“It was quite surreal,” said opera star Lise Davidsen on meeting Angelina Jolie ahead of “Maria.” “I said to her that it’s people like her who can bring opera to a new audience.” https://t.co/VAWokJd8d2

— WSJ. Magazine (@WSJMag) February 3, 2025

MOST OPERA SINGERS begin training at a young age. Lise Davidsen, one of the greatest sopranos of her generation, never even saw an opera until her 20s.

“This is when I should say, ‘I loved it from the first moment,’ ” says Davidsen, 37. “It’s something that I have learned to love, or to understand. [Back then,] I saw it from a singer’s perspective, thinking, Can I do that? Of course I can’t.”

It was only a few years before Davidsen proved herself wrong, winning prizes at opera competitions around the world. She has since performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House in London and La Scala in Milan. In March, she returns to the Met to star in Beethoven’s Fidelio, set in an 18th-century Spanish prison.

“The music has sort of taken me, year by year and song by song,” she says. “Then eventually, it was my entire life. I wish everyone could experience [opera] two or three times in the room, because that’s where I believe the magic is.”

Davidsen lives in London and her native Norway with her fiancé. Here she talks about preparing for the stage, buying her first coffee maker and where to start if you want to get into opera this year.

What time do you get up on Mondays, and what’s the first thing you do after waking up?

I’m up around 7:30 or 8, then I get ready, have breakfast or go to the gym.

How do you like your breakfast?

I like a breakfast bowl: yogurt and cottage cheese and oats and berries.

What do you do for exercise?

I go for a run or do some weights or intervals. I’m not really good at any of it. I do it three to four times a week. It’s important to know my body works onstage.

Are there things you do daily or weekly to take care of your voice?

I practice almost every day, with one day off each week. I do my technique, which consists of exercise for the voice, for 15 to 30 minutes, then practice, which is a way to stay vocally healthy. [How long I practice] depends on what I’m doing. If I’m in rehearsal, it’s three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon.

What do you listen to when you want to relax?

Podcasts, news updates, news chit-chat and slightly famous people talking about very uninteresting things. My head is so filled with music already.

Next month, you’re starring in Fidelio, about a woman who frees her husband from political imprisonment. What’s your favorite thing about that opera, or the part of Leonore?

The story is slightly tricky because [my character] is a woman dressing up as a man, and I’m not sure anyone would really buy into that today. A woman could [rescue] a man just being a woman. She doesn’t have to dress up. But if we go back to that time where she had to do that, I think she’s incredibly brave. [That bravery] isn’t necessarily just for love, but for your political beliefs or your friends or your family, when you manage to stand up for someone or something you believe in.

For someone new to opera, what’s the best gateway show?

If you’re in New York or America, some of these old traditional shows are really cool. You have to go with the mindset of seeing a historic piece. You can’t go and think, Oh, I’m going to see something that I’ll immediately understand. It’s a different world, a different time. It’s like watching Downton Abbey or reading Jane Austen. Try not to go to the longest one. It’s good to start on the short side. Tosca would probably be a good place to start.

What role that you haven’t yet played is on your bucket list?

Isolde in Tristan and Isolde. Brünnhilde in Wagner’s Der Ring. It’s planned that I’ll do [both] at the Met, but it’s still in the future. And after Covid, I’ve got this [mentality] that life can change, things can change. I don’t believe it until I’m there.

Is there a modern-day work of fiction, whether movie or television or novel, that you think would make for a perfect opera adaptation?

I read A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara, and then I saw it as a play. As dark as it is, it worked really well as a play, and I thought maybe it would work well as an opera. I also still haven’t seen a criminal novel on the opera stage. That would be fun.

What was it like meeting Angelina Jolie ahead of Maria, in which she plays Maria Callas?

It was quite surreal. I said to her that it’s people like her who can bring opera to a new audience. I can try to reach as many people as I want, but she’s proper world-famous. I admire her for doing that. It’s not just a role—it’s a whole craft that she had to learn.

What’s a skill you’ve developed through performing that’s helped you in other parts of your life?

Dealing with nerves and being scared. I know that things will pass. It’s OK to be nervous, it’s OK to get it out. Often I just cry. Then, two minutes later, I’m fine again.

What are your most prized possessions?

Things from my grandmother, like her old watch and her ring, which doesn’t have any value but has value to me. Also some silverware, things that I use during Christmas. You sort of have your family with you, even if they’re not there anymore.