North Carolina, the capital of tobacco and moonshine (homemade and illicit alcohol typical of rural areas and folk myths), is a place so American that the Gold Rush and Pepsi were born there. From there is Anthony Roth Costanzo (Durham, 41 years old), a man who has managed to position himself as one of the most remarkable figures in a field so European, insular, habitual, aristocratic and so far from that , which represents a Pepsi , like the opera. “I came to classical music from outside: when I was almost an adult, I had still only covered the edges of the world,” he remembers, walking through the backstage of the Teatro Real in Madrid, a place he knows well : was part of the cast of Handel's “Orlando” in October and appeared in his own concert in July. “And I’ve been singing there for years. By the time I was 12 I had made it with Pavarotti!”
In classical music, as in tennis (and in more areas than there should be at the start of 2024), provenance matters. Being born far away from the elite means exposing yourself to a lifetime of feeling like a tourist in your own skin. But being a tourist has its advantages. Things that have always been this way can also be seen differently. And on the way from Durham to New York's Metropolitan Opera (Met), Roth has seen enough. Above all, how good it is for opera to be seen from the outside and by other disciplines.
“When I was 11, I said to my parents, psychology professors at Duke University, 'I can't stay in North Carolina, I've exhausted the possibilities of everything I can do here.' I want to go to New York. A miracle: This decision led him straight to Broadway as a child actor. From there to the opera: “A Turn of the Screw” by a composer as gay as Britten at the New Jersey Festival in 1994 and the duet with Pavarotti at a gala in Philadelphia.
From there to the cinema: His voice caught the attention of James Ivory, who included a countertenor in his film “A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries” (1998), describing him as the son of Jane Birkn and Kris Kristofferson (“of all James' masterpieces Ivory “) “I did what no one saw,” Roth complains today, although from then on he developed a close friendship with Ivory that continues to this day. And from there to cultural management: During filming she met Karole Armitage, the legendary choreographer of Baryshnikov, Nureyev, Madonna (the Vogue video) and Michael Jackson (the one for In The Closet), and convinced her to take on her first project as a producer to lead, and , then a student at Princeton University. There is an erogenous point between top cinema, opera and pop music and Roth lives there.
As a producer, he tries to mix opera with sophisticated cinema and everything in between. He once put on a duet show in London with the trans actor Justin Vivan Bond (Shortbus). “I wanted to sell tickets and switched to Grindr in the meantime [la aplicación de encuentros sexuales entre hombres gais]. Suddenly I realized that I had a very simple potential audience in front of me. The thing is, people on Grindr are usually thinking about one thing. So I invited them to go to our show and if they sent me a photo with the ticket, I would show them a photo of my member. “It worked pretty well!” When the show moved to New York, Grindr was an official sponsor.
To consider the importance that Roth holds in the world of classical music today borders on the eccentric. As a countertenor he has sung at the Met, the London National, the Real de Madrid and with the Philharmonic Orchestras of Berlin, London, New York and Los Angeles: repókers of respected institutions. He appeared twice on NPR's Tiny Desk and won first prize on Operalia (Plácido Domingo's competition). The last of his albums is nominated for a Grammy (his second nomination). And yet he – you might call him strange – continues to think about his place in opera and opera's place in the world.
What lies beyond institutional recognition? he asks. “In this story there are three of us: public, artists and institutions. And the connections between them are broken. Institutions do not attract audiences. That's what I want to change.” Carnegie Mellon University gave him $650,000 to tinker with formulas for it. “On stage I always think of people who have never been to the opera. What 30 seconds of the experience will make you feel like you are experiencing something exciting? The grandeur of the halls is attractive, but only for a very closed audience, isolated from reality. Who will keep this 400-year-old art?”
He quotes her voice. Roth is a countertenor, which means his register is more feminine than masculine in the castrati tradition. “As a child, I performed on Broadway with a soprano voice. I learned to imitate the nun who sang “Climb Ev'ry Mountain” in “The Sound of Music.” [Roth formó parte del sonado revival de 1998] and every birthday my mother always asked me about this song. I loved singing in that high register. Most men decide around the age of 13 that they want to be men, or are told that they should be, and that men don't sing in the high register. We associate the high position with the feminine and the low position with the masculine.”
He continues: “But my parents, psychologists, as I told you, never forced this idea on me. It never felt feminine or derogatory to me to sing loudly, it was just something I could do. Now that we're deconstructing gender, we have an art form, opera, that specifically asks you, “Can a man sound like that?” And it's not an abstract question. “I'm often asked, 'What's your real voice?' What's your male voice?'” he adds. “When I sing at the Real Orlando this afternoon and see that it is a place full of learned people, I estimate that only 30% of the audience has ever heard a man sound like a countertenor.”
And this surprise has a lot of potential. “Many people and many ears view opera as something very serious,” he explains. “But I’ll tell you one thing. Opera is not serious. It's something intimate. It is primary. We all have a voice: opera singers only use it at Olympic level, in that sense it is an extreme sport. But let's get to data protection. Think that everything in this society uses a screen or a microphone connected to a cable connected to a speaker. Everything has this filter. Not the opera. We don't use microphones. The sound emanates from my body and penetrates directly into yours. Musically speaking, it's about unprotected sex. “It’s penetration.”
Roth Costanzo with the score of “Orlando” by Handel at the Teatro Real.Ray García
How many respondents would pause at this metaphor? Not the one in front of us. “People don’t understand how exciting opera is. You will definitely be bored for the first ten minutes. I am and I stand on the stage. But you have to allow yourself to be bored. Because we spend all day scrolling through the mobile screen, 35 frames per second, and you have to slow down the speed of your mind a little, which takes about 10, 15 minutes. If you survive those 10, 15 minutes, you can connect to the penetration I told you about before. It's tantric sex. Instead of instant gratification, you find something much deeper, more exciting and sometimes hilarious.”
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_