When shopping for a new general director, one could do worse than engage the first monotheistic pharaoh.
It has been announced that countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, who created a sensation as Philip Glass’ “Akhnaten” at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, will become the next general director and president of Opera Philadelphia. On June 1, Costanzo will replace David Devan, who directed the organization for 13 years. It will be Costanzo’s first administrative position in an arts organization.
In 2018, Costanzo sold out three performances at the Barnes Foundation of “Glass Handel,” a large-scale operatic art installation given its premiere at Festival O. It went on to further sell-out runs in New York and London. His most recent appearance with Opera Philadelphia was in 2022, when he led the fundraising concert “Only an Octave Apart” with Justin Vivian Bond, based on their studio album of the same name.
Costanzo, who graduated from Princeton University in 2004, is scheduled to sing in Christoph Willibald Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” at the Met, beginning on May 16.
