AMNA NAWAZ: Anthony Roth Costanzo cuts an unusual figure in the world of music.

A leading international opera singer, he also now heads an opera company.

This unexpected voice is also now performing in the Metropolitan Opera's Wildly popular "Lincoln in the Bardo," which is being streamed free for the public tomorrow night on YouTube.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown has that story for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

JEFFREY BROWN: The Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten in the opera by contemporary composer Philip Glass, a signature role for singer Anthony Roth Costanzo, sung in a high and highly distinctive voice, that of the countertenor.

ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO, General Director and President, Opera Philadelphia: You know, countertenor is just a guy who sings high.

JEFFREY BROWN: A guy who sings high.

ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO: That's me.

But it's not your speaking voice.

It's this other register.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, here's your speaking voice.

ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO: My speaking voice is like this, and I sing... (SINGING) ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO: Up like that.

JEFFREY BROWN: The countertenor is a male singer with an unusually high range, a trained falsetto, reaching those of female singers.

And that, says Costanzo, takes the emotions and for some the strangeness of opera up several notches.

ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO: We have to express an emotion, a feeling that goes so far beyond speaking.

Beyond just the normal voice, the countertenor expresses the extraordinary.

JEFFREY BROWN: His new book and an accompanying recording, both titled "Countertenor," offer both a history of this voice and a personal history, a boy who spent his early years in Durham, North Carolina, and from the beginning loved to sing, eventually on national tours And Broadway by the time he was 13, and with the likes of Luciano Pavarotti, before becoming an opera star in his own right, performing on leading world stages.

ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO: When my voice started to slowly change, and I was just getting into opera, somebody said, maybe you're a countertenor, and I said, a what?

And they said, oh, you know, it's this thing where you can keep singing high.

And I said, well, sign me up.

JEFFREY BROWN: It's not that easy, of course.

It requires very specialized vocal training, breath management, and technique to give the voice that kind of strength in such high registers.

Earlier countertenor history, as Costanzo details, involved the castration of young boys before their voices changed.

And some of these so-called castrati became world-famous figures.

Major composers, including Mozart, Vivaldi, and Handel, wrote for them.

ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO: They became the rock stars of their era.

There's a lot of connection to what Michael Jackson was doing.

If you watch Michael Jackson hit his high notes, you see women faint.

And women were fainting when the castrati were singing.

So there's some connection between having men sing high, whether it's natural or unnatural, and people responding in an extreme way because it excites them.

JEFFREY BROWN: Think Prince, The Bee Gees, The Weeknd, and so many others.

Falsetto has been exciting people forever, a big part of pop music history.

In opera, there's an ongoing renaissance in roles for the countertenor, with Costanzo very much part of it.

Here he is in the new production of "Lincoln in the Bardo" by composer Missy Mazzoli.

But Costanzo is also eager to bring his sound beyond traditional classical music stages and to address contemporary cultural issues.

That was seen in "Only an Octave Apart," a cabaret show alongside transgender performer Justin Vivian Bond, blending opera, standards and pop, with plenty of emphasis on gender subversion.

ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO: You know, you have someone who looks a very particular way and sings low, and someone who looks like me and sings high.

It is so much fun, and it also brings into the foreground this question of what identity is.

JEFFREY BROWN: Costanzo's newest and perhaps most ambitious role is a highly unusual one for a leading singer.

ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO: I'm Anthony Roth Costanzo.

I'm the general director and president here at Opera Philadelphia.

JEFFREY BROWN: In 2024, he became general director and president of a major opera company, Opera Philadelphia, his goal, to foster the art form's continuing relevance and accessibility.

ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO: Thank you for choosing opera.

And I felt that opera wasn't changing quick enough.

I felt like it wasn't adapting to our contemporary times.

I think that the business model holds opera back.

JEFFREY BROWN: In addition to adventurous programming, one big experiment, $11 tickets, or pick your price.

Costanzo says that's quickly brought in first-time and younger audiences, along with new funders excited to lend support.

Opera has for a long time had this question of hanging out there, about accessibility, aging audiences, elitism.

ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO: It's just all the structures around it that keep people away, as well as their preconceptions.

So it's not only about the price of the ticket.

It's about the art you put on stage, but also the brand that you build.

What I'm selling to people at Opera Philadelphia is an experience that's really fun.

It costs less than a movie, but there's also a happy hour.

And there's a whole way of branding it.

We have put ads on the trash cans in Philadelphia.

So, as you walk down the street, you encounter opera on a trash can, so that it doesn't feel so foreboding.

JEFFREY BROWN: "Try any and every thing," says the great pharaoh, "with every voice you have."

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in New York.