Against an orange stage, a powerful performance raises funds to end violence against women

“The other cast members get their moment, and Susanne Mentzer particularly stands out as a strong Nelly the housekeeper and very much a foil for Jarman’s Cathy” – PlanetHugill.com, Robert Hugill, 7/14/16

 

“Mezzo Susanne Mentzer is unexpectedly empathic as the maid and confidante Nelly”
– Opera News, Rebecca Paller, July 2016 review of Floyd, Wuthering Heights

 

“With her Maggie Smith-like facial expressions, mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer could hardly have been better as Augusta, conveying the character’s steeliness and hurt in both voice and manner.”
– Opera News, Kyle MacMillan, September 2016

 

“Mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer is an imposing, but dignified Augusta. It would have been easy for Moore and Latouche to write the character out of Act II, after Horace leaves her for Baby Doe, but thankfully they did not. Mentzer makes the most out of her final scenes, where she rejects help for the now-destitute Horace and where she, as an apparition, guides him through the review of his life before he dies penniless. Yet her Act I numbers, particularly the office scene where she confirms the affair, do not lose in impact either.”
– Daily Camera Classical Music Writer, July 11 2016, Kelly Dean Hansen

 

“the comic bluster of Susanne Mentzer’s Marcellina.”
– Eric C Simpson, The Classical Review, February 2016

 

“Mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer’s delightful Marcellina, bass Peixin Chen’s affable Bartolo, tenor William Ferguson’s character-filled Don Basilio and Don Curzio, and soprano Alisa Suzanne Jordheim’s vivacious Barbarina, and Thomas Hammons’ comically drunken Antonio, were all beautifully constructed of ringing, polished voices and theatrical poise.” -Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 2016

“the practiced Marcellina of Susanne Mentzer (a onetime Cherubino)”
-NY Times 2/29/16 James Oestreich

 

Opera-Palooza Makes Arias Seriously Fun, New Haven Independent, Aug 2016
The strength of the performances, and the beauty of the music, kept them there to the end, when Mentzer herself performed Georges Bizet’s “Habanera” from Carmen. Yes, it was that song, a song everyone knows, even when they don’t know where it’s from. But Mentzer and her gorgeous voice gave it new sultry and languid life, reminding you why the song is immortal in the first place.

 

Evergreen Baby in Colorado, Opera Today 2016
“As the third part of the story’s love/power triangle, Susanne Mentzer emphatically held her own as the determined, staunch, till-death-do-us-part wife Augusta Tabor. To her great credit, Ms. Mentzer finds every cranny of nuance in an often unsympathetic personage. She wisely invests the role with as much dignity as outrage, balancing the overt self-righteousness with an abiding sense of loss. She is an attractive woman, her handsome bearing able to suggest severity as well as noble suffering. She has an incisive, throbbing mezzo-soprano, and her technique is rock solid, reveling in a freely ringing top and upper middle, while wisely negotiating lower passages with savvy dramatic flair. Ms. Mentzer also excels portraying the character’s physical deterioration, dramatically and vocally. When she appears as her youthful self in Horace’s final hallucination, she is stunningly renewed: sassy and fresh-voiced.”

 

Miami: Seraphic Fire, Mahler Das Lied von der Erde 2015
“Mentzer’s mezzo-soprano has grown darker but it is still impressive. Her evocation of heartbreak in autumn was spun with warmth and fervor and she captured the joy and darker subtext of the song about maidens picking flowers. In the final setting’s farewell to life, Der Abschied, her voiced soared as she conveyed in supple, radiant tones the anguish and loneliness of the protagonist. Deeply emotional and expressive, Mentzer uttered the final lines almost in a whisper over the tinkling celesta”.

 

Libby Larsen: Circle of Friends, Dec. 2015
“The vividness of the terrible events that have inspired it are beautifully expressed by the pristine mezzo-soprano of Susanne Mentzer, an inspired choice for both the purity of her voice as well as the register of its range.”

 

Opera News Review of “Letter to the World”
“Mentzer’s singing is sincere and robust, and she manages extremes of range with technical expertise, bringing evenness and clarity to both highs and lows with smoothness and lyricism. She enjoys the often thorny poetry without ever over-intellectualizing.”

 

“[Susanne Mentzer] invested Dido’s desolate lament, ‘When I am laid to Earth,’ with vibrant intensity and a tragic pathos that made her imperious fury when scorned as palpable as the fierce pride she unleashed when the conflicted Aeneas recanted his decision to leave her.” – Chicago Tribune

 

“Susanne Mentzer embodied the overly sensitive Composer in hilarious fashion, while her elegant voice set the tone for the entire opera.” – Opera News

 

“The fabulous mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer sang the Composer. She excels at trouser roles, where her character is male. Mentzer…is superb regardless of the gender of her roles because she uses beautifully colored voice with dramatic insights and acts with a vivid range that includes many levels of subtlety.” – Pittsburgh Tribune

 

“Mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer, as the naïve lover Marguerite, sang with darkly luminous tones, delivering a rapturous ‘Romance’ song – perhaps foremost among the evening’s highlights.” – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

“The mezzo’s vocally impeccable, emotionally compelling performance proved that she is among the premier art-song interpreters of our day. Her rich, vibrant sound retains its warmth from top to bottom and throughout its broad dynamic range, and she draws the listener into the spirit of each song with a deep internal connection that creates distinctive characters with a minimum of outward display.” – Opera News