trustees as well as on the board of the National Black Theater. He has been a fellow at Oxford and a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Harvard University.
Costanzo began performing professionally 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. 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. He is also the first countertenor to host Met Opera Live in HD Broadcasts. As part of Little Island’s performing arts series in New York, he created and starred in a one-man rendition of Le Nozze di Figaro and returned the to star in a revival of Charles Ludlam’s play Galas.
August 2026