Tenor Stephen Costello has been a beloved mainstay at the Met ever since his 2007 debut, three years prior to originating the role of Ishmael/Greenhorn in Jake Heggie's operatic adaptation of Moby-Dick. This March, Stephen returned to the role when Moby-Dick came to the Met for the first time. He generously spoke with me between performances about Moby-Dick, iconic tenor roles with no character arcs, and what opera shares with Cirque du Soleil. Read on for selections from our conversation, or watch the video above!

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Violette: How did you find your way to opera? Do you remember your first opera?

Stephen in *La Bohème* (Curtis Brown/Met Opera)

Stephen: The first one I ever went to was a performance of La Bohème at the Met. I want to say it was my junior year of undergrad, and a friend of mine invited me to see it for the first time, it was incredible. It’s La Bohème! It’s an incredible first opera to see at the Met because it really shows what the Met stage and crew can do, so it was an incredible experience. I think it was Frank Lopardo singing Rodolfo, and I don’t remember the rest of the cast. I went back to school the next day and just practiced and practiced like crazy for the rest of my life, I guess! Still doing it.

Did your early experience with the trumpet shape your singing?

Yes and no. Yes, of course, musically, it really helps. One of the reasons I started singing was because my trumpet teacher at the time had said that if you can sight-read music with your voice, singing it, you can sight-read it ten times easier on the instrument that you’re playing. So he suggested at that time that I would join the chorus in high school, and learn how to use my voice, learn how to sight-sing, and also blend with your own natural instrument as a group. So in that aspect it did [help], especially — even in the breathing aspect, because brass players tend to breathe in the same way, have a low breath like a singer would, and they support in the same way a singer would. The only thing I’d say that was hindering my singing when I was playing was — when you’re playing on the trumpet you have your mouthpiece and you have a little hole about that big [indicates size with his fingers] in the mouthpiece that you’re blowing the air through. If you overblow, you tend to have some back pressure [indicates throat] while you’re playing, and that makes your muscles —makes your voice very tight. So that’s one of the reasons I ended up stopping. Plus when you’re playing an instrument, you have to play all the time, so you end up getting muscles in here [indicates mouth], which tended to make my mouth less elastic. And as an instrumentalist and a singer, to be at a high level, it’s hard to just practice two different instruments, so I just focused on one, one thing. For me, I have a certain focus, and once I’m focusing on something, I have trouble focusing on something else. For instance, we’re doing Moby-Dick right now and I’m preparing a recital, but because Moby-Dick is so athletic with all the climbing and running, I’m always concentrating on recovering my body and my voice until the next performance, so it’s hard to rehearse for a recital at the same time, but I have to do it. But it’s killing me at the moment.

**You don’t do a lot of modern operas. What made Moby special?**

Well, I don’t do a lot of modern operas because I haven’t been asked to do a lot of modern operas.

Their loss.

Stephen Costello in *Moby-Dick* (Karen Almond/Met Opera)

And the problem I have with modern operas is you spend a lot of time on it, because usually it’s a piece that’s being written, or a piece that hasn’t been done before, and you spend a lot of time learning it, and you have to learn this composer’s tonalities and the way that they write and the way that the music fits in your voice and it takes a long time to do that. With something like La Bohème, you learn it, they do La Bohème all over the world, you’re going to do La Bohème many times in your career! But something modern, you may not. Once it comes out, if people don’t like it or don’t attend it, it never gets done. So you spend a lot of time working on a piece that you’re never going to do again, so you have to really love that piece in order to spend that much time on it. And with Moby-Dick, I had gotten asked to do it when I was at the Dallas Opera, they said that were thinking about writing Moby-Dick and they commissioned Jake Heggie to do it, and they both wanted me to do this part. And I hesitantly agreed, because I didn’t really know Jake Heggie — I knew Jake’s music, but I didn’t really know him as a composer or as a person, and, again, it’s a long time. So I agreed to it, and I asked if it was possible for me to actually go out early on and hear Moby-Dick as it was being written, before I really agreed to it. And Jake had only written, I think, Act 1 at that point, and I flew out to San Francisco, I sat in his studio, and I listened to the music, and I was blown away. I thought, “This is either going to be the greatest musical experience of my life or this is going to be a huge success for this piece, and I’ll do it again.” And then that same night, I got to hang out with Jake and I loved Jake as a person, Jake’s an amazing guy, amazing composer, just an amazing human being, really one of the best. And I was like, “I will sing anything for this man.” From that moment on, I was 100% in with Moby-Dick.

How is it different to work directly with a living composer?

Ah, it’s incredible. A lot of people I’ve talked to that have done modern opera, they ask the composer to change things, can you write this, can you make this easier, they fine-tune it with the composer. I never had that problem with Moby-Dick. I was amazed when Jake had written it, how singable it was and how it really worked with the voice and especially with my voice and how I sing. I never had an issue with that. But there was a time that I went to San Francisco again, I think it was two weeks before or a week before we started rehearsals in Dallas, and I spent a good week there with Jake just going through Moby-Dick. That’s invaluable, having that time, just being in a studio with the composer of the piece that you’re working on, hearing his ideas and hearing why he did that. He cleared a lot of things up, because — you saw Moby-Dick [I did indeed!], and the whole piece is so rhythmic, time changes are all over the place, it feels like every four measures there’s a time change. But to understand what he was thinking and how he composed that really cleared all of that up, and it just makes it more comfortable. But, you know, he’s not like a tyrant, “No, you have to do this, you have to do this"; he allows you flexibility to find the character and find yourself and how you phrase within the opera. So it was really cool, and even still I ask him things: “I’m doing this, do you mind if I do this, do you mind if I do that,” and he goes, “Absolutely, just make it your own.” He wants us to all make it our own, and that’s what I love about this piece, it’s such a powerful piece but every time I’ve done it with a different cast, it still comes out powerful.

Why “Ishmael”? Why is that his answer to [Greenhorn’s] search for an identity?

Ah! So, if you remember the story, the first line of the story is “Call me Ishmael,” and he basically goes on this journey on the Pequod to find himself. He said there’s nothing for him on land, so he’s going to go to sea and either survive or die, that’s his goal. Through this, he meets Queequeg, and he identifies the most with Queequeg, after trying to find himself with Starbuck, and seeing how Christianity isn’t working for him, because he still sees the frustrations and unhappiness in Starbuck. But he sees someone like Queequeg, who is completely at peace with himself and knows who he is, knows where he comes from. I believe he derives the name from that. After this whole journey on the Pequod, he comes back and calls himself Ishmael.

It’s a biblical name, which I find so interesting because at the beginning, he’s ranting about religion.

Correct, because the way Jake and Gene [Scheer, the librettist] had done the opera is they made it as a prequel to the book, basically. So instead of having Ishmael narrate the story, he basically starts from the journey of him on land — technically not on land, all the stuff that [Ishmael and Queequeg] do at the inn is basically in the first scene of the Pequod, roughly. By the end of the story, “Who are you?” “Call me Ishmael,” and that’s where he would begin writing Moby-Dick or narrating the novel Moby-Dick about the Pequod and the experience. I’m glad they did it that way, I don’t think it would work very well if he narrated the whole story, it wouldn’t have that excitement, because I feel like something like that would slow it down. I think one of the greatest parts of Moby-Dick is it doesn’t stop. There are arias and duets and quartets and ensemble pieces, but it doesn’t give the audience time to applaud — which we love! Don’t get me wrong, we love applause. But sometimes it’s nice with a piece like this where it doesn’t stop, so everyone just experiences it completely through, and people usually go crazy at the end of the act or at the end of the opera.

**In July, you’re going to sing another Melville opera, Billy Budd, at the Teatro Colón. And now you’re going to be playing the captain of the ship instead of the young mariner.**

I know, I know, and every time I do it everyone says “Oh, it’s usually for an older part, I didn’t think you would do something like that.” And I’m like, well, with makeup these days, you can do it, and if you interpret it well, it should work, right?

Yeah! It’s amazing. Like, Alex Boyer, who’s — I don’t know how old he is, but I think he’s probably in his 30s?

I don’t know, he looks like a child. I’ll tell you that much, he looks that young.

And he did such a great job playing Ahab, who’s at least 58.

Yeah. You know, I find that it’s interesting watching the Ahabs work, because — I don’t know if you know Brandon Jovanovich very well, but he’s one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet in your life, even to the point where he doesn’t swear, he doesn’t get upset. I don’t understand how that never happens to him, but he doesn’t get frustrated, and if he does, it’s not in a bad way, and he’s just one of the nicest people you’ve ever met. I was like, “Sure, he can sing the part, but how is he going to do this character?” And I’ll tell you what, from the first day of rehearsal, he really embodied the character, and I was like, “Wow, it’s really impressive.” It’s impressive the way he does it, he really can get to the darkness in Ahab, as did Alex in the performances that he did. So I credit it to both of them in the way they interpret the role, but also credit to Jake and the way he underscores that character in particular, because it’s kind of Puccini-esque in a way, where everything that’s happening is heard in the score.

Stephen Costello in Rigoletto (Nina Wurtzel/Met Opera)

What’s the role most unlike yourself you’ve ever played?

For me, I would say the Duke in Rigoletto. I just had this conversation with Will Berger, who does the Met broadcasts. I’ve done a lot of Alfredos [in La Traviata] and I’ve done a lot of the Duke in Rigoletto, and I have trouble identifying with those characters, because for me they don’t do anything. Their music is great, don’t get me wrong. But their characters don’t really have any arc, so it’s hard to identify with a character like that. If you ask my wife, I tend to do random different things all the time, I’m always changing different aspects of myself based on what I’m doing or the surroundings that I’m in, and I like finding characters that have different phases. For those roles, it’s hard to find, because if you look at the Duke, in the beginning he’s a jerk, he’s a womanizer, and then maybe in Act 2 when he’s singing “Parmi veder le lagrime,” you slightly hear how he’s “in love” with Gilda, but then that goes away, and that’s not even in the play [Le Roi s’Amuse], that scene’s not there. And then he’s back to what he was in Act 3, so it’s hard, and for me I feel like Alfredo is just a spoiled young kid, and it’s hard to identify with that. I like singing them, but as a character, it’s hard to really find a deep interaction with.

Stephen in *La Traviata* (Ken Howard/Met Opera)

So what keeps you coming back to them?

Work! [laughs] No, I like singing it, don’t get me wrong, I like singing the music. Every time I do it, I’m hoping to find it, you know, I’m hoping that maybe something will change, and I’m always searching for that. And plus, you know, I’m always trying to make things better.

A lot of your rep these days consists of heavier roles like Don Carlo and [Cavaradossi in] Tosca, but you’ve spoken a lot about your love for bel canto. How much is that going to continue to be a part of your life now that your voice is heavier and fuller?

I did Tosca twice. Once it [was] in concert and the next time it was in a production. I loved the music for Tosca and I wanted to try it, and I tried it in concert in a safe space and [onstage] in Taiwan. A lot of people aren’t going to hear it on the other side of the world, so you can really figure out the character and the music. I really enjoyed it, but I did find that at the moment, Tosca is very middle voice-heavy, and it’s nice for a while, but once you do something people often ask you to do it many times after that, and so I don’t really want to sit in roles at the moment that are all middle voice-heavy. I feel like Don Carlo is better for me at the moment than Tosca, because I did my first one in Munich, and did it successfully, I think two years ago. I’m going actually in a couple weeks to do it again in Munich, but I find that more bel canto-esque. You can think of Don Carlo more in a bel canto way of singing. You don’t want to make your voice bigger for it, which people tend to do, that’s what they think, they think Don Carlo is heavy, it should be this, but if your voice can cut through the orchestra fine, then that’s all you need. It also depends on who you’re singing with and who’s conducting, of course. But when I approach it, I think of it more in a bel canto structure, and that makes the role more successful for me and then my voice carries it the rest of the way. I love bel canto music, I’m still wanting to do it, I have a few bel canto things coming up and there’s a few things that I want to redo again that I haven’t done in a while. It started actually with Roberto Devereux, I did Roberto Devereux a couple years ago in Zurich. It was the first opera production I did in Zurich, and I loved it. I went back to it, I loved it, I found things that I couldn’t find before that I was able to do, and I had one of the greatest experiences with it, so I want to keep doing more bel canto music. It’s harder, though, because I find nowadays it’s harder to find a soprano that has a fuller lyric voice that wants to do bel canto, [except for] Nadine [Sierra] is doing it, but it’s harder to find a fuller lyric soprano voice that does bel canto.

Why do you think that is?

I don’t know. I’m also noticing that a lot of Rossini-type tenors are moving into bel canto rep, like more Lucias and things like that, and I think it’s just because they usually cast lighter sopranos for these things. But there’s a million heavier sopranos that would want to do it, but I don’t know why they’re just casting lighter sopranos for it. When you do Lucia, yeah, it’s great to have a great Edgardo, but the first thing you do in Lucia is “Oh, let’s look for a Lucia.” Same thing with any of the Queen operas [Donizetti’s Tudor trilogy] or most bel canto stuff, they look for the soprano first. Even in Roberto Devereux, they’re always looking for the Elisabetta first.

Even though literally the title character is the tenor.

Correct. But because he’s onstage most of the time, you know, but she has that big scena at the end. It’s equal, they’re equal parts.

You’ve also been open about your love for the French repertoire. Why is that, and what French role is highest on your wishlist?

Stephen in *Roméo et Juliette* (Met Opera)

Well, I’ve done Faust, I’ve done Roméo et Juliette — I just did one in Zurich, which I love doing. I’m doing Werther coming up for the first time [at the Pittsburgh Opera].

What about Don Carlos?

You know, I don’t know. That’s a funny thing because there’s so many versions of it. You have Don Carlos the French version, you have Don Carlo the Italian, Don Carlo the four-act Italian, Don Carlo the five-act Italian — there’s so many versions of it, and I really enjoyed it in Italian, so I’m going to do that a few more times, and I’m doing the four-act version coming up next year in Dallas. But they added the “Lacrimosa” in Act 4 from the French version. So, yeah, it’s kind of a mutt production! [Laughs] But it’s a great production and it’s a lot of fun, with an incredible cast. Étienne Dupuis, Nicole Car, Christian Van Horn, Morris Robinson, Emmanuel Villaume conducting, it’s an incredible cast.

Your wife, Yoon, is a first violinist in the Met orchestra.

Yeah, she’s actually working right now [laughs], doing the opening of Magic Flute.

**But she was playing in the orchestra in Moby-Dick, yes?**

Yeah! She tries to play every show that I’m doing at the Met, so she plays all the Moby-Dicks. Every show we’ve done since we were married, she’s played.

What happens when you’re singing and she’s playing?

I don’t know, she gives me a lot of looks, especially if I’m doing something like Traviata and there’s, like, love scenes or something. She does look, she does give me the stink-eye, but in a playful way! [Laughs] But she’s great, she’s a great support system too when I’m onstage, and then she’ll come back at [the end of] the act and tell me “Oh, this is great, this is fantastic.” She’s great, it’s nice to have her down there because I’ve gotten to know a lot of the orchestra players as well and they’re all great people. She’s so busy with the orchestra all the time, she rarely gets to do other things, but to be quite honest, since Yannick [Nézet-Séguin] has come to the Met and become music director, the orchestra has been doing a lot of chamber concerts at Carnegie Hall, which I think has been fantastic. My wife has done a few of them, and so you can hear how great of a player she is, and you can do that with a lot of the instrumentalists at the Met now. You see them in a group, you see them as the orchestra, as a whole, but you hear them by themselves as soloists and in ensembles and small ensembles, it’s really been incredible. I’m really glad they started to do that. So then I get to be a support system, then I get to go and cheer her on.

How is the Met special to you?

I think the people that are there are a pretty special group of people. I kind of grew up at the Met, I made my debut when I was 25, I believe. I’m 43 now, and I’ve done a hundred-and-some performances almost, I think by the time Moby’s done [now] it’ll be, like, 120 performances. So I feel like I’ve grown up with them, you know? It’s hard to explain, but they’ve helped me through a lot of things in my life, and they’re just a great support system for a singer, you know? And everyone who works there, the coaches, Yannick, the music director, the orchestra, they all just want the best for everyone that’s there. It’s a really incredible house to be in all the time. I think that what they specialize in is just really supporting everyone that’s there.

About Coco [Chanel Costello, Stephen and Yoon’s dog], how does she engage with your singing? Does she like opera?

Coco Chanel Costello and Stephen Costello

You know, she’s pretty good with it. When I’m singing around the house, she doesn’t really care, but she follows us around. See, Coco is a special dog. She has a great personality, but the funny thing about her, she was a quarantine dog when we got her during COVID, because our dog Pebbles had died a few months before that. He died just of old age. And so we got Coco, we were still in quarantine, because it lasted two years, and we were in the house a lot. And she was with us all the time, and she grew up with us being around, and then when we started to go back to work, she had terrible separation anxiety. So she’s not bothered by my singing, but she’s bothered if I leave the room, to the point where if I’m sitting on the couch with her and I just move my leg to adjust my body or something, she jumps up and runs out as if we’re going somewhere. So she’s getting better with that, she’s great to fly with, she sleeps the entire flight. When I was in Roméo et Juliette in Zurich, my wife had brought her to the dress rehearsal, and [Coco] sat in the box and watched, and every time I sang her ears perked up and she looked around a little bit. Then she went back to sleep.

How do you see the future of opera?

It’s hard. I think what makes opera special is productions that really engage with the audience, Moby-Dick, for instance, has really engaged with the audience, and the audience likes the music, because there’s a lot of great music in there. It’s not just dissonant tones and unsingable melodies, which can tend to happen. This is an opera that has beautiful melodies, beautiful arias, and it’s why we go to the theater. We go to the theater because every day we deal with something, we have different stresses, different things going on in our lives that we for three hours want to get away from, and just be entertained. That’s why we go to these things. Look at all the Cirque du Soleil shows. They’re basically the same! They’re all doing the same acrobatic things in different forms and maybe the story is a little different, but it has the same principle. People go all the time, every time there’s a new one, everyone goes, and it’s because it’s enjoyable for them to watch. They’re engaging with the production. So I think that’s what we have to focus on.

**And you just answered my last question, which was what can we do to keep opera thriving for the next generation.**

I think the way to do that is to make it enjoyable for everybody. Now I do a lot of things that my parents used to take us to when we were younger. It’s because we enjoyed that time together. And those are the things I remember, whether it’s going to a restaurant; I liked it because I went with my family. I kept going back, even if the food started to go downhill a little bit, you still go back because you enjoy those experiences. I think that’s what we have to [do], take it back, and we have to remember.

**Thank you so much for speaking to me, Stephen. I would say go see Moby-Dick at the Met, closing March 29th, but by the time this is out, it will already probably be closed.**

Or request to see it again! If [readers] want to do it, tell them to write letters and tell [Met management] to bring it back.