Decca Classics has announced the new album from Gramophone’s 2018 Young Artist of the Year Lise Davidsen.

Few young singers in recent years have received the attention – and acclaim – as the Norwegian soprano. Reviewing her debut album featuring Strauss’s Four Last Songs, Hugo Shirley wrote in  Gramophone: ‘this album only reinforces the fact that she is one of the greatest vocal talents to have emerged in recent years, if not decades.’ Meanwhile, in his monthly column for the magazine, Edward Seckerson said ‘she might just be the most important signing to the label since the glory days of Birgit Nilsson’.

Decca Classics’ follow-up to that initial release will feature music by Beethoven, Wagner and Verdi, including some arias from operas Davidsen has performed on stage in recent years, including Fidelio (Leonore’s aria ‘Abscheulicher!’). Other operatic heroines explored include Verdi’s Leonora from La forza del destino, Cherubini’s Medea, and Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana. The programme also includes Verdi’s Ave Maria from Otello plus the first of Wagner’s five Wesendonck Lieder.

Davidsen’s album was recorded in London during the summer and autumn of last year, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder, and will be available on March 26. It will coincide with a major interview with the singer in Gramophone’s April edition.