Met Stars Live in Concert presents

Lise Davidsen in Oslo

With James Baillieu, Piano

Live: Saturday, August 29 at 1:00pmET

After causing a sensation with her triumphant Met debut as Lisa in The Queen of Spades last season, soprano Lise Davidsen offers a program of the soaring arias and songs that have rocketed her to stardom around the world: selections from Wagner’s Tannhäser, Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, and Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, as well as Scandinavian songs by Sibelius and Grieg. Davidsen first came to fame in 2015 when she won several competitions, including the Queen Sonja Competition in her native Norway. For this momentous occasion, Davidsen returns to Oslo’s picturesque Oscarshall, where she performed following her victory.

The Program

“Dich, teure Halle”
From Wagner’s Tannhäuser

“Allmächt’ge Jungfrau”
From Wagner’s Tannhäuser 

“Våren,” Op. 33, No. 2
By Edvard Grieg

“En Svane,” Op. 25, No. 2
By Edvard Grieg

“Ved Rondane,” Op. 33, No. 9
By Edvard Grieg

“Morrò, ma prima in grazia”
From Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera

“Säf, säf, susa,” Op. 36
By Jean Sibelius

“Var det en dröm?” Op. 37
By Jean Sibelius

“Es gibt ein Reich”
From R. Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos 

“Ruhe, meine Seele!” Op. 27, No. 1
By Richard Strauss

“Cäcilie,” Op. 27, No. 2
By Richard Strauss

“Heimliche Aufforderung,” Op. 27, No. 3
By Richard Strauss

“Morgen!” Op. 27, No. 4
By Richard Strauss

“Sola, perduta, abbandonata”
From Puccini’s Manon Lescaut

“Heia, heia, in den Bergen ist mein Heimatland”
From Kálmán’s Die Csárdásfürstin 

“Johnny”
By Benjamin Britten

“O lovely night!”
By Landon Ronald

“When I have sung my song to you”
By Ernest Charles

“I Could Have Danced All Night”
From Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady

After completing her studies at Grieg Academy of Music in Bergen, Norway, and the Royal Danish Academy of Music, soprano Lise Davidsen won a number of notable awards, including the first prize, Birgit Nilsson Award, and Audience Prize at the 2015 Operalia competition. During the 2019–20 season, she made a celebrated Met debut as Lisa in The Queen of Spades and also appeared as Leonore in Fidelio at Covent Garden and in concert in Montreal, Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes in concert at Bucharest’s George Enescu Festival, and in concert with a number of leading orchestras throughout Europe. She made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival in the summer of 2019 as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser. Other recent performances include Elisabeth at the Bavarian State Opera and in Zurich; Lisa in Stuttgart; the Third Norn in Götterdämmerung, Ortlinde in Die Walküre, and Freia in Das Rheingold at Covent Garden; the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos in Aix-en-Provence and at the Vienna State Opera; and the title role of Cherubini’s Medea at Wexford Festival Opera. She has also sung Ariadne at the Glyndebourne Festival, Isabella in Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot in Buenos Aires, Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana at Norwegian National Opera, Agathe in Der Freischütz in Zurich, and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus and the Dog and the Owl in The Cunning Little Vixen at the Royal Danish Opera.

Born in South Africa, pianist James Baillieu studied at the University of Cape Town and the Royal Academy of Music in London. He was appointed a Hodgson Junior Fellow in 2007, a Professor of Piano Accompaniment in 2011, and awarded an ARAM in 2012. An accomplished chamber musician, soloist, and accompanist, he regularly collaborates with singers and instrumentalists, including Lise Davidsen, the Heath Quartet, Adam Walker, Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Pumeza Matshikiza, Allan Clayton, Jacques Imbrailo, Ailish Tynan, and John Mark Ainsley. He has appeared in performance at Wigmore Hall, the Berlin Konzerthaus, Vienna’s Musikverein, Bridgewater Hall, National Concert Hall Dublin, and the Bergen, Spitalfields, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Bath, City of London, St. Magnus, Norfolk & Norwich, Brighton, Verbier, and Aix-en-Provence Festivals. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Ulster Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, and at the Petworth Festival with the Wiener Kammersymphonie. An innovative programmer, he has curated a number of projects, including series for the Brighton Festival, Wigmore Hall, BBC Radio 3, Verbier Festival, Bath International Festival, and Perth Concert Hall.

https://www.metopera.org

Met Stars Live in Concert
Opera’s greatest stars perform in a groundbreaking new series of pay-per-view recitals in striking locations around the globe, each live via satellite and shot with multiple cameras. While the Metropolitan Opera House remains dark because of the ongoing health crisis, Met Stars Live in Concert will allow audiences to experience extraordinary solo and duo performances by top singers—streamed live online—from such locations as a former abbey in Bavaria, a Norwegian castle, an outdoor terrace on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, a church in Wales, and a historic mansion in Washington, D.C. The series marries the intimacy of the Met’s virtual At-Home Gala with the high production value of the company’s Live in HD series of cinema transmissions.

Tickets for each recital are $20, and the performances will remain available on demand for 12 days.

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