She was born and raised in Philadephia. But she spent her last two years
of high school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. One summer she worked as an
usher at the Santa Fe Opera - and that was how she first got interested
in the art. She was hooked on choral music (and still loves it) and
sang in her church choir, but singing was not really her thing.
Or so she thought.
Until she went to the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California
to study music therapy - and her teachers immediately saw she had a
talent for performing. She was chosen to apprentice at the Aspen Music
Festival that summer, and though a total neophyte, she beat the competition
for the "trousers" role of Nicklausse (in Offenbach's Tales
of Hoffmann). And that was how she got really hooked on opera. So she
left the farmlands of Stockton for the vastly more sophisticated world
of the Juilliard School where she stayed on to earn both her bachelor's
and master's degrees in music.
In
1983 she made her European debut - and that was the start of her rise
in the opera world. She spent the next years singing mostly in Europe.
In 1987 she moved with her family to Chicago and launched her US career.
In 1988 she made her MET debut, and her career moved on at an even more
dizzying pace. She sang one new role after another, criss-crossing the
Atlantic as she fulfilled the demands of a career that was rising fast
in both Europe and America.
Today Susanne Mentzer is in the prime of her career, one of the world's
most sought-after mezzo-sopranos. A diva, yes. Without the affectations
of one. She is so secure and down-to-earth, it doesn't bother her one
bit that people often don't recognize her once she walks out the stage
door after a stellar performance. And when you read that she has no
deep-seated need to be famous, if you have been around her even for
only one brief moment, you can believe it. For Susanne Mentzer it is
enough that life has been good to her, that she can do her work, and
that she has attained fame where it counts most - in the hearts and
minds of the world's true opera lovers.
On
top of her stage performances, Susanne Mentzer will take up the post of
Professor at The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston,
TX beginning August 2006 and continues as member of the faculty at the
Aspen Festival in Colorado.
Photo credits:Stewart O'Shields, Courtesy: Jay K. Hoffmann & Associates
