Review: Costanzo and Bond Join Prokofiev and van Zweden at the Philharmonic

It took longer to read the notes for Joan Tower's "Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, No. 1" than it did for the New York Philharmonic under Jaap van Zweden to kick off the first program in its current concert series, "Authentic Selves: The Beauty Within," with it.

But it was a fitting opening for the evening, which featured countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo (the Phil's current James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence) and cabaret diva Justin Vivian Bond--not only exciting for the piece itself but for what lay ahead in the evening.

The program, which took place at the Jazz at Lincoln Center Roth Hall, was filled with compact pieces that never seemed insubstantial. The first half of the concert ranged from the Tower intro to the premiere of the epilogue by Joel Thompson-Tracy K. Smith, "The Places We Leave," with Costanzo's bright melodic sound standing out even in the gloomiest, most dissonant part. There was also the Prokofiev Symphony 1 sounding very Mozartian and a very far cry from something like the composer's Third Piano Concerto.

Part Two--which was why much of the audience was there--was Selections from "Only an Octave Apart": a pared down, less glitzy version of the show that Costanzo and Bond did late last year at St. Ann's Warehouse, directed by Zack Winokur and newly orchestrated by Nico Muhly. (NB: The entire "Octave Apart" just came out on a Decca Gold, on CD and streaming.)

Born of the 1976 pairing of Beverly Sills and Carol Burnett at the Met, it was not only great fun, but it worked very well, with bad jokes (eg, Bond's "Furry Leaf" from "Fur Elise" or thinking they were performing with "New York Phil"), good singing and wonderful camaraderie between the two performers. It made me think of lyrics, and variations, from Broadway's DAMN YANKEES: "A lotta brains, a lotta talent with the emphasis on the latta!" but, especially "And this queen has her aces, in all the right places!"

As the program noted the concert "these longtime friends to explore how such disparate voices"--you ain't kidding--"could...challenge assumptions and mine universal truths from across musical genres."

Whether they were doing the old French-American standard "Autumn Leaves" and tracing it back to Massenet's "Poeme d'Octobre" or pairing Costanzo's rendition of Purcell's "When I'm Laid to Rest" (aka "Dido's Lament," where she prepares to kill herself) to play off part of the British songwriter Dido's "White Flag" for an interior dialogue for Bond, there was never a false note (that wasn't meant to be there!). And, of course, Costanzo called on his current role in Phillip Glass's AKHNATEN at the Met to join Bond in the 1980s pop hit from the Bangles, "Walk Like an Egyptian."

I'm sure no one ever brought Rossini and bossa nova's Antonio Carlos Jobim together before, but Bond and Costanzo made CENERENTOLA's "Non piu mesta" and "The Waters of March" a natural--and joyful--fit. The message of hope in bleak moments, a truth directed toward the LGBTQ+ community, was the pairing of "Deh placatevi con me" from Gluck's ORFEO ED EURIDICE with the 1986 pop hit "Don't Give Up," made famous by Peter Gabriel with Kate Bush.

Then came, appropriately, "Under Pressure" from the songwriters of Queen, with Costanzo as Freddie Mercury and Bond providing the sounding board "...love dares you to care for the people on the edge of night."

It was a great evening.

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