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Lise Davidsen (soprano)
Beethoven – Verdi – Wagner
Rosalind Plowright (mezzo-soprano) (tr. 6)
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Mark Elder
rec. Henry Wood Hall, London, 1-4 August 2020; The Colosseum, Watford, 15 October 2020
Sung texts with English translations enclosed
Reviewed as downloaded from press preview
DECCA 485 1507 [63:28]

It’s just weeks since I reviewed a brand-new recording of Fidelio (Pentatone PTC5186880 – review), where the title role was sung by young Norwegian soprano star Lise Davidsen, recorded in June and November 2020. Then she had already made a name for herself with her Decca recital (Decca 4834883) issued in 2019 – review – review – review. There she sang Wagner and Richard Strauss. On this sequel she throws her net wider and also ventures into the Italian repertoire, but she opens and ends the recital on German ground, and Beethoven is fittingly the frontrunner. Fittingly for two reasons: It gives me the opportunity to revisit her Fidelio/Leonore and 2020 was the 250^th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, the prepared celebrations for which were to a great extent cut short due to the pandemic. Her Leonore is, not surprisingly, pretty similar to her reading on the complete set. The opening dramatic outburst is filled with venom, but Komm, Hoffnung is warm and caring, sung beautifully and sensitively, until she feels the strength to fight for her husband and jubilantly sails above the orchestra. This is glorious singing! The concert aria Ah! Perfido was composed earlier than Fidelio and could possibly be seen as a preliminary study for Leonore’s aria. It is a long piece and it is grateful for a singer with Lise Davidsen’s capacity. She offers high-octane dramatic singing paired with, in the aria proper Per pietà, non dirmi addio! beautiful soft utterances.

Cherubini’s Medea isn’t staged particularly frequently and I haven’t seen a production since the Stockholm Royal Opera mounted it for Margareta Hallin’s farewell performances in 1984. Medea’s first act aria is the best-known number, famous through Maria Callas’s intense recording. There is intensity and glow in Lise Davidsen’s reading, and she has actually sung the role, at Wexford Festival Opera in 2017, so she is well inside it. Also the next role, Santuzza in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana is in her blood, having sung it with her home company, the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo in 2016. Intensity there is a-plenty in Voi lo sapete, pain as well – but also tenderness. Rosalind Plowright is also heard briefly as Mamma Lucia.

The two Verdi arias, from La forza del destino and Otello, are not yet in her repertoire, but in all likelihood they should be within a few years. Both are prayers and both are sung so sensitively with lovely pianissimo – even though Leonora in Forza rips off a glorious fortissimo at the end of the aria. Desdemona’s Ave Maria is the softest scene in any Verdi opera and Lise Davidsen is truly touching here. The high pianissimo strings in the postlude are also exquisite, as is the orchestra playing throughout the recital under the sensitive Sir Mark Elder’s leadership. This is also very obvious in the concluding Wesendonck-Lieder, where one can savour the orchestrations of Felix Mottl and, in Träume, Wagner himself.

This is ethereal, inward music, and only in Schmerzen does the soloist raise her voice, and then she is glorious. But for the rest of the cycle she is beautifully restrained and maybe this is the best part of the whole recital. I have a weakness for Régine Crespin’s recording from the early 1960s, but Lise Davidsen’s version will now have an honoured place beside Crespin’s on my shelves.

A recording not to be missed by lovers of good singing.

Göran Forsling

Previous reviews: Margarida Mota-Bull ~ Ralph Moore ~ John Quinn

Contents
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770 – 1827)
Fidelio:
Abscheulicher! Wo eilst du hin? [7:22]
Ah! Perfido, Op. 65:
Ah! perfido, spergiuro [3:20]
Per pietà, non dirmi addio [4:52]
Ah, crudel! Tu vuoi ch’io mora! [4:33]
Luigi CHERUBINI (1760 – 1842)
Medea:
Dei tuoi figli la madre [4:17]
Pietro MASCAGNI (1863 – 1945)
Cavalleria rusticana:
Voi lo sapete [6:49]
Giuseppe VERDI (1813 – 1901)
La forza del destino:
Pace, pace mio Dio! [5:53]
Otello:
Ave Maria, piena di grazia [5:39]
Richard WAGNER (1813 – 1883)
Wesendonck-Lieder:
I. Der Engel [3:09]
II. Stehe still! [3:52]
III. Im Treibhaus [6:16]
IV. Schmerzen [2:26]
V. Träume [4:58]