The Tamesis
In the basement foyer of the Metropolitan Opera House, tall Norwegian soprano Liz Davidson projected a calm presence.
“My husband jokes that I’m like a pressure cooker,” she laughs, sitting upright on the couch. (Standing, she stands an astounding six-foot-two.) “I tend to store emotions, both positive and negative. But it can explode!”
dynamite That’s certainly one way to describe Davidson’s voice, which has wowed Met audiences since her Met debut in 2019 in a Tchaikovsky production queen of spades. new york times She has since compared her soaring soprano to a rocket, and Angelina Jolie has called her “Tosca” “otherworldly.” Now, Davidson is gearing up to play the eponymous heroine in the film. Tristan and Isolde, Wagner tells the story of the doomed love between an Irish princess and a Cornish knight.
Davidson, 39, is pretty much the hottest star in opera right now — so much so that her first pregnancy made headlines last year. After her twin boys were born in June, she took six months off to spend time with them and her husband, Ben, before returning to the stage in December (coincidentally, for another production) Tristanin Barcelona). “I wish it was longer,” she lamented about her maternity leave. “But then again, when is the right time to come back? It’s impossible to know.”
The Metropolitan Opera was a long way from the small Norwegian village of Stoke, where she played handball and sang in church. She did not come from a musical family, and did not attend her first opera until she was 20 years old. During college she studied voice at the Grieg Academy in Bergen, preferring Bach. (“I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like Bach. You can argue with other composers, but with Bach you just can’t.”) While in graduate school in Copenhagen, she finally turned her attention to opera, and she hasn’t looked back since winning the prestigious Operalia competition in 2015, a few years into her career.
Apparently the Met, which has been in financial trouble for years, considers Davidson one of its most profitable performers. Rather than kicking off the 2026-27 season with a new contemporary work, as has been the tradition of past years, the theater company will present a work by Verdi macbethonce again starring Davidson. She will also star in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Wagner’s epic Ring, the composer’s four-part masterpiece of the Norse and Germanic legend, totaling 15 hours, over the next three seasons.
