Soprano Lise Davidsen Delivers Transcendence in Her Bay Area Debut

One day, my thoughts, you shall be at peace.

It was a day that, during a takeover of federal spending by the richest man in the world, the president motioned to relocate Palestinians and develop Gaza into a resort. I read about this latest assault on human sanity just before Lise Davidsen’s recital at Zellerbach Hall on Tuesday night, weary of the way that we as a country are being DDoS’ed, and facing the familiar dilemma: to scream, or to unplug?

One day, my thoughts, you shall be at peace. These were the first lines sung by Davidsen in her Bay Area debut on Tuesday night, from Grieg’s Dereinst, Gedanke mein, setting the tone for the next two hours. “Transportative” is the word I’m looking for, in this week of all weeks.

It’s fair to say that Davidsen, 37, is a phenomenon in the opera world. The daughter of an electrician and a caretaker, she’s risen to be lauded as “the greatest soprano in the world right now” (The Telegraph) and to receive a rare solo recital invitation from the Met in 2023 for a performance that dazzled critics and fans alike. She’s filmed a Tiny Desk Concert. I know at least one person scrambling to see her next month in New York before she takes a break to give birth to twins.

“It’s always a bit nerve-racking to come to a place for the first time,” Davidsen said onstage Tuesday, joking that she’d worried no one would show up. (The hall was nearly sold out.)

And then, that range, that timbre, that voice. In a floral print dress, singing Dido’s Lament by Purcell, Davidsen seemed to invent new vowels out of thin air. In the solo measures of Verdi’s “Tu che le vanità,” which brought several fans to their feet, I heard sounds I’ve never heard from a human throat.

Davidsen has for years been in conversation with Richard Strauss’ work, which followed Verdi and showcased Davidsen’s full theatrical nature. After an intermission, and a wardrobe change to a floor-length charcoal dress, she sang a set of Schubert, including a crowd-pleasing “Ave Maria.”

Accompanied throughout the evening by pianist Malcolm Martineau, Davidsen closed the program with Wagner, including “Allmächtige Jungfrau” from Tannhäuser and two songs from Wesendonck Lieder. Then came one she’d never performed publicly before: “Liebestod,” from Tristan und Isolde. Following Davidsen’s assured “Träume,” which Wagner wrote as a study for Tristan, what it perhaps lacked in confidence it made up for in enunciation, tone and emotion, building to the piece’s transcendent climax.

We talk about transcendence in music a little too liberally, I think. But true transcendence, like that from Davidsen — when the concert hall’s ceiling seems to open wide and something divine whisks a transfixed audience to another place — I tell you, when it happens, it feels like it’s the only thing that’s gonna get us through.