Mentzner, Susanne
Mentzner, Susanne
Mentzner, Susanne, American mezzo-soprano; b. Philadelphia, Jan. 21, 1957. She was a student of Norma Newton at the Juilliard School in N.Y. After making her operatic debut as Albina in La donna del lago at the Houston Grand Opera in 1981, she made appearances at the Washington (D.C.) Opera, the Lyric Opera in Chicago, the Opera Co. of Philadelphia, and the N.Y.C. Opera. In 1983 she made her European operatic debut as Cherubino at the Cologne Opera, where she returned as Massenet’s Cendrillon. She made her first appearance at London’s Covent Garden as Rosina in 1985, where she later sang Giovanna Seymour in 1988 and Dorabella in 1989. In 1988 she portrayed Adalgisa in Monte Carlo. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. on Jan. 4, 1989, as Cherubino. That same year, she was engaged as Octavian at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. She appeared as Annius in La clemenza di Tito at Milan’s La Scala in 1990. During the 1992–93 season, she sang Offenbach’s Nicklausse and Strauss’s Composer and Octavian at the Metropolitan Opera. Following an engagement as Geneviève in Pelléas et Mélisande at the Palais Gamier in Paris in 1997, she returned to the Metropolitan Opera as Cherubino in 1998.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire