美国国家公共电台 NPR Anthony Roth Costanzo: A Countertenor For The 21st Century

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Even if you're prepared for it, there's a moment of shock the first time you hear Anthony Roth Costanzo start to sing.

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ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO: (Singing) Oh, round desire...

SHAPIRO: Costanzo is a countertenor. He sings in a range more typical of women. Here he's at NPR's offices for a Tiny Desk Concert, where musicians play a few songs in front of a small audience for an online video. He's singing songs from his new album, "ARC."

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COSTANZO: (Vocalizing).

SHAPIRO: Costanzo has made a career defying people's expectations of opera singers, collaborating 1 with fashion designers and visual artists, performing in untraditional settings. And this short set was no exception. He started with a song by Philip Glass and David Byrne called "Liquid Days," accompanied by harpsichord 2, bassoon and flute 3.

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COSTANZO: (Singing) Love takes its shoes off and sits on the couch.

SHAPIRO: Between songs, he cracks jokes about the roots of the countertenor tradition. Centuries ago, male singers' high voices were preserved through surgical 4 means.

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COSTANZO: So now we go from Philip Glass' 1980s compositions with David Byrne writing the lyrics 5 to the bread and butter of the countertenor, the music written for castrated men, which is, you know, how...

(LAUGHTER)

COSTANZO: But I've managed to do it without the castration. And...

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)

COSTANZO: Applause for that. Thank you - took a lot of work.

SHAPIRO: And with that, he switches to Handel.

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COSTANZO: (Singing in Italian).

SHAPIRO: After he finished singing, I got to ask Anthony Roth Costanzo a few questions. And we've woven in some of his live performance under our chat.

You have such a rare voice. Do you think that allows you to make musical and career choices that you might not have made if you had had a more common voice?

COSTANZO: Totally. As a countertenor, I feel like I'm a freakazoid. And so everyone sort of thinks, what is that?

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COSTANZO: (Vocalizing).

And I love that. I love to use the novelty of that to recruit new audiences. But also I kind of have to forge my own path. The major opera houses may only do one thing a season that has a countertenor if even that.

SHAPIRO: You use the term freakazoid.

COSTANZO: (Laughter).

SHAPIRO: Your word - with enthusiasm. And you've talked a lot about the sort of delightful 6 shock of hearing this beautiful, feminine voice come out of a stereotypically 7 male body. Was it a process for you to realize that that could be a wonderful shock and not just a shocking shock?

COSTANZO: You know, my parents are both psychologists. So growing up, I feel like I had the support system to not think it was weird 8 at all. And therefore I always present it to people as if it's completely natural, and they somehow absorb it that way. That 30 seconds of shock turns into a keen interest. And so I feel like my normalizing it makes it easier to swallow.

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COSTANZO: (Singing in Italian).

SHAPIRO: There's this very popular video that you filmed in a sixth-grade classroom, which is kids who presumably have not had a lot of experience with opera or classical music. And over the course of the video, you watch the evolution of their reaction. And I just thought as a person who has unpleasant memories of the sixth grade, putting myself in a position like that seemed terrifying.

COSTANZO: It is in a way. But I wanted them to laugh at me. I wanted them to have these emotional responses. And at the end, they're the litmus test, right? And if they can cry without knowing - I didn't tell them what the lyrics meant. I didn't give them any context. I just wanted them to connect.

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COSTANZO: (Singing in Italian).

And one girl said to me, you know, I think what it is is that you connect to the music, and we connect to your emotion. And that's all we need.

SHAPIRO: A lot of people in opera and classical music are trying to figure out how to make this centuries-old art form relevant to a contemporary audience. Clearly those choices suffuse 9 every artistic 10 decision that you make from beginning with an aria 11 here at the Tiny Desk that has lyrics about love is watching television; you offer love a beer.

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COSTANZO: (Singing) I offer love a beer. Love watches television.

SHAPIRO: If you could condense the answer to that question of how do you keep it alive and make it relevant, what's the solution?

COSTANZO: Collaboration 12. I think opera was the first interdisciplinary art form in that it incorporated set design and costume design, fashion, dance. Ballet began in opera. So in a word, my tactic 13 has been find other artists, find different people who you can infuse with this music, and then take it out to different audiences.

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COSTANZO: (Singing) Still is the night. It is much further than we thought.

And I feel like the emotional sweep of opera is what we need to give us some perspective on our lives, on this time we're living in, on all of that. We need that kind of catharsis.

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COSTANZO: (Singing) Fly home, daughter. Cover your ears.

SHAPIRO: Anthony Roth Costanzo, thank you so much for joining us here.

COSTANZO: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

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SHAPIRO: That's countertenor Anthony Ross Costanzo. His new album, "ARC," is out now. And you can see his full performance at npr.org/tinydesk.

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COSTANZO: (Singing) Let nothing...