He has appeared 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, 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 the 2023 Artist in Residence), and Finnish National Opera.

In concert, he has sung with the New York Philharmonic (where he was named The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence for the 2021-22 season), The Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, Boston Baroque, Berlin Philharmonic, NDR at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and the London Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has been presented in recital in Vancouver, Princeton University Concerts, Duke Performances, and at the Morgan Library in New York. He has performed at a wide-ranging variety of venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Hollywood Bowl, Versailles, The Kennedy Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wigmore Hall, National Sawdust, Minamiza Kyoto, Joe’s Pub, The Guggenheim, The Park Avenue Armory, and Madison Square Garden.

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 his future projects include a new solo album and a forthcoming book for Farrar Straus and Giroux.

A champion of new work, Costanzo created roles in the world premieres of Corigliano’s The Lord of Cries and Gregory Spears’ The Righteous at the Santa Fe Opera, Jimmy Lopez’s Bel Canto at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Jake Heggie’s Great Scott at the Dallas Opera. He has also premiered works written for him by Joel Thompson, Matthew Aucoin, Paola Prestini, Gregory Spears, Viet Cuong, Carlos Simon, Suzanne Farrin, Bernard Rands, Scott Wheeler, Mohammed Fairouz, Steve Mackey, and Nico Muhly.

Costanzo has begun working as a producer and curator in addition to his singing, creating shows for The BBC Proms, The New York Philharmonic, Opera Philadelphia, 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. During the 2020-21 season, 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. He also received a Sullivan Foundation Award, and has won First Place in the Opera Index Competition, the National Opera Association Vocal Competition, and the Jensen Foundation Competition.

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 of Music 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, Simon in Brice Cauvin’s De particulier a particulier, and made a cameo appearance in Rebecca Miller’s She Came to Me. 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.

This season, Costanzo returns to the Opéra National de Paris for a solo concert and new production of Phillip Glass’ Satyagraha, to Opera Philadelphia for the premiere of The Seasons. He also makes his debuts at both the Gran Teatro del Liceu and the famed Royal Concertgebouw in Akhenaten, and appears in recital in New York, St. Louis, and Washington DC.

SEPTEMBER 2025