June 10, 2022
The Norwegian soprano will be a central figure at next year's festival in Bergen.
‘I have just had some absolutely fantastic days at the Bergen International Festival, and now I look forward to returning as artist in residence in 2023, says Lise Davidsen.
The soprano from Stokke, Norway, will have a major role during the opening performance in Grieghallen on 24 May, together with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and other soloists. She will also perform several concerts and participate in various capacities during the festival period from 24 May to 7 June 2023.
Lise Davidsen has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Teatro Alla Scala Milan, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Wiener Staatsoper and the Bayreuth and Glyndebourne festivals. She studied at the Grieg Academy in Bergen and the Royal Danish Academy of Music and has won the Queen Sonja International Music Competition and a Spellemann Award (the Norwegian Grammy).
The soprano has received much critical praise: The New York Times wrote ‘a voice in a million’, and The Economist called her ‘opera’s newest star’. During this year's Bergen International Festival, she performed with pianist Leif Ove Andsnes in a packed concert hall to uniform critical acclaim. She is particularly known as a Lieder singer and for her interpretations of Grieg, Mahler and Strauss.
‘Lise Davidsen has a voice and an ability to connect with audiences which astonish and move me deeply every time I hear her. In just a few years, she has established herself as one of classical music’s greatest stars, and we are very proud to present her as the Festival’s artist in residence in 2023,’ says artistic director and chief executive Lars Petter Hagen.
The 2022 Bergen International Festival was the 70th in a row. Earlier this week, the festival could announce it had welcomed more than 70,000 visits this year. The festival has a long tradition of highlighting a composer or artist each year as an artist in residence, and in 2022 the role was filled by legendary American Kronos Quartet.