Jordan Rutter-Covatto (he/they) is a Vietnamese-American countertenor, actor and composer based in New York City. Rutter-Covatto’s practice combines virtuosic bel canto vocal technique with method acting processes and Baroque gesture to create performances lauded as “riveting … frightening to behold” (Opera News, The Turn of the Screw, 1/5/20) and “[t]he best operatic moments” (WQXR, Three Way, 6/16/17).

 

Rutter-Covatto is a sought-after collaborator for contemporary operas and new music. They have worked with The American Opera Project, Beth Morrison Projects, American Lyric Theater, Fort Worth Opera, and American Modern Opera Company among others. Career highlights include the development, world premiere, and original cast recording of Three Way (Paterson/Cotè, Nashville Opera) and the second production of The Scarlet Ibis (Weisman/Cotè, Chicago Opera Theater).

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Rutter-Covatto’s work has been featured at numerous educational institutions, including New York University, Columbia University, Rutgers University, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of North Florida. Rutter-Covatto has been a frequent guest artist in New York University’s Opera Lab, developing operas by students and alumni of the university’s Musical Theatre Writing Program on contemporary topics including the Stonewall riots, climate change, and reproductive rights.

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A passionate performer of Baroque repertoire, Rutter-Covatto has performed in major works including Handel’s Messiah, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, and Scarlatti’s La Giuditta. One of Rutter-Covatto’s signature roles is the Sorceress in Dido & Aeneas, with multiple productions of the opera to their credit. As a creative producer, Rutter-Covatto co-curated a series of Handel pastiches with operamission performed in the 53rd St. Library. Rutter-Covatto’s independently produced ERATO: a baroque fetish fantasia was featured as part of The Tank’s 2023 PrideFest and Folsom Street East’s 2023 Fetish Weekend. 

 

In New York City’s theater scene, Rutter-Covatto has been featured both as a musician and as an actor. Rutter-Covatto’s off-Broadway debut was as an onstage singer in Lot Vekemans’s POISON (Origin Theater Company). Additional stage work includes Johnny Lloyd’s play birthday birthday birthday (Columbia New Plays Festival) and Truth Future Bachman’s musical Skyward: An Ending Elegy (Lincoln Center).

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Rutter-Covatto is the artistic director and co-founder of counter codex, an arts collective dedicated to reclaiming queer narratives in the arts by producing interdisciplinary staged musical events that combine the aesthetics of the leather and fetish community with the arts. Previous productions include POLYMATH: La Comédie de la Mort, a recital of two world premiere song cycles composed by Rutter-Covatto and Joseph N. Rubinstein alongside inherited repertory settings of Théophile Gautier, a live reading of a horror story by a local writer from the LGBTQIA+ community, and a photography exhibit, and RITUAL: Schwarze Messe Kabarett, featuring music by Jewish composers affected by the Nazi regime arranged for chamber ensemble by Rutter-Covatto and interspersed with monologues adapted from oral histories of queer elders.