‘I’ll be 34 by the time it’s released’, Lise Davidsen says in the booklet for her second solo album, ‘so please don’t typecast me yet as a Wagnerian!’ Well, the superbly poised and moving account of the Wesendonck Lieder that concludes the programme makes it difficult not to, but the Norwegian soprano here shows other strings to her bow, offering a more varied calling card than on her debut album of Wagner and Strauss (6/19).

We’ve Beethoven first, plus a couple of tantalising Verdi arias, as well as snippets from operas by Mascagni and Cherubini (whose names, though, don’t make it on to the cover). For most in the UK, the last chance to hear Davidsen in the flesh was indeed in Beethoven, with her memorable Leonore at the Royal Opera House – cut short by Covid. Her ‘Abscheulicher! Wo eilst du hin?’ brings back memories of those astonishing performances, ‘sounding by turns vibrant and gleaming, warm and heroic’, writes John Allison in his booklet note.

Vocally it is a supremely satisfying account of the aria, with the tone powerful and secure, as well as disarmingly beautiful, while managing all the time to convey the character’s nobility and vulnerability. Her performance of Ah! perfido presents a similar combination of strength and warmth, helped by vivid, detailed and dramatically engaged accompaniment from Mark Elder and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, excellent throughout.

Davidsen has sung Medea and Santuzza on stage – the first at Wexford, the second while still a student – and the Cherubini is movingly and powerfully done; the huge swell on ‘orrendi passioni’ is almost overwhelming, even if we lose the words momentarily. Her Santuzza has an impressive grandezza but, both here and in the two Verdi arias, the voice feels more distant and unfocused in Decca’s sound picture (the album was recorded at two locations, in sessions in August and October 2020).

At the start of ‘Pace, pace mio Dio!’ she sounds almost as if she’s singing from offstage, and remains distantly placed throughout, although there’s still no mistaking the power and quality of the singing. And her Otello ‘Ave Maria’ shows how this huge voice can spin the most delicate of lines, even if it feels stingy not to have the Willow Song too.

And so, finally, to Wagner, and a performance of the Wesendonck Lieder that confirms what an ideal fit vocally and temperamentally Davidsen is for the composer. In ‘Der Engel’, with Elder’s help, she immediately conjures up a world of concentrated emotional intensity and noble restraint, from whose underlying Innigkeit the voice occasionally shines forth like a ray of glorious sunlight.

We sense the character not only of Isolde but also, at the close of ‘Stehe still!’, of Brünnhilde – even if she sounds a little underpowered at the start of the song (compared with the intensity of a Christa Ludwig here, for example). She spins the line of ‘Im Treibhaus’ beautifully, though, while ‘Träume’ has simultaneously a richness and gentleness, a strength and tenderness that are supremely moving.

It makes for a superb conclusion to what, despite some caveats, is another fine album from an artist who, quite simply, is one of the greatest voices to be heard today.