BIOGRAPHY

Esther Linssen.

graduated in 1996 at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague with Diane Forlano. Obtained her diplomas Musician Teacher and Musician Performer – Opera and Musician Performer – Recital. In addition to this education, she took lessons with Christina Deutekom, James McCray, Alexander Oliver and Roberta Alexander. Kenneth Montgommery (conductor), Gijs de Lange (director), Ali Çifteci (actor, musician, theater maker) have been of great influence in her development as a singer and performer.

Peter Nilsson and Jorrit van den Ham as coach and supervisor

Esther participated in several concert and stage performances of Operas. In 2005 she sang the role of Carmen in Opera Mosset's production Sacrée Carmen in France. Her repertoire includes Verdirolls as: Abigaïlle in Nabucco, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Giselda in I'Lombardi, Violetta in La Traviata and Aida in Aida. She has also sung Giorgetta in Puccini's Il Tabarro and the Contessa in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and in Leos Janacek's The Sly Vosje. In addition to opera, she sang in major choral works such as Verdi's Requiem and Dvorák's Stabat Mater. Esther worked for several seasons as an actress/singer at Toneelgroep Amsterdam, she performed in a masterclass under the direction of Gijs de Lange and at the National Theater in The Hague in Van Oude Mensen under the direction of Ger Thijs. As an Operawoman she created her first solo performance WASLIJN, which she performed in theaters in the Netherlands for two seasons: classical repertoire combined with texts by herself, directed by Ruut Weissman/Ali Cifteci. From 2010 to 2015, Esther was a policy officer at the Education Participation Department of Dutch National Opera and Ballet, where she still regularly returns as a freelancer as a teacher, workshop leader and project leader. She left this permanent job to make room for her singing career as a dramatic mezzo-soprano and to work on a new theater program, Lebensbaum, with Klaus Bertisch, dramaturge of Dutch National Opera. This program is based on and inspired by her German past. Her grandfather was Paul Benndorf, a Wehrmacht soldier. The Concert-lecture with her mother Von der Geschichte befreit, for which Esther compiled a program with songs by Schubert and Schumann, has been the prologue, as it were. Lebensbaum, a performance that wants to show that we should look to the future with the science of the past. In 2019 Esther came up with a new one woman show: Heute Abend Lola Blau. A musical for an actress again directed by Klaus Bertisch.