What Lise Davidsen Can’t Live Without

I’m sure I can wash my face with something else, but I’ve used Dermalogica cleaner for a long time, and it works for me. I’ve tried lots of its products, but the cleanser is what’s stayed with me the longest. It doesn’t have too many ingredients, and it feels really clean. There’s no smell, it’s very neutral, but it does a good job.

I had these madein Copenhagenabout 12 to 15 years ago, and I’ve been using the same pair ever since. They maintain the quality of the sound, just reduced a bit. I have them so I can practice in whatever room I’m in. Opera singing generates an extreme amount of sound, and if you’re in a very small room like a bathroom or laundry room — which is often the case during warm-ups — it can be overwhelming. But with these earplugs in, I can trust that what I’m hearing is more like what it will sound like during a rehearsal. You can play or sing with them onstage as well, but I don’t use them for performances, only for rehearsals. Especially if the orchestra is really loud. The filters can be replaced for more or less sound protection, but I keep them at minus-10 decibels. If I were going to a concert in a club, I might go for minus-20.

[Editor’s note: We’ve linked to a U.S.–based custom-earplug maker in lieu of the European ones that Davidsen has.]

If I’m working on an opera, I’m carrying the paper score. I haven’t gotten my brain into using the iPad for a new thing. If it’s a role I’ve done, I add it to my iPad and just scan it. But when I’m learning a new piece, I’m very much a paper kind of person. There are different publishers, and there are different versions of different works. But for the Italian repertoire, we often use Ricordi, which I prefer. Some people insist on the Critical Edition, which has all the latest updates, and it says, “It used to be this … but then the composer wrote that … and now it says this …,” so all these things are totally up to date. But you can use any copy as long as you know what you’re singing. For annotating, I use a lot of markers for different things — typically yellow for text and pink for notes. For really important mistakes that I need to fix, I will note it with a Post-it, just to make sure that I remember it, and then I can take it away when it’s fixed.

I have a scarf with me everywhere, all the time, to protect from drafts and cold air, even when the weather is warm. My sister used to say, “Your summer scarf is my winter scarf!” Norwegian summers are not so warm, so it doesn’t sound as stupid in Norway as it might sound in New York. Of course, if it’s a proper summer day, I don’t walk around with a scarf. I’m not completely loony. But I will still have a lighter cashmere scarf like this nearby, just in case. It’s large, so I can use it as a little blanket or drape it over my shoulders.

I like Long Tall Sally for pants. I don’t really like the rest of their stuff. I like that their pants are long, and that they’re long enough for me. I get them in black.

If I have snacks, I will eat them too, so I try not to keep them around. But if I want a non-snacky snack, I like a protein bar. The Barebells ones without nuts are my favorite because they’re not so high in calories, but if I’m peckish, they still satisfy my sweet tooth.

Hand sanitizer is my way of avoiding getting ill, and I used it long before COVID. Only after COVID do people fully understand why I carry it with me all the time. I use other types as well, but I like the lavender smell of this one; it’s definitely my favorite. I like that it’s a spray, so it feels clean and doesn’t get sticky like some of the gel ones. I can also use it on surfaces and airplane seats. I have one in each of my purses, and I pick up new ones from the checkout at Whole Foods all the time. I also wear masks a lot, especially in crowds, but now that I have twins, I can’t wear a mask as often because there’s just too much going on. I know some singers havespecial masksand so many things, but I can’t allow myself to get into that because it would become an obsession and make me unbearable to be around.

This spoon was one of the things my husband wasn’t sure if I should share because it sounds so insane. But I thought I had to be honest. My mother used to eat her soft-boiled eggs with a plastic spoon like this one. She always said, “I like eating it with a plastic spoon. It tastes better than metal.” So I grew up with these hard plastic spoons. Now I use them to eat my yogurt and my breakfast bowl. And this is so silly, but now that I have to bring my kids’ spoons and other stuff everywhere when we travel, I thought,Well, I might as well bring a couple of my spoons because I like having them. So I’ve kept doing it, and now I always have a few pink plastic spoons with me wherever I go. Not for weekend trips, I would never bring it for that, but definitely on these longer stays in New York.

For my kids, there are these tiny spoon lids; I don’t know if they have them here in America, but they are very clever. They screw straight onto the little baby-food sachets of porridge or fruit purée or whatever. You just replace the lid with one of these, and when you squeeze the sachet, the food goes straight onto the spoon, and you can give it directly to the baby. Eventually, they get big enough, and you can give them the whole sachet, and they can eat it on their own, but until then, these spoons are great.

[Editor’s note: We’ve linked to a spoon from a brand that’s available in the U.S. in lieu of the European ones that Davidsen has.]

I’m 39 now, and when we started trying two or three years ago, we thought it might not be possible to have two kids, so when we got the news that we were having twins, I felt like I’d won the lottery. But when you go from zero to two kids, it’s gonna turn your world upside down, no matter what. We bought these baby-cot things, not knowing if we’d use them, but they became our most-used thing during the first six months. It can flatten into a play mat, but then you can also just pick it up with one hand to put the baby in the stroller.

I am very excited about this production. From what I have seen so far, the costumes are very traditional, yet the set is completely modern. So I’m really curious to see what that will bring to the story. In preparing to play Lady Macbeth, I’ve been attempting to answer the question, “Why is Lady Macbeth so evil?” It intrigues me, and I hope that by the time we open, I will have answered it. She starts the story in such a good position. The Macbeths have everything they could need in their life, yet she still pushes her husband to do all this, only to end up miserable. She comes across as a complete villain, but that’s too simplistic. Sometimes people are born like that; they’re just crazy, but I feel there’s something else going on that intrigues me about this woman.