She Risked Her Voice to Become a Mother

From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroaf. This is The Daily on Sunday. In the world of opera, Lisa Davidson is a superstar. Full stop. The Norwegian soprano has been described as one of the greatest singers of our time, with a one in a million voice. This spring, she's been leading a rare sold out run at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, of Tristan and Isolde, a performance that's gotten rave reviews across the board. But Davidson is also at a crossroads, because nine months ago, she gave birth to twins. And that has her questioning her relationship to her career, her art, and her expectations for what her life should look like. Today, I talk with writer, editor, and former opera critic, Zachary Wolfe, about his conversation with Lisa Davidson on parenthood, vocation, and navigating the two while also making art. It's Sunday, April 5. Zach Wolfe, welcome to the Sunday Daily. Thank you for having me. So I quickly just wanna say how very cool it is to be able to sit down with you and talk about this. I think of you as an encyclopedia of sorts of classical music. You've covered this topic for many years at the times, And I know from many conversations with you, not just how much you know about it, but how extremely passionate you are about this world. So thank you for being here. It's a pleasure. So with that as your intro, be our guide here. For those of us who aren't as tuned in to the world of opera, who is Lisa Davidson? So when Lisa Davidson kind of burst onto the opera scene, like, ten years ago, it was kind of like this comet. This is a once in a generation talent. This is a person who's not only singing beautifully, but she's singing the kind of roles that almost no one can sing, and she's singing them at a level that almost none of those people can get to. I mean, in the kind of big Wagner parts that she specializes in, she brings you back to the greatest singers of, like, early in the twentieth century. Like, the kind of people you know only from recordings, but who are, like, the best people ever to have sung these things. Was there one role that put her on the map? So, like, a lot of the roles she sings are Wagner, but there was also this opera by Richard Strauss called Ariadne of Naxos. And that was the opera that really kind of put her on the map. She sang this and the buzz was immediately kind of worldwide, that somebody was singing this part with kind of this plushness and opulence and richness that people had not heard in many, many years. And what is it about her voice that makes her so special? For parts like Isolde in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, which she's singing in the sold out run …