About this Event
Moderating this discussion is award-winning actor Michael R. Jackson. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.
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ACCESSIBILITY:
Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator.
ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at [email protected] by Oct. 14 to request.
Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.
For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact [email protected]
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A lively and revelatory blend of memoir and opera history by the Grammy Award–winning countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, "one of opera's biggest stars" (The New York Times).
The sound of a countertenor, often described as ethereal and otherworldly, is both familiar and foreign—it is a high voice type, somewhere between what we might expect of a male and a female opera singer. Though we recognize the countertenor range from countless pop stars, experiencing it within the context of opera, powerful and penetrating, and, most important, without any amplification, is unsettling, beautiful, and profoundly moving.
Countertenors today sing music written originally for castrati. Part oddity, part divinity, castrati are inextricably linked to the proliferation of opera from its inception in the seventeenth century through its expansion into the public sphere. The striking beauty of the male voice and the otherness of the sound make it fertile ground for creative invention and innovation, and evoke fascinating aspects of gender, sexuality, and identity.
In Countertenor, Anthony Roth Costanzo, one of the world’s leading opera singers—known in particular for his performance as Akhnaten in Philip Glass’s opera of the same name—takes us through both his life and the history of his rare and remarkable voice. With wit and humor, Costanzo explores fascinating contradictions contained within the countertenor and narrates his own musical education and interests. The result is a lively and stirring account of an art form in flux, a story of reinvention and a life lived in harmony with art.
Photo credit: Matthew Placek
The Grammy Award–winning countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo began performing professionally at the age of eleven and has since appeared in operas, concerts, recitals, and films and on Broadway. He has performed at many of the world’s leading opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera and the Opéra national de Paris, and at a wide variety of venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Versailles, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In June 2024 he began his tenure as general director and president of Opera Philadelphia and is also the artistic director of SongStudio at Carnegie Hall. He earned his master’s degree and an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music and his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University.
Michael R. Jackson was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2022, and his Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award-winning musical A Strange Loop, which premiered at Playwrights Horizons in association with Page 73 Productions in 2019, received 11 Tony Award nominations in 2022. The New York Times’ Ben Brantley called A Strange Loop “a full-on laparoscopy of the heart, soul, and loins” and praised it as a “gutsy, jubilantly anguished musical with infectious melodies.” Jackson recently made his operatic debut with an original libretto for complications in Sue, commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and starring Justin Vivian Bond, and also wrote the book, music, and lyrics for White Girl in Danger and the book and lyrics for Teeth. His many honors include a Jonathan Larson Grant, Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, ASCAP Foundation Harold Adamson Award, Whiting Award, Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama Desk Award, Obie Award, Fred Ebb Award, Windham-Campbell Prize, and Dramatists Guild Fellowship. He is also an alumnus of Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group.
Event venue & nearby stays
Strand Book Store, 828 Broadway, New York, United States
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