#susanne mentzer
Susanne Mentzer singing Vois sous l'archet frémissant from Offenbach’s Les contes d'Hoffmann.
Have I ever told you about my opera OTP?
It’s Zerbinetta and Komponist (the Composer) in Strauss’s opera Ariadne auf Naxos. He’s written a serious opera, she heads up a commedia dell’arte troupe, and they unexpectedly have to perform their acts at the same time. He’s young, passionate, self-important– and absolutely livid. She’s game, she’s an improviser by trade, but he won’t agree with it and she knows she has to do something.
Here’s where the dynamic can go one of two ways. She can manipulate him by seducing him and becoming exactly the kind of woman he’d want. Or she finds herself drawn to him, and in a few short minutes is honestly telling him that underneath all of her coquetry and good humor, she’s really lonely. She wants a real connection.
The latter interpretation is always the more interesting one. And this performance, with Natalie Dessay as Zerbinetta and Susanne Mentzer as Komponist, is very clearly making the choice that there’s something real between them.
And yes, Komponist is a trouser role. But of all the trouser roles I can think of, this is one where you can change the character’s gender and have the story be essentially the same (but obviously with different nuances and complexities). There are already productions that are full on presenting Komponist as a woman.
Anyway, whatever gender you like, I love them so much.
