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JORDAN RUTTER-COVATTO

is an American countertenor based in New York City. Rutter-Covatto’s practice combines virtuosic 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 as a soloist in the development of projects with The American Opera Project, Beth Morrison Projects, and American Lyric Theater in New York City. Rutter-Covatto created the role of Kyle in Robert Paterson’s opera Three Way at Nashville Opera and Brooklyn Academy of Music, and can be heard on the original cast recording. A recent highlight of Rutter-Covatto’s work was their company and role debut as Doodle in the second production of The Scarlet Ibis by Stefan Weisman and David Cotè at Chicago Opera Theater. Additionally, Rutter-Covatto has worked in as a guest artist since 2018 in NYU Tisch’s Opera Lab in which musical theater composers and librettists compose short operas based on contemporary topics including women’s rights, climate change, the Stonewall riots, and reproductive rights. 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. Rutter-Covatto has performed the role of the Sorceress in Dido & Aeneas with Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, covered it with Heartbeat Opera, and was set to perform it again with Cerddorion before the production’s cancellation due to COVID-19. Additional highlights include selections of Schütz and Colonna in a holiday concert with La Fiocco, and scenes from Händel’s operas in a series of pastiches co-curated with operamission. Rutter-Covatto has also appeared in New York City’s theater scene, working off-Broadway as an onstage musician for the English-language premiere of Lot Vekemans’s POISON with Origin Theater Company in 2016 and creating the principal role of Clark in Johnny Lloyd’s birthday birthday birthday with Columbia University’s New Plays Festival in 2022. Rutter-Covatto prides themself on bringing classical music outside of its traditional boundaries, working with MET LiveArts in Mingwei Lee’s Sonic Blossoms, singing Schubert Lieder for museum patrons. In 2017, Rutter-Covatto performed all four volumes of William Bolcom’s Cabaret Songs at the historic cabaret in the Duplex bar in the West Village. They have worked with artists in residence at performance spaces including HERE Arts Center and FiveMyles in Brooklyn. In 2018, Rutter-Covatto was seen on the High Line as an artist in the mile long opera by David Lang. Rutter-Covatto is a proud Vietnamese-American and member of the LGBTQ+ community and seeks to bring communities together through storytelling and shared experience.

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