Jordan Rutter-Covatto is a countertenor based in New York City currently building a career specializing in Baroque music and contemporary opera. In 2021/22, Rutter-Covatto reprised the role of Lola in a second workshop of House of Legendary with American Opera Project/Seagle Music Festival, joined Beth Morrison Projects for Niloufar Nourbakhsh and Lisa Flanagan’s Threshold of Brightness in BMP’s Next Gen competition and was featured on an episode of operabox.tv’s “SOUL(SIGNS): OPERA” as Papagena in The Magic Flute. In the fall of 2022, Rutter-Covatto will record Steven Rice’s Murmers from Limbo at Penn State University which will be released on Neuma Records.

 

An avid participant in the development and performance of new opera, Rutter-Covatto has worked as an artist for workshops of operas with The American Opera Project including House of Legendary (Joseph Rubinstein/Jason Kim) and Jing Jing Luo’s Ashima for countertenor and Pierrot ensemble. In 2020, Rutter-Covatto made their debut with American Lyric Theater in a workshop of The Opposable Thumb (Liliya Ugay/Julian Crouch). In 2015, Rutter-Covatto participated in the workshop and world premiere of Three Way (Paterson/Cote) with Nashville Opera and in New York City at Brooklyn Academy of Music and can be heard on the original cast recording published by American Modern Recordings. A recent highlight of Rutter-Covatto ’s career was their debut with Chicago Opera Theater in the second production of The Scarlet Ibis (Weisman/Cote) in the leading role of Doodle, giving a performance noted for its “virtuosic vocal facility" (Chicagoland Musical Theater). 

 

In addition to their work in full productions, Rutter-Covatto is a frequent guest artist with The American Opera Project’s and NYU Tisch Graduate Music Theater Writing Program’s Opera Writing Workshop, working with students and alumni of the program to develop short operas on contemporary topics. Previous projects have included The Dinner Party Operas in response to Judy Chicago’s feminist art installation The Dinner Party, and The Stonewall Operas in commemoration of the semi-centennial anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Most recently, Rutter-Covatto performed in Losing Control: a set of eleven operas surrounding the theme of reproductive rights.

 

In the Baroque repertoire, Rutter-Covatto has performed the role of the Sorceress in Dido & Aeneas with the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, covered the role with Heartbeat Opera, and was set to perform it again with Cerddorion before the production’s postponement due to the CoViD-19 pandemic. They served as co-curator and performer in operamission’s 2016 series of original pastiches 53rd St. Handel at the 53rd St. Library in New York City. Rutter-Covatto joined Opera at Rutgers for their production of Venus & Adonis as the 3rd Shepherd and Huntsman under the baton of Dr. Patrick Gardner and the direction of Dietlinde Turbin Maazel. Most recently, they covered the role of Nero in a workshop of a new adaptation of Monterverdi’s Poppea by James Lowe and Kelly Rourke with Fort Worth Opera. On concert stages, Rutter-Covatto has regularly performed in Handel’s Messiah and joined the Academy of Sacred Drama as Oloferne in their performance of Scarlatti’s La Giuditta.

 

A noted performer of Benjamin Britten’s vocal music, Rutter-Covatto recently was praised for their “riveting” performance as Miles in The Turn of the Screw with On Site Opera (Opera News 1/25/20). They have also portrayed Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Opera on the Avalon and Canticle II: Abraham & Isaac in recital.

 

Rutter-Covatto is a passionate recitalist and has designed several programs with a focus on songs from the American repertoire. Previous recital projects include Going to Heaven (Dowland’s lute songs, Bach’s Geist und Seele wird verwirret, selections from Copland’s 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson), Litanies (Schubert’s Lieder, Haydn’s Arianna a Naxos, Satie’s Trois mélodies de 1916, Hagen’s Letting Go) and The Cabaret Songs of William Bolcom performed at the Duplex Cabaret. Rutter-Covatto has also collaborated with MET LiveArts in Mingwei Lee’s presentation of Sonic Blossoms performing Lieder by Schubert in the Metropolitan Museum’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, and with Origin Theater Company in its production of Lot Vekemans’ POISON featuring Rutter-Covatto singing Strauss and Schubert Lieder as incidental music.

 

Rutter-Covatto holds a BM in Vocal Performance (University of North Florida) and a MM in Vocal Performance (Manhattan School of Music).