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By Matthew Westphal
24 Sep 2007

Good things are happening fast for Stephen Costello. The young tenor from Philadelphia, who just completed graduate studies at that city's Academy of Vocal Arts last spring, makes his Metropolitan Opera debut in tonight's season-opening gala performance of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

Stephen Costello
photo by Paul Sirochman

This evening he takes the secondary role of Arturo Bucklaw, the Scottish lord to whom Lucia is married against her will. But one month from tomorrow on the same stage, he moves up to the role of Edgardo, Lucia's true love and the opera's male lead.

Costello celebrates his 26th birthday this weekend.

Even before finishing up at the AVA, he had taken First Prize in the 2006 George London Foundation for Singers Competition, given his London recital debut at the Wigmore Hall, received a 2007 Career Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, and made his Dallas Opera debut in the lead role of the Earl of Leicester in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda.

After his run at the Met, Costello's career will be racing ahead: among his upcoming engagements are Cassio in Verdi's Otello at the Salzburg Festival under Riccardo Muti, the Duke in Rigoletto with the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Alfredo in La traviata with Florida Grand Opera, and a return to bel canto at The Dallas Opera in the title role of Donizetti's Roberto Devereux.

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