Lyric Symphony by Zemlinsky

  Davidsen, Petrenko, Gerhaher

1. Ich bin friedlos, ich bin durstig nach fernen Dingen - baritone

2. O Mutter, der junge Prinz -  soprano

3. Du bist die Abendwolke -  baritone

4. Sprich zu mir, Geliebter -  soprano

5. Befrei mich von den Banden deiner Süße, Lieb -  baritone

6. Vollende denn das letzte Lied - soprano

7. Friede, mein Herz -  baritone

Alexander von Zemlinsky - Lyrische Symphonie, Op. 18 (1923), Lise Davidsen and Christian Gerhaher performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko conducting.  Texts are taken from The Gardener by Rabindranath Tagore in a German translation by Hans Effenberger.

I admit to being fascinated by this piece which I will call post romantic.  It's intense.  The purpose of the concert is to bring back memories of three Jewish composers driven out of Germany and Austria by the Nazis.  The other two composers are Erwin Schulhoff and Leone Sinigaglia.

I am here for Lise Davidsen, of course.  I am beginning to feel curious about Zemlinsky.  His opera Der Zwerg was supposed to be presented in San Francisco, but was cancelled due to covid.  Perhaps I should look into it.  Both Davidsen and Gerhaher express the music well.

My Singers

This is interesting.  

name  year born year I met their age when met Cecilia Bartoli 1966 1993 27 Anna Netrebko 1971 1995 24 Dmitri Hvorostovsky 1962 1996 34 Jonas Kaufmann 1969 2007 38 Lise Davidsen 1987 2017 30

These are my singers.  It shows when they were born, when I noticed them and the age they were when this happened.  

I first saw Cecilia Bartoli on TV.  I have flown the most number of times to see Cecilia.  My favorite performances are:

La Cenerentola in Zurich long ago
Le Nozze di Figaro from the Met
L'Italiana in Algeri from Salzburg   And many more.

Anna did Ruslan and Luidmila at the San Francisco Opera and has been going strong ever since.  For me it is a terrible tragedy that the Met kicked her out.  My favorite performances are:

La Traviata from Salzburg, the only time I liked this production.
Manon from LA Opera.
Il Trovatore from the Met.

I saw Dmitri in San Francisco and on streams from the Met.  He was still at the peak of his career when he died.

Eugene Onegin from the Met with Renee Fleming
Il Trovatore from the Met with Anna Netrebko

I first saw Jonas in a performance of Fidelio in Zurich on one of my trips to see Cecilia.

Fidelio in Zurich
Werther in Paris
Lohengrin in Munich
Everything he sings is first class, so the list would need to be longer.  Search label AandJ.

Lise is the newest addition to my list, and she is only young when you compare her to Dmitri and Jonas.

Fidelio from London
Ariadne auf Naxos from Vienna
Tannhäuser from Bayreuth

Die Walküre Act I from Munich was the one I got most excited over.

Lise Davidsen Grieg Songs

Lise Davidsen's Grieg album with fellow Norwegian Leif Ove Andsnes on piano came out yesterday.  I am listening on the Amazon stream.  There are 28 tracks, and so far only two of them are familiar:  Op. 25 - 2. En Svane (The Swan) and Op. 5 - 3. Jeg elsker Dig! (I love you).  This whole album is very beautiful.  This is Lise's sweet voice.  For Wagner and Verdi she shows much heavier singing.

2021 Opera Year in Review KK Awards

I'm not sure 2021 was any better than 2020.  I am counting only performances that took place this year or films I had never seen before this year.  This was another year aggravated by both COVID and my advancing age.  I still saw some very nice stuff.

Here is the all too short list of operas new to me this year.

• Heggie's Three Decembers, Jan 1, from San Jose *
• Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix, Jan 26, from Florence *
• Saariaho's Innocence, July 23, from Aix en Provence *
  
• Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones, October 23, from the Met *
• Aucoin's Eurydice, December 18, from the Met *

• BEST NEW OPERA AWARD   It's hard to choose one.  I enjoyed most Heggie's Three Decembers from the San Jose Opera, but this was probably because the lead role was played by the always amazing Susan Graham.  The two modern operas from the Metropolitan Opera did not grab me.  I require musical interest, and not just theater.  Donizetti is famous mostly for his comic operas L’Elisir d’Amore and Don Pasquale, plus Lucia, of course.  Linda di Chamounix is very beautiful, but perhaps the plot is too dated.  It is opera seria with a happy ending, a genre we don't follow that much.  The award seems to go to Three Decembers. 
  

• BEST OF MOZART, BEETHOVEN, AND WEBER AWARD     My only Mozart was Cosi fan Tutte, November 28, from San Francisco in a lovely modern production, part 2 of their Da Ponte trilogy.  I saw two new versions of Beethoven's Fidelio this year:   Fidelio, Jan 29, from Birmingham England and some years old, and Fidelio, October 15, from San Francisco.  Weber Der Freischütz, Feb 16, from Munich. All four of these operas might be regarded as regie.  The Birmingham Fidelio features a row of washing machines.  Der Freischütz, which we see all too seldom, is in a sky scraper.  Modernizing it loses some of the mystery.  Cosi is in a Country Club which people join to play golf and tennis.  I dearly love Fidelio, but I think the most successful of this group has to be the San Francisco Cosi fan Tutte, and I award to it.

 

• BEST OF WAGNER AWARD  This turned out to be a big year for Wagner for me.  I saw two new Wagner productions:  Tristan und Isolde, August 12, from the Bayerische Staatsoper with Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros and Der fliegende Holländer, Sept 37, from Bayreuth with Asmik Grigorian, who does not touch my heart.  She's quite celebrated, but these are my opinions.   Both were regie productions.  I also finally saw the full Ring cycle from the San Francisco Opera:  Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Die Götterdämmerung.  The last two were new for me.  

The concert version of act I of Die Walküre, July 17, also from the Bayerische Staatsoper with Jonas Kaufmann and Lise Davidsen is the final entry.  This last was quite wonderful, but I find it not quite as wonderful as the amazing and surprising Tristan und Isolde, also from Munich.  It is hard to top the combination of Jonas and Anja.  Musically and theatrically they are completely in tune.  I award to that.  Lise may be turning me into a Wagnerian.

 

 

• BEST OF VERDI, MUSSORGSKY AND R. STRAUSS AWARD  The pickings in the late Romantics are pretty slim.  Lise Davidsen makes her only staged opera appearance in a rather odd Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos, Feb 4, from Aix en Province.  I say odd because in this regie production Ariadne doesn't await a god to rescue her; instead she awaits a baby because she is pregnant.  Lise frowned almost constantly.  The singing was wonderful.  Other performances in the running are Verdi Aida, February 18, from Paris and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, October 9, from the Met in a shortened version.  The Aida with Jonas Kaufmann and Sondra Radvanovsky has puppets.  None of these are anything I would want to see again, but I award to Aida.

• BEST VERISMO AWARD  The Verismo operas for this year were Korngold Die Tote Stadt, June 20, from the Bayerische Staatsoper, Janáček's Káťa Kabanová, August 2, from West Edge, and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, August 20, from Chicago.  West Edge was in a poor venue and can't really compete with the other companies.  Verismo operas are modern enough to allow for regie productions with no complaining, at least from me.  The Korngold starred Jonas Kaufmann who is hard to beat in anything.  Pagliacci starred our boy Quinn Kelsen who gave us a marvelous prologue.  The pictured performance was a television show, The Honeymooners, which I am old enough to have seen.  If you hadn't seen it, you would not get the back story.  I award to Pagliacci, for fun.
  

• SINGER OF THE YEAR   This has to go to Jonas Kaufmann, who managed to find a way onto the stage and our screens in spite of everything.  I especially loved him in the reopening of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Act I of Die Walküre with Lise Davidsen, who was glorious.  This is the most I have become emotionally involved with this scene. His fully staged operas were Aida with Sondra Radvanovsky, Die Tote Stadt with Marlis Peterson, Tosca with Anna Netrebko in Salzburg and with Sondra Radvanovsky in Spain, and the triumph that puts him above all others:  Tristan und Isolde with Anja Harteros.  I loved every bit in spite of the fact that it was very much regie.  With such great artists it doesn't seem to matter.

 It was a pretty strange year.  Let's hope for better things in the future.

Blogging

There is finally a Number 4 in my pantheon of idols.  

First was Italian Cecilia Bartoli who I made myself a complete fool over.  I traveled many times to Europe to see her.  I had a friend to visit in the city where she performed, if that's any excuse.  The last time I flew for her was for Norma in Salzburg.  I gave her I lot of advice which she mostly ignored.  She tried to get me into arguments, but she scared me. I was there only for love.  She seems to have finally forgiven me.  We met accidentally in the aisle of the Salle Playel where she smiled and squeezed my hand.  She is a very special person whom I love and respect.  She has achieved true greatness.  The picture is Cecilia in makeup for Ariodante at Salzburg.

Then came Russian Anna Netrebko whom I traveled only to Los Angeles to see in Manon.  I wanted to be sure I didn't miss it, though it later came out on DVD through a performance of the same production in Germany.  That performance is still my favorite.  My second favorite performance is Il Trovatore with Dmitri at the Met.  She performed many times for us at the San Francisco Opera, making travel unnecessary.  Cecilia and Jonas have sung in California but never on the stage of the San Francisco Opera.  Anna is a Merolini.  We also see her often on the Met live in HD.  I don't recall giving Anna advice.  She is on another level.  The picture is a shot of Anna in the described Manon production.

Third was German Jonas Kaufmann whom I first saw by accident in Fidelio in Zurich when I was visiting to see Cecilia.  I called him "a Florestan to die for."  This is part of the reason I would have liked to see him in Fidelio again.  Over the years I have enjoyed many wonderful performances by him, even if I have only traveled when he was performing in the same city as Cecilia.  One such performance was the magnificent Werther in Paris.  The picture is from the recent Aida from Paris where they have removed his beard and curls.  Perhaps military officers are not allowed beards.  He came to the Bay Area for a concert, but never appeared at the opera.  After many years, I have finally thought of some advice.  He is the gold standard for pronunciation in any of the major singing languages, so no advice there.  His hoch Deutsch is impeccable and beautiful to hear.  I just am not enjoying his current interest in crooning.  Anyone can do that.

You should notice that this is an enormous variety of voices and styles.  I love only the complete performer.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Russian, might be considered a number 4, but I was never required to travel for him.  He came to me in San Francisco and London, and from the Met live in HD.   I loved him but did not embarrass myself over him.  Advising Dmitri on any subject would have been foolish, even more foolish than I have ever been.  He was perfection and greatly missed.

I recently turned 80, a traumatic event.  Suddenly I remembered a song I heard once in Germany.  "Ich moechte noch einmal verliebt sein.  Wie damals, wie siebzehn, im Mai."  "I want once more to fall in love, like then, like 17, in May."  And then suddenly I did.  At this age I didn't think it possible.  The door to my heart lies always through singing.  So we arrive at who must be considered our official Number 4:  Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen.  It is an irrational passion which I would prefer not to humiliate myself over. This may prove impossible.  [Too late?]  I am, after all, quite silly at times.  All my friends say do it.  She demands respect, and I wish always to show her the respect I feel.  Lise seems to be intelligent and well advised.  When she speaks about her art, she shows great understanding.  Her big voice is extraordinarily beautiful.  So far I have seen her on film in Ariadne auf Naxos from Vienna, Fidelio from the Royal Opera, and Tannhäuser from Bayreuth.

This picture comes from Pique Dame at the Met which I wish it was possible to see.  

For the Love of Opera

 

I wrote this in February of 2020, before the pandemic:

"One of the reasons I began blogging was to spend time praising my beloved favorites.  At the time these were Cecilia Bartoli, Anna Netrebko, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.  I quickly added Jonas Kaufmann after a trip to see Cecilia in Zurich.  Dmitri has died, but the other three are still singing, and I still follow their careers.

"All of these lists will be limited to singers active during the life of this blog.  I can also be said to love from early in the blog René Pape, Karita Mattila, Nina Stemme, Maria Guleghina, Susan Graham, Angela Gheorghiu, Elina Garanča, Piotr Beczala, Renée Fleming, Natalie Dessay, and Juan Diego Florez.  This should not be regarded as a complete list.  Forgive me if I have omitted your favorite.  Dessay has retired from opera.

"Newer enthusiasms include Lisette Oropesa, Sondra Radvanovsky, Isabel Leonard,  Christine Goerke, Pretty Yende, Javier Camarena, Anja Harteros, Erin Morley, Lawrence Brownlee, Anita Rachvelishvili, Ludovic Tezier, Luca Pisaroni,and Matthew Polenzani.  It is interesting to me that none of these newer artists have aroused the level of passion experienced from the earlier discoveries. Lisette might manage it, though.  Part of this lessening of passion can be attributed to my advancing age."

One name will be conspicuously missing from this rather too long list.  Only the singers in the first paragraph count as true loves.  So I thought I was too old to experience the true passion for a singer.  None of them have topped this sudden love for the Norwegian soprano, Lise Davidsen.  I was sincere in thinking this was simply not any longer possible.  

It seems to have a personal aspect which the others do not have.  Before appearing on the international opera stage, Lise sang Bach and Lieder, things I also sang.  I feel sympathy for her musical mind.  With Cecilia it was the strangeness and shock of her very individual interpretations which always surprised me.  With Lise it is the familiarity.   Of course, she also has the most exciting voice I've ever heard.

Lise is "an amazing human being" to quote the Screaming Divas.  Love comes to me not from surprise, but from comfort and familiarity.  She reaches the deep corners of my musical soul.   Thank you, dear.

Tannhäuser from Bayreuth 👍🏻

Conductor: Valery Gergiev 
Director: Tobias Kratzer

Tannhäuser: Stephen Gould
Landgraf Hermann: Stephen Milleing
Elisabeth: Lise Davidsen
Wolfram von Eschenbach: Markus Eiche
Walther von der Vogelweide: Daniel Behle
Venus:  Elena Zhidkova
Shepard:  Katharina Konradi

Tannhäuser from Bayreuth from 2019, which can be found in Opera on Video, is a confusing mix of images.  The first scene suggests that we add it to the caravan series, since we see Tannhäuser, Venus and her troop wandering around in an RV in the guise of a carnival.  Venus drives.  They live outside the law.  When the vehicle runs out of gas, they siphon some from a nearby vehicle.  They go through the Burger King drive through and steal their food.  This is not realistic since you always have to pay before they give you anything.  A policeman tries to stop them and Venus runs him down, making Tannhäuser uninterested in going on with her.

In the second scene the curtain opens on an exterior shot of the Bayreuther Festspielhaus.  He is met by a bunch of guys in black outfits drinking beer out of the bottle.  They recognize him in his clown outfit and welcome him back.  At the end of the scene Venus arrives in her RV.

Lise Davidsen is utterly magnificent.  I adore her "Dich teure Halle."  Our boy is back in normal clothes.  Or at least the clothes suitable for the singing contest that is to come.  People begin to enter.  Outside Venus and her gang are trying to get inside.  This must play like a film inside the hall.  Venus steals a suitable outfit from one of the dressing rooms and participates in the ceremony.  This whole thing is like a movie with cameras behind the scenes.  Is that the trend of the future?

The contestants sing about love back and forth until Tannhäuser tells the crowd that he has been in Venusberg.  The women in the crowd all escape except for Elisabeth, Venus removes her disguise, and her group all appear together with Tannhäuser.  Elisabeth prevents the men from killing him, and he thanks her.  The scene is strange.  While Tannhäuser thanks Elisabeth, he is also happy to see Venus.  Someone calls the police.  The Landgraf curses Tannhäuser for admitting he was with Venus.

I am enjoying the idea that the teure Halle is the Festspieshaus itself.  A song contest with pieces that are more like songs would have been nice.  The story is concerned with salvation, and the music is a bit droning.   Tannhäuser chooses to go to Rome with the pilgrims and the giant black man in drag drapes a rainbow flag over the harp that accompanied the singers.

This is almost the Tannhäuser as comedy version. Frei im Wollen! Frei im Thun! Frei im Geniessen!  R.W. [Free in the wanting! Free in the doing! Free to enjoy!]  This seems to be the opposing of two life views that make up the struggle of modern life:  The path of individual freedom represented by Venus and the path of adhering to social norms represented by Elisabeth.  The sign outside the Festspielhaus seems to place Wagner on the side of freedom.  Our hero vacillates back and forth between them.  One gives him a life of earthly pleasure and the other brings salvation to his soul.  He seems to want both.

It ends horribly.  In the libretto first Elisabeth dies, and then he sees her body borne past him, and Tannhäuser dies.  In this version Tannhäuser goes off with Venus, Wolfram sees his opportunity and dresses up in Tannhäuser's clown outfit so Elisabeth will think he is the man she loves.  He seduces her in this disguise, and later we see her covered in blood.  She seems to have killed herself.  This is truly hideous.  

_____________________________________________

 P.S

I watched the film of Tannhäuser from Bayreuth in 2019 again because it is now playing again in Bayreuth in 2021 and I cannot go. Ekaterina Gubanova is Venus in the current version, and this may be an improvement.  I had already seen all the shocking parts, and was content to watch the whole opera.

I noticed the part where it is indeed Katarina Wagner who calls the cops, as a joke, I assume.  I saw that Wolfram puts on Heinrich's clown outfit, but isn't actually trying to fool Elisabeth.  She laughs and draws him into the van.  That puts a completely different spin on it.  It's too bad she doesn't love Wolfram who is quite charming.

The more I see and hear of Lise Davidsen, the more I admire, enjoy, respect and indeed love her.  She is very well suited to this role.  I am a long distance from having too much of her.  Es lebe die Lise.

 

New Fidelio Recording

Conductor - Marek Janowski,

Leonore - Lise Davidsen,
Florestan - Christian Elsner,
Rocco - Georg Zeppenfeld,
Don Fernando - Günther Groissböck,
Jaquino - Cornel Frey,

My copy of Beethoven's Fidelio with Lise Davidsen came in the mail today.  I loved her in the Royal Opera production, but there were a number of things that didn't quite succeed.  The men's chorus here is perfection.  O Welche Lust is a beautiful piece, beautifully done here. It wasn't very attractive at the Royal Opera.  On the first disc the voices are well balanced.

And then we come to Florestan and his big aria.  I'm used to Jonas Kaufmann, whom I once described as "a Florestan to die for," and Ben Heppner.  This one is too light, particularly when paired with Lise Davidsen.  She lightens her performance a bit.  I love Lise too much to turn it down, and she is incredible here.  Later in the act she lets it rip, and the Florestan can't really balance with her.  He's not that bad.  He just doesn't come up to Lise's standard.  This opera is hard to cast.  Who has come along to follow Jonas?  

In general I find this enjoyable.

Lise in Die Walküre at BSO 👍🏻

 

Lise Davidsen sang Act I of Die Walküre at the Bayerische Staatsoper today with Jonas Kaufmann, Georg Zeppenfeld, and Asher Fisch .  I broke down crying it was so wonderful.  How can I pretend to review this?  

We were stomping our feet at home along with the distanced live audience.  Orchestra, conductor and soloists were all outstanding.  Lise is the fiercest Sieglinde I've ever seen.

__________________

I originally posted this on May 13 this year.  I have just finished listening to it for the third time.  It's absolutely wonderful, with two of my great operatic loves singing.  There is a Die Walküre series at Bayreuth this summer with Lise but not Jonas.  It's not being streamed.  But how could I possibly love it as much as this?  Wagner has never gone so deep into my heart.

Lise records Fidelio

 

This recording of Beethoven's Fidelio with Lise Davidsen is to be released on July 16.  On my side expectations are high.  Her intelligence has caused me to feel humble.

Lise Davidsen on Screaming Divas

 

Three sopranos, Sondra Radvanovsky, Keri Alkema and Lise Davidsen, talk about being opera singers.  It's an hour long and lots of fun.  They say sweet things and laugh.  Lise is awesome even to Sondra, who is pretty awesome herself.  You have figured out already that I love Lise.  Well, after this I only love her more.  She is a great lady.

 

Lise Davidsen at la Scala

 

Lise Davidsen successfully made her La Scala debut last night in a concert with her as the featured soloist.  These days Lise starts everything at the top.  The above film shows the orchestra on the floor with the audience in the boxes above. Riccardo Chailly conducted.  I remember him primarily as the conductor of Cecilia Bartoli's La Cenerentola recording.

Program
Giuseppe Verdi	From Macbeth  "Patria oppressa"  [chorus]
Henry Purcell	From Dido and Aeneas  "When I am laid in earth" with Lise
Richard Wagner	From Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg  Vorspiel (Prelude)
Richard Strauss	From Ariadne auf Naxos  "Es gibt ein Reich, wo alles rein ist" with Lise
Giuseppe Verdi	From La forza del destino Sinfonia "Pace, pace mio Dio"  with Lise
Richard Wagner	From Tannhäuser Ouvertüre "Dich, Teure halle"  with Lise
Giuseppe Verdi	From Nabucco  "Va’, pensiero" [chorus]

Only "When I am laid in earth" was something I had not heard Lise sing before.  It was good but unspectacular compared to the other things.  She wore black in the first half and looked radiant.  These songs are basically all tragic, so black was ok.  For the second half she wore a beautiful pastel outfit which brightened the mood.  Her hair is enhanced with an extension down to her waist. 

The two pieces in German are Lise's signature pieces, both of which I love dearly in her voice.  The most spectacularly sung of all was the Verdi "Pace, pace mio Dio".  It would not do for her to omit the Italian language.  All of her languages were beautiful.

I was intrigued by the interplay between Chailly and Davidsen.  He seemed to be looking to her for expressive cues.  This is something singers long for.  I felt it allowed Lise to feel secure and give her utmost.  As a result she made the greatest impression in the great Italian aria "Pace, pace mio Dio."  They were a magical pair.  This is La Scala after all.

I found this to be one of the most intense and spectacular vocal concerts I've ever seen.  The audience stood up a lot.  It's out there.

International Opera Awards

CHORUS
Metropolitan Opera
 
CONDUCTOR
Kirill Petrenko
 
DESIGNER
Małgorzata Szczęśniak
 
DIRECTOR
Robert Carsen
 
EDUCATION & OUTREACH
Birmingham Opera Company
 
FEMALE SINGER
Lise Davidsen
 
FESTIVAL
Salzburg Festival
 
LEADERSHIP
(sponsored by the Good Governance Institute)
David Pountney
 
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
Bernard Haitink
 
MALE SINGER
Javier Camarena
 
NEW PRODUCTION
Tale of Tsar Saltan
(Tcherniakov, La Monnaie De Munt)
 
NEWCOMER
Alpesh Chauhan
 
OPERA COMPANY
Teatro Real, Madrid
 
OPERA FOR PEACE PRIZE
Denyce Graves
 
OPERA ORCHESTRA
Bayerisches Staatsorchester / Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich
 
PHILANTHROPY
Martina Arroyo Foundation
 
RECORDING (SOLO RECITAL)
Jakub Józef Orliński: Facce d’amore (Erato)

RECORDING (COMPLETE OPERA)
Thomas: Hamlet (Naxos) [DVD]

OPERA MAGAZINE READERS’ AWARD
Jamie Barton

REDISCOVERED WORK
Moniuszko: Paria (Teatr Wielki, Poznań)
 
WORLD PREMIERE
Glanert: Oceane (Deutsche Oper, Berlin)
 
YOUNG SINGER sponsored by Mazars
Xabier Anduaga
Vasilisa Berzhanskaya

Lise -- Vocal Arts DC 👍🏻

 

March 19, 2021?  This picture is of the people performing, Lise Davidsen and James Baillieu, but the venue shown is wrong.  This recital is in London on a different date.  I am discussing the Lieder recital streamed from London to Washington, DC.

I feel a certain musical kinship to Lise, not for her glorious Wagner and Strauss operatic triumphs, but more for her Bach, Brahms, Schumann and Strauss Lieder.  When I started at IU, I told the professors that I had performed the alto solos for all the major works of Bach.  They responded, "No you haven't."  So I said,  "Matthew Passion, B minor mass, Magnificat, St John Passion, Christmas Oratorio.  What does that leave?"  I love it that Lise has sung some of the same music.   I once did a whole recital of Lieder by Brahms so it is nice to see a couple of them here.

"Auf dem Kirchhofe" Op.105 No. 4    Johannes Brahms
"Da unten im Tale"  WoO. 33 No. 6
"Mädchenlied"  Op. 107 No. 5
"Liebestreu" Op. 3 No.1
"Von ewiger Liebe" Op. 43 No. 1

Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart     Robert Schumann

Abschied von Frankreich
Nach der Geburt ihres Sohnes
An die Königin Elisabeth
Abschied von der Welt
Gebet

Luonnotar  Op. 70                             Jan Sibelius  She tells us this is a tone poem.

Five Songs  Op. 37                          Jan Sibelius

Three Songs from Six Songs  Op. 48                   Edvard Grieg

From Acht Gedichte aus "Letzte Blaetter"  Op. 10        Richard Strauss

Zueignung

Allerseelen

Die Georgine  "ob spät, ob früh, es ist deselbe"  [Early or late it is the same.]  She has come to me late in my life,  It is a wonderful gift.

 

"Wiegenlied"      Richard Strauss  I have grown to love this in Lise's version.

"Malven"      Richard Strauss

 

"Befreit"      Richard Strauss

 

"Caecilie"      Richard Strauss     This makes a great ending.

This is an entirely different style of singing than the Wagner and Strauss operas she is rapidly becoming famous for.  It is true Lieder singing.  I'm pretty sure the only two languages are German and Finnish.  The film includes the original text with an English translation below it.

Between each group she talks to us, generally about the songs and about how much she is missing the audience.  She would like to say hello to each of us.  I can only hope that this will happen.  I wish her a wonderful career and a life of happiness.  I've never been famous, but I've had fun.

If you want a disinterested review of Lise Davidsen, you will have to look elsewhere.  I find that I love it because she does.  In the not too distant future there should be a Grieg song album.