The Opera Tattler

* Notes *
Soprano Lise Davidsen (pictured, photograph by James Hole) made her Bay Area debut with a fabulous recital Cal Performances last Tuesday evening. Accompanied by pianist Malcolm Martineau, we heard an eclectic array of pieces ranging from Purcell to Grieg.

Davidsen has a powerful voice, with beautiful low notes and pristine, completely effortless high ones. She began and ended the performance with Grieg songs in German, her diction is very clear. I felt like I could understand every word, and this was the case for her Strauss, Schubert, and Wagner. Her rendition of Schubert’s “Du bist die Ruh” was particularly lovely.

I don’t normally associate Davidsen with Baroque music, but her “Thy Hand, Belinda… Dido’s Lament” was incandescent. It was very impressive that she sang “Tu che la vanità” from Verdi’s Don Carlo directly after, and so perfectly and movingly.

Davidsen sang “Mild und leise” from Tristan und Isolde for the first time in front of an audience, and it is clear that she is well-suited to Wagner. Hopefully we will hear her in an opera relatively soon, but since she is pregnant with twins, her last opera performances for a bit are in the Met’s Fidelio in March.

Tattling *
We had rush tickets for the first row of Zellerbach, which was pretty incredible. My companion elbowed me in the ribs during the Verdi because she had asked me a trivia question about which opera mentions Fontainebleau at the intermission of John Adams piano concerto at San Francisco Symphony a few weeks ago.

I’m not sure what has gotten into me but I really laughed uproariously at Davidsen’s jokes in between segments of her program. She mistakenly called the Bay Area “San Francisco,” for which she later apologized.