(Credit: Katie Ravas for Drew Altizer Photography)

Lise Davidsen‘s voice is a wonder. It is a sound of the universe like nature unassailed. Her Cal Performances recital on Tuesday night, accompanied by Malcolm Martineau, the well-known Scottish pianist, was radiant. This was her first trip to the Bay Area. Despite heavy rains, when the sky cleared, it revealed the Norwegian soprano in a creamy yellow floral dress, abundant in spirit and sound. Her performance included works by Grieg and Wagner. The audience was enthralled.

Davidsen and Martineau began with three songs from Grieg’s Op.48. and her native Norway. She performed with excellent vocal technique and this made her sincerity with her feelings more impactful. Her vocal range in “Zur Rosenzeit” and “Ein Traum” revealed her commitment to every detail and this strengthened our attention. Her top vocal register was full and her legato was sumptuous.

She also performed Purcell’s “Dido’s Lament.” In her perfect English, she introduced it with one of the themes of the entire concert: the range of woman’s sorrow and despair in love and her rich reactions to its unfolding events. It was hard not to remember that the woman singing these stories was a nearly 38-year-old carrying twin babies. I enjoyed the perspective her performance captured. While some commented how much death threaded the evening’s program, it seemed to me the wonder of pregnancy promoted a welcomed view on the whole continuum of life. This seemed fitting.

In contrast to earlier concerts, Davidsen seems to have extended her expressive range both vocally and physically. Her face, hand gestures, and over-all body language added breadth to both the story lines and the feeling wrapped inside them. In Verdi’s famous aria “Tu che le vanità” from “Don Carlo,” she succeeded in harnessing her vocal power with a sense of victory. It was unique and intriguing.

By the time we got to the two Strauss lieder, we were in the territory of comfortable strength without glitz. A down-to-earth human being who carries a sound from nowhere I have ever been before, both in “Es gibt ein Reich” from “Ariadne auf Naxos” (1912) and “Befreit” Op. 39, (1897-98), it was almost easy to sit back and bask in the marvel. The two artists showed only ease and not a bit of strain.

Following the intermission, Davidsen proceeded with Schubert, whom she said was the downbeat of her career. As Fischer-Dieskau once remarked that Schubert brought a new depth and breadth to lieder during his short life, so did Davidsen in her performance. “Der Tod und das Mädchen” D. 531 (1827) was more than moving. Davidsen sang with poignant artistry. She wore a dark dress and stunning jeweled earrings that set the tone of the continuing theme of death and loss, while establishing her as a steady kaleidoscope of sound detailing the dramatic emotional shifts. When her voice dropped into the lower register, she provided the quiet and cunning of death’s seduction. As fear taxed the maiden, death promised relief. Both were intertwined. The contrast Davidsen instrumented with continued ease and control was phenomenal.

“Der Zwerg” D. 771, (1822-23) continued Davidsen’s focus on multiple perspectives, in this case three – narrator, dwarf and queen. Again, she regulated this trio with coloring that befit the dramatic text, timbre, legato and intensity. Terror developed throughout both.

“Der Bist die Ruh” D. 776, (1823) was a welcomed contrast to the dark and terrifying lied preceding. The sumptuous words by Frederick Rückert is set to one of Schubert’s most popular works. Martineau and Davidsen established an exquisite balance between stillness and delicacy with dramatic intensity. They stitched the delicate and the grave with finesse. They displayed a fastidious control of light and dark, low and high.

The last part of the sequence was perhaps one of Schubert’s most popular works, “Ellens Gesang III” (Ave Maria) D. 839 (1825). Schubert composed it in 1825 as part of his cycle of seven songs from Sir Walter Scott’s 1810 narrative poem, “The Lady of the Lake.” Although the song was written as part of a cycle to a romantic poem, it has been adapted for religious use. Singing something that was associated to a Christian ritual reinforced comfort in what has become familiar, and the quality of other-worldliness that Davidsen’s soprano expressed in nearly everything she sang. Still as it retained other-worldliness, it furthered her sound as having a firm grip on the here and now. Never did one lose the connection.

The final sequence was devoted to Wagner. It is Wagner that Davidsen has been currently presenting to great acclaim, as well as Richard Strauss. A few years back, she sang in a concert version of Sieglinde in“Die Walküre” with Jonas Kaufmann. The resonance she had even then with the music was astonishing. In this concert, there was perhaps even more, starting with Elisabeth’s prayer “Allmacht’ge Jungfrau” from “Tannhauser” (1845). To put into words what she transmitted in this piece seems somewhat sacrilegious. Having stood before the Jungfrau for four days, I already thought I had enough awe for a lifetime; to hear Wagner’s words through Elisabeth’s prayer, however, increased the dimension of mystery and majesty. The reach, the majesty, the color that she pulled out of low and high, the power, the glistening – it was all there. Wagner’s Elisabeth couldn’t have been any grander, and yet, cradled by her youth, any more innocent. Davidsen brought the multiple qualities of humanity to the point at which song and universality meet.

With selections from the more lyric and dramatically intense Wesendonk Lieder, Martineau and Davidsen brought additional youthfulness and romance that veered in different directions than earlier in the concert. “Der Engel, (1857-1858) introduced a freshness and a pleasing naiveté complete with a rosy hue. It was passion enclosed and yet deftly caring. Her vocal color stripped every doubt that this was artifice. Who wouldn’t have fallen in love as Wagner did with Mathilde Wesendonck? So too “Traume” (Dreams) with its almost bittersweet tones that once may have sounded discordant and now captured the acid sense we have of never getting what we dream about.

The “pièce de résistance” was her “debut” in public of Isolde’s aria from the finale of “Tristan und Isolde.” What a gem! “Mild und leise” (mild and light) was Isolde’s paean to her newly-deceased loved one, the one to whom she owed sanctification and passion. A Shakespearian exposition, à la Cleopatra, here was Isolde, but with the full adoration of the passionate Irish queen. “Seht ihr’s nicht?/Immer lichter/wie er leuchtet,” do you not see, friends, how he shines, even brighter…

What Davidsen brought to the music was her own radiance; what she brought to the text was the ineffable, and we got the benefit of it all. The evening was full of breathtaking beauty, tenderness in the soft tones, clarity and declarations, the full monty.