CLASSICAL
Lise Davidsen is the most talked-about young soprano around. ‘The great Wagnerian hope of her generation,’ gushed one British critic recently. Justifying all the hype is a big ask for a singer who has just passed her 34th birthday. And who has had very little experience on the stage, where, ultimately, whether she really is the next Birgit Nilsson will be tried, tested and determined.
But she does nothing to harm her cause in this second Decca album, set down in London and Watford last summer, under full lockdown procedures. Conditions, she says, where she could barely see the harpist accompanying her in one of the two Verdi arias included on this admittedly rather random recital, where she is attentively accompanied by the London Philharmonic under Sir Mark Elder. There is some Wagner, but it’s the Wesendonck Lieder, five songs in the main not orchestrated by Wagner. So it’s a bit like judging a Grand National contender on the basis of a little run out over hurdles.
As well as the Verdi duo, there’s Santuzza’s big aria from Cavalleria Rusticana, and Medea’s aria from Luigi Cherubini’s obscure opera of the same name. Why? Except, of course, she knows them.
Perhaps the most characterful singing comes from Leonore’s Act I aria from Beethoven’s Fidelio, because she had just sung that on stage, and there’s a thrilling stage presence here. A shame, then, that the h other h B Beethoven h i item is the concert aria Ah! Perfido, far from Beethoven at his finest, though it’s persuasively p performed here. Davidsen won’t come into h her prime for a decade, so the th vocal freshness that’s so ap apparent everywhere here will wil need to be maintained, des despite the queue of people outs outside her Oslo apartment dete determined to sign her up for all m manner of projects. Say Saying no to a lot of them will have a lot to do with whether she go goes down in history as a great singer or merely a oncepromising one.