Best Opera Recording!
Lise’s recording of Wagner’s Die fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) has won the 2025 Gramophone Award for Best Opera.
The opera was recorded live in 2024 at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet in Oslo, with a fantastic cast that included Gerald Finlay as the Dutchman, Brindley Sheratt as Daland and Anna Kissjudit as Mary, with the Norwegian Opera orchestra and chorus, conducted by Ed Gardner.
"So good that you forget to breathe," wrote Aftenposten critic Maren Orstavik after the live recording.
As David Patrick Stearns wrote when the recording was Gramophone’s pick of the month: "Like the rest of the cast, Davidsen is a word-based singer with the colouristic imagination to give the text fresh life. And force. Comparisons with her mid-20th-century fellow Norwegian Kirsten Flagstad are inevitable. But fair? Flagstad's ‘Yohohoe' from Act 1 could probably be heard three fjords away. Davidsen's 'Yohohoe' is quiet, almost like a secret incantation that couldn't be more relevant to her character. Similarly, her final verse of that Act 1 aria (about the Dutchman seeking a wife) sounds almost as if she's singing to herself. With more such details to discover with every hearing, this recording will wear well over the long run."
Randi Stene, the Artistic Director of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, said "The Gramophone Award is a great recognition for the entire Norwegian National Opera - for the Opera Choir, the Opera Orchestra and the soloists on stage. The recording captures a historic moment with Lise Davidsen's probably only interpretation of Senta in The Flying Dutchman. Together with our musicians under Edward Gardner, who has elevated the orchestra to an international level, this has become a recording that truly puts the Norwegian Opera on the world map."
Ed Gardner said "This award is about how the music took shape on stage these evenings. I experienced the orchestra performing with incredible vitality, a choir that gave its all and soloists who threw themselves into the drama with full force. To bring this together in a recording feels like something very special. I am proud of what we have achieved together."
The Gramophone Awards were established in 1977 and are now considered one of the most prestigious awards in classical music.
