Anthony Roth Costanzo: ARC
Decca Gold

The choice of initials for Anthony Roth Costanzo's debut solo album shows exactly how important the release is to the countertenor. As rapturous as his singing is, the even more brilliant aspect has to do with the recording concept: arias and songs by contemporary composer Philip Glass and baroque master G.F. Handel, the juxtaposition of new and old combining to consistently glorious effect. The transfixing impact of Costanzo's voice is ably supported by the resplendent playing of the Jonathan Cohen-conducted orchestra Les Violons du Roy, which demonstrates as assured a hand in performing Glass's minimalism-based charts as Handel's elegant baroque settings.

The thirty-six-year-old singer's connections to both composers runs deep, as affirmed by his “Handel defined me; Glass changed me” declaration in the liner notes. He performed his first title role in Handel's Tolomeo in 2010 and made his Met debut a year later in Rodelinda; arias from both operas appear on ARC. The Glass connection instated itself when Costanzo tackled the role of the titular pharaoh in Akhnaten in 2016, and a sumptuous sampling from that 1983 work graces ARC, too. Complementing that selection is a handful of other inspired Glass pieces from The Fall of the House of Usher (1988), Monsters of Grace (1997), and others.

Originally performed by Linda Ronstadt on the 1989 recording of 1000 Airplanes on the Roof, “The Encounter” is given bold new life in the overture-like treatment given it by Costanzo and the French-Canadian chamber orchestra, with his wordless vocalizing and the musicians' spirited rendering of Glass's score enabling us to hear the material anew. The splendour of Costanzo's vocalizing is evident throughout his emotional reading of the stately “Pena tiranna” (Amadigi di Gaula, 1715), and though the early music ensemble Les Violons du Roy is strings-based, the arrangement includes harpsichord and woodwinds, making for a multi-hued presentation.

In like manner, the arrangement of “Liquid Days,” originally sung by The Roches on 1986's Songs from Liquid Days, benefits greatly when strings and vocals are augmented by flutes and harpsichord, while the addition of harp and bassoon to “How All Living Things Breathe” (The Fall of the House of Usher) makes the material all the more haunting. Given Akhnaten's importance to the development of Costanzo's artistic sensibility, it's fitting that “Hymn to the Sun” should conclude the album, which it does to mesmerizing effect. As ravishing as the vocal is, the arrangement, elevated as it is by trumpet, woodwinds, and, of course, strings, is equally responsible for the strong impression engendered by the sublime, ten-minute performance.

The purity of Costanzo's vocalizing is displayed to stirring effect throughout the sixty-two-minute recording yet perhaps never more stunningly (and acrobatically) than in “Rompo i lacci,” from Handel's Flavio (1723); the combination of Handel's graceful writing and Costanzo's voice in “Lascia ch'io pianga” (Rinaldo, 1711) and “Ombra mai fu” (Serse, 1737-38) also makes for particularly heavenly results.

October 2018