Lise Davidsen emerged in the early 2020s as a rapidly rising soprano star, and a few minutes with the voice, which can range from delicate middle-ranging singing to blazing power, is enough to make the listener understand why. Beyond vocal mastery, though, there's programming intelligence here and a sense of self. Appearing in early 2021, the album is something of a snapshot of Davidsen's career at the time. It looks back to Beethoven's Fidelio, one of the operas in which she made a splash, and adds to it the big and not ...
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Lise Davidsen emerged in the early 2020s as a rapidly rising soprano star, and a few minutes with the voice, which can range from delicate middle-ranging singing to blazing power, is enough to make the listener understand why. Beyond vocal mastery, though, there's programming intelligence here and a sense of self. Appearing in early 2021, the album is something of a snapshot of Davidsen's career at the time. It looks back to Beethoven's Fidelio, one of the operas in which she made a splash, and adds to it the big and not terribly common three-part concert aria Ah, perfido, Op. 65, which shows off her talents to the fullest. Temporarily, the program moves to Italy with an athletic Cherubini aria setting up the two contrasting Verdi arias and the melancholy verismo excerpt from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana that follow. The program closes with Wagner's five Wesendonck Lieder in their orchestrations by Wagner and Felix Mottl, signaling unmistakably that Davidsen, in her mid-30s when the album appeared,...
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