Suzi Gomez-Pizzo, wearing a tangerine sweatshirt and sneakers, barreled down the backstage corridors of the Metropolitan Opera on a recent afternoon, a trolley full of clothes behind her.
It was the first act of John Adams’s “Antony and Cleopatra,” and Gomez-Pizzo, who supervises costumes for female leads at the Met, was lining up a series of quick changes for the soprano Julia Bullock, the opera’s Cleopatra. In the span of minutes, Gomez-Pizzo had to help Bullock change from a sleek burgundy gown to a slinky watercolor dress to a bejeweled pharaoh’s outfit.
“You got this,” Gomez-Pizzo told Bullock, handing her a water bottle. “You look stunning.”
After 18 years, Gomez-Pizzo, 64, a fast-talking native New Yorker, is retiring this month from the Met. She has garnered a reputation as a calm troubleshooter with a knack for defusing last-minute sartorial snafus: broken shoes, missing earrings, ripped gowns.
But perhaps her most important role has been as confidante and cheerleader to the stars. She meets opera singers at their most vulnerable, casually asking them to strip down and sit for fittings. She is often the last person they see before heading onto the Met’s stage, one of the grandest in opera. It is a critical moment when doubts, fears and yearnings — for water, chocolate or moral support — are particularly urgent.
At the Met, Gomez-Pizzo is known simply as the diva whisperer. Over the years, she has befriended some of opera’s biggest stars, including Anna Netrebko, Lise Davidsen, Angel Blue, Elza van den Heever, Deborah Voigt and Natalie Dessay.
”It’s not just about putting clothes on — it is so much more than that,” Gomez-Pizzo said. “You’re with somebody who’s pretending to be somebody. But the nerves, the challenges they’re going through in their lives, are very real. It’s our job to make sure that they can somehow go on.”
Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, praised Gomez-Pizzo’s skill, describing her as “like the head of a Formula 1 pit crew, making a quick change in seconds.” He added that she also served as the “resident backstage psychiatrist when it comes to dealing with the fragile egos of our singers.”
“She knows how to console them, how to make them feel better,” he said. “The artists know they can trust her. They know they can rely upon her. They know that she’s there for them.”
Growing up in the Manhattanville housing project in Harlem, Gomez-Pizzo dreamed of an international career in costumes. At her home, she sometimes stared out her window and imagined faraway places, asking her mother what time it was in England.
“I knew from a young age that I wanted to dress the stars,” she said. “My mother would say, ‘Where are you getting that from?’”
After studying costume design at Purchase College, Gomez-Pizzo worked in the Met’s costume shop from 1983 to 1985. She then became a wardrobe supervisor with the Alvin Ailey dance company, followed by a long stint on Broadway, dressing stars like Julie Andrews and Liza Minnelli.
She returned to the Met in 2007, taking on the role of solo women’s wardrobe supervisor. It was there that she met her husband, James Pizzo, then a stagehand, who went on to become the Met’s assistant head carpenter.
She likes to say she has a “stupid job” — people often ask her why the artists can’t dress themselves. She explains that there are rapid changes and that the clothes have to be arranged to a tee.
“People look at me like, ‘What are you talking about, don’t the singers dress themselves before they come to work?’” she said. “The common man does not understand this job.”
During her time at the Met, Gomez-Pizzo has been a part of more than 2,000 performances. Aside from dressing the stars, her duties include maintaining the costumes. She wears a headlamp around her neck and a vest that contains pliers, scissors, bandages, safety pins and sewing supplies.
“The secret to everything around here is to just keep moving,” she said. “The secret to life is to just keep moving.”
Her role as coach and crisis manager was needed during a performance of Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” in November, when the soprano Leah Hawkins was tapped at intermission to replace an ailing Angela Meade. (Hawkins had been standing by that day in case a substitution was necessary, and Gomez-Pizzo dressed both singers backstage to be safe.) At one point she told Hawkins, who was nervous and shaking: “Honey, let’s get dressed, let’s do it. You’re good. We’re fine. Put these clothes on and go.”
“She has a way of being very militant but still kind,” Hawkins said. “She has a way of getting things done in a loving manner.”
On Saturday, the last day of the Met season and her last day of performances, Gomez-Pizzo worked an evening show of “Antony and Cleopatra.” A parade of colleagues stopped by to hug Gomez-Pizzo and wish her well.
Bullock, who sang the role of Cleopatra, said that Gomez-Pizzo brought “stability and reassurance” to the production.
“Before I even think of it, she anticipates the needs,” Bullock said. “I know that no matter where my mind is, or feelings are, I’ve got this totally secure, reliable person.”
As she bids farewell to the Met, Gomez-Pizzo has received a glut of gifts and flowers — carnations, roses, orchids — from friends and colleagues. (“My home looks like a freakin funeral parlor,” she joked on Instagram.) She was recently celebrated at the Met with a piñata in the shape of Hello Kitty, one of her favorite characters.
Gomez-Pizzo said she was not certain what she might do in retirement, but that after years of racing around the Met and lifting heavy dresses, she is ready for a break.
“Everything I thought I could do and I wanted to do, I did it,” she said. “God has been very good.”
Javier C. Hernández is a Times reporter who covers classical music, opera and dance in New York City and beyond.
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