It helped, Davidsen mentioned, when the Met’s orchestra — led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, its music director — joined the solid in rehearsals. “You wouldn’t think that it takes 70 more musicians,” she added, “but they really help concentrate the way I sing.”
Nézet-Séguin and Davidsen have labored collectively since 2019, when she sang a live performance “Fidelio” with him in Montreal. This “Forza” is their first staged collaboration. He referred to as her “the dream singer,” not solely due to her voice, but in addition due to “the million shades that she’s finding in it.”
What units her other than different sopranos, he mentioned, is “really the combination of all those qualities in the service of every style.” And she or he is attuned and dedicated to the particular sounds, and calls for, of each composer she comes throughout, he added.
For now, the composers Davidsen is most comfy with are from the German repertoire. However, because the “Forza” opening nears, she is assured about Italian opera, too. She additionally feels fortunate, as a star singer supplied roles with out an audition, that she has the chance to sing Leonora on a stage just like the Met’s.
“I know there are more obvious choices for this role,” she mentioned, “so I really appreciate that they still want me to do it”; many singers wouldn’t get the possibility, and “they become those one-role singers. If we’re able to trust other singers, then maybe the variety will be bigger as well.”
That’s particularly necessary, she added, as a result of she is conscious that some received’t like her Leonora, or her Tosca subsequent season.
“I fully stand by the fact that this is my take on them,” Davidsen mentioned. “And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Then you go and see the next Tosca. It’s OK for me that it’s not for everyone.”
