NEW YORK (AP) â âDavidsen Goes out with a Bang,â read the headline in Broadway Worldâs review of the revival of Beethovenâs âFidelio.â
And indeed Lise Davidsen is in a sense âgoing out.â After she gives her final performance as the wife who disguises herself as a man to save her husband, sheâll head home to Norway to prepare for a new role â
But the sopranoâs fans will also have something new to savor while sheâs on maternity leave. Decca is releasing a recording of Wagnerâs âDer Fliegende HollĂ€nderâ (âThe Flying Dutchmanâ), an opera she had never sung before and may never do again.
What convinced Davidsen to record âThe Flying Dutchmanâ
The role of Senta, the sea captainâs daughter who is obsessed with rescuing the Dutchman from eternal damnation, is one that Davidsen said she had been âasked to do for almost 10 years,â but always turned down because âI didnât feel ready.â
That might seem surprising since the role is relatively short and is often grouped with other Wagnerian roles she has already sung, like Elisabeth in "TannhĂ€userâ or Sieglinde in âDie WalkĂŒre.â
But the tessitura of the role â the amount of time the voice spends in a particular range â âwas difficult for me six or seven years ago,â she said. âIt lies in a tricky place and is surprisingly dramatic in the high range. For me, it was a little bit too high for too long a time.â
What changed her mind, she said, was mastering the title role of Richard Straussâs âSalome,â another opera that requires the soprano to sing near the top of her range much of the time. She performed that to
Added incentives to record Senta came from the team Decca assembled and the fact that it was taped in two live performances at the Oslo Opera House. Edward Gardner, music director of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, was the conductor, and the role of the Dutchman was sung by baritone Gerald Finley, a singer she has long admired.
In their great second-act duet, Davidsen said that when Finley sang his opening phrases in an otherworldly hush, âIt just gave me goosebumps because his sound is so beautiful. Itâs so inspiring and clear.
âI wanted to take his voice and put it in my pocket and have it with me for a sad day.â
Davidsen matches him, scaling back her enormous voice to sing with aching purity, then unleashing a torrent of sound for the climaxes.
The recording, also featuring bass Brindley Sharratt as Sentaâs father Daland, and tenor Stanislas de Barbeyrac as her hapless suitor Erik, will be released April 18.
Now that the project is behind her she said she has no plans to sing the role on stage.
âI can never say never,â she said, âand maybe in five years something changes. But for now thereâs a lot of other roles I have coming.â
What's next for Davidsen onstage
Chief among those are the two pinnacles of the Wagnerian repertory for dramatic soprano, Isolde in âTristan und Isolde,â and BrĂŒnnhilde in the âRingâ cycle. Both have been announced for upcoming productions at the Met directed by Yuval Sharon with the Isolde in just a year from now.
In addition she is determined to keep exploring the Italian repertory. Already she has scored success in two major Verdi roles: Elisabetta in âDon Carloâ and Leonora in âLa Forza del Destino.â
A very different Verdi role sheâs eager to add is the murderous Lady Macbeth in âMacbeth.â She will open the Metâs 2026-27 season in a new production of the work.
âI just love that woman,â she said. âThereâs something so loco in her, and Iâm anxious to see where I can go with it. The other ladies are pure, but sheâs on a different planet.â
Davidsenâs twins are due in June, and she plans to extend her leave from singing for the rest of 2025. âIn America they think thatâs a very long leave,â she said, âbut back home they think itâs very short.â
Once she does return, sheâll be doing fewer concert tours that require quickly jumping from city to city. âThe back and forth, here and there, I donât want to do it,â she said.
âThe good thing with new opera productions is we can all be here together,â she said. Between rehearsals and performances, a new production typically allows for at least a two-month stay in one place.
Meanwhile, the final âFidelioâ on Saturday afternoon will be broadcast live in HD to movie theaters worldwide. Susanna MĂ€lkki conducts a cast that includes tenor David Butt Philip as the unjustly imprisoned Florestan; bass Rene PapĂ© as the jailer Rocco, soprano Ying Fang as his daughter Marzelline, and baritone Tomasz Konieczny as the villainous Don Pizarro.
Mike Silverman, The Associated Press
