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Lise Davidsen and James Baillieu made this live recording on stage at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in September 2023. While there’s a sense of occasion – being asked to give a solo recital at the Met is a reasonably big deal – what it really represents is simply nearly an hour of outstanding singing.

Davidsen’s soprano sounds fresh, gleaming and direct, her top-most notes silvery. She knows how to ensure nothing gets overblown – and how to get so close to the edge that the effect is thrilling, especially in her four Strauss songs. In Schubert, she fills out long lines into phrases full of sincere expression; four Sibelius songs unleash a passionate way with the text.

There are no big surprises, unless you count I Could Have Danced All Night, for which she gamely puts on a bit of cockney; a few days before performing at the Met she had sung the heroine’s entrance aria from Die Csárdásfürstin at the Last Night of the Proms, when she similarly got the audience clapping along. Both are nicely done, without excessive opera-singer aura.

She soars through her calling card, Wagner’s Dich, Teure Halle, making its euphoria sound absolutely natural. Baillieu’s piano can’t replicate the orchestral explosion at the start but his playing is electric nonetheless, and in the slower arias he mirrors Davidsen’s every nuance, making for a singular sense of focus. The two encores frame the recording: first an intimate, ultimately searing Vissi d’Arte from Tosca, and finally Grieg’s song Våren, sounding as if Davidsen were singing to a roomful of friends and not the largest opera house in the world.

Stream it on Apple Music (above) or on Spotify