Anthony Roth Costanzo Finds His Diva

"I chose a little of Lady Gaga's makeup, a little of Rihanna's,"

"We have to bring the divas with us. From diva to diva."

"There's also a whole conversation about embodiment,"

"The countertenor is not a performance of gender, though people experience it that way."

Anthony Roth Costanzo, a forty-three-year-old Grammy-winning countertenor, portrays a Maria Callas–like diva in Charles Ludlam's 1983 comedy Galas, charting a scandal-prone soprano's rise and fall. Makeup artist James Kaliardos blends influences like Lady Gaga and Rihanna to craft the character's look while balancing naturalistic presentation for Costanzo with exaggerated styles for other characters. Director Eric Ting frames design choices around embodiment and questions of performing gender. Costanzo notes his own visual resemblance to Callas since age nineteen and clarifies that the countertenor voice is not itself a performance of gender, though audiences may perceive it that way.

Read at The New Yorker