Who’s punting the naked countertenor?

Who’s punting the naked countertenor?

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norman lebrecht

November 07, 2019

Some hard-baked New York PR is working all hours to get Anthony Roth Constanzo into every kind of media.

First the splash about naked dangly bits in Bloomberg, a space where no singer has trodden since Manuela Hoelterhoff retired.

Now a blowout in a food magazine – fffs sake – under the headline ‘Inside Anthony Roth Costanzo’s Gold-Dusted, Cake-Filled, High-Energy Kitchen’. Doncha just wanna be there?

It does not take a minute before the kit comes off.

Second paragraph:

Then again, How does he do it? is a cliché question when it comes to the opera singer and producer. People ask: How does he sing so high? (Costanzo is a counter-tenor, singing in the same range as a mezzo-soprano). How does he get naked in front of all those people? (In Akhnaten, the Philip Glass opera that opens at the Met on Friday night, Costanzo spends five long minutes on stage completely nude.) And, the question I asked the morning I visited him this summer: How does he get home at one a.m., bake two cakes for a photo shoot, sleep for just a few hours, then answer the door in the morning with cartoon-level cheeriness—all without a drop of caffeine? (Costanzo avoids caffeine, preferring, he says, “to manufacture my own energy.”)


photo: Joseph De Leo/Epicurious

Anything else you wanted to ask?

Like: who’s the PR?

Comments

  • Nik says:

    Somebody has told him that he must have a ‘portfolio career’.

  • MWnyc says:

    Hey, naked opera stars draw clicks, as you yourself well know.

  • Tamino says:

    Never do home stories. Never. Ever.
    §1 in how to be recognized as a serious artist.

  • George says:

    If this was Rod Stewart no one would critizise. But God forbid classical musicians do something that people outside of the opera world actually can actually relate to.

  • Mock Mahler says:

    After readers have googled Mr. Constanzo, they can check out photos of Jakub Jozef Orlinski. . . .

  • Brian says:

    What’s curious is the Met’s own press office has been barely staffed of late. They lost their PR director in August and another publicist recently left. This seems more like the work of a hired-gun celebrity publicist, however.

  • sam says:

    “Some hard-baked New York PR is working all hours to get Anthony Roth Constanzo into EVERY KIND OF MEDIA.”

    Hmmm, you were saying…?

  • Bruce says:

    “Anything else you wanted to ask? Like: who’s the PR?”

    You should find out and hire them yourself, Norman 🙂

    (not for purposes of nakedness — necessarily — but because they’re obviously really good at attracting attention)

  • Person with an opinion says:

    In the immortal words of the teens on Tik Tok: “ok boomer”

  • Will says:

    According to his website, it’s Aleba Gartner. (That took 1 minute to find out …) It could only have been two, Gartner or Andrew Ousley, the clear best in the business in NY.

  • Martie says:

    Hey, when you can’t sing but your parents have money, just collect a bunch of fly-by-night society figures and make a crappy cake for them, why don’t you?

  • Paul Thomason says:

    Hummm, the second negative post in two days about Mr. Costanzo getting publicity. Seems odd from someone who’s in the publicity business….

  • Brian says:

    I have no judgment to make yet because I haven’t seen it, though I’m looking forward to it. I believe his character isn’t seen until the coronation scene which follows the prelude and funeral scene. And he doesn’t sing until the last scene of Act I, the marvelous Window of Appearances trio. Maybe there’s a point to the nudity and even if there’s not, does that make it permissible for prudes to pass global judgment? It’s the 21st century and a lot of people choose to live in a Victorian mind. As sad as it is stupid.

  • Me! says:

    I think it’s fantastic opera folk are getting themselves out there and being part of broader culture/media- Pavoratti did it all the time as did Sills, it encourages people to go to and think of/be comfortable with opera

  • Witness to the Extravaganza says:

    He’s been very strong on self-promotion since his uni days. Am sure he has professional PR help now, but wouldn’t be surprised if much of the driving force is as “self-manufactured” as his energy.

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