Susanne Marsee

Susanne Marsee (née Susan Irene Dowell, on November 26, 1941, in San Diego, California) is an American mezzo-soprano of note. She was one of the New York City Opera's leading mezzo-sopranos from 1970, when she debuted opposite Beverly Sills, Plácido Domingo and Louis Quilico, in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, with Julius Rudel conducting Tito Capobianco's production.

Miss Marsee then appeared with companies in Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Boston, Cincinnati, Fort Worth, Houston, Memphis, Milwaukee, New Orleans (Urbain in Les Huguenots), Omaha, Philadelphia (in Anna Bolena, with Renata Scotto), Pittsburgh, St Paul, San Diego, San Francisco, Washington DC, Caracas, Cervantes Festival (Mexico), Mexico City, Montreal, Taiwanese Opera Festival, etc.

Susanne Marsee.

In 1972, Marsee made her only commercial recording, for Westminster, as Nicklausse in Les contes d'Hoffmann, opposite Sills and Norman Treigle. In 1977, she made her European debut at the Spoleto Festival in Così fan tutte, and then appeared at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in Roberto Devereux, with Montserrat Caballé and José Carreras.

The remarkable singing-actress was seen in a number of PBS television broadcasts: Rachel La Cubana (conducted by the composer, Hans Werner Henze, 1974), Roberto Devereux (with Sills, 1975), Il turco in Italia (with Sills and Donald Gramm, 1978), La Cenerentola (with Rockwell Blake and Alan Titus, 1980), Rigoletto (1988), A Little Night Music (with Regina Resnik, 1990) and Le nozze di Figaro (as Marcellina, 1991).

Her final appearances at the City Opera were as Mistress Bentsen in Lakmé (opposite Elizabeth Futral), in 1994. The following year (twenty-five years after her debut), she sang her farewell performance, in the cameo rôle of Alisa in the Capobianco production of Lucia di Lammermoor, for the Pittsburgh Opera.

Recordings

• Offenbach: Les contes d'Hoffmann (Sills, Burrows, Treigle; Rudel, 1972) Deutsche Grammophon (audio)
• Donizetti: Roberto Devereux (Sills, J.Alexander, Fredricks; Rudel, Capobianco, 1975) [live] VAI (video)

References

• The New York City Opera: An American Adventure, by Martin L. Sokol (Annals by George Louis Mayer), Macmillan Publishing Co, Inc, 1981. ISBN 0-02-612280-4

External links

• [1] YouTube: Susanne Marsee in La Cenerentola (1980).
• [2] The Susanne Marsee Appreciation Society.

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Name	Marsee, Susanne
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Date of birth	November 26, 1941
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