We’ve teamed up with our ongoing collaborator and “bona-fide star” Anthony Roth Costanzo for an exquisite recital of 17th and 18th century repertoire for countertenor and continuo.
The recital is structured around three works that show a development of the solo voice cantata. The earliest work, Sigismondo D’India’s Infelice Didone, depicts Dido’s inner world right before her death on the pyre, and is a shocking example of early baroque musical declamation. Zoom forward a hundred years and we have the tight structure and vivid effects of Vivaldi in his dark and tumultuous Qual per Ignoto Calle. Sitting squarely between the two is Scarlatti’s O Pace del Mio Cor, which moves seamlessly between declamation and song, and has perhaps the most gentle touch on this program. In between these pillars, there’s a delicious and sensual Purcell song (because we love it) and a sprinkling of instrumental works along the way to keep the textures changing.
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Antonio Vivaldi Qual Per Ignoto Calle
Alessandro Scarlatti O Pace del Mio Cor
Sigismondo D’India Infelice Didone
Henry Purcell ‘Tis Nature’s Voice
with instrumental music by Vivaldi, Saint-Colombe and Marcello.
First performance:
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts (NY)
April, 2018
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 an exclusive recording artist with Decca Gold, and his first album will be released in September of 2018.
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 and Finnish National Opera. In concert he has sung with the New York Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has performed at a wide-ranging variety of venues including Carnegie Hall, 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.
Costanzo is a Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions and won first prize in Placido Domingo’s Operalia Competition. He was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his role in a Merchant Ivory film. He has begun working as a producer and curator in addition to a performer, creating shows for National Sawdust, Opera Philadelphia, the Philharmonia Baroque, Princeton University, WQXR, The State Theater in Salzburg, Master Voices and Kabuki-Za Tokyo. Costanzo graduated from Princeton University where he has returned to teach, and he received his masters from the Manhattan School of Music. In his youth he performed on Broadway and alongside Luciano Pavarotti.