Joyce DiDonato is far from the first singer to rethink Schubert’s “Winterreise.” This song cycle of spurned love and frosty anguish is by now a well-trod rite of passage for recitalists. But with some regularity, performers offer remixes that look beyond the standard stand-and-deliver for fresh takes.

Hans Zender once orchestrated what he called a “composed interpretation,” which Ian Bostridge later toured in a multimedia staging by Netia Jones. William Kentridge has added to the cycle his trademark animated collage. In “Winterize,” the piece’s journey was made literal as performer and audience walked through a chilly Brooklyn Botanic Garden. And the score, originally written for tenor, has been transposed every which way for different voice types — and genders.

But not content to simply sing “Winterreise” as a mezzo-soprano, Ms. DiDonato sought something different in the version she brought to Carnegie Hall on Sunday, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin trading his conductor’s baton for a seat at the piano. (The concert is streaming at medici.tv.)

Their “Winterreise” hinges on a change in perspective. Little is known about the cycle’s protagonist, other than that heartbreak has sent him on a bitter march toward despair and possibly death. Even less is revealed about the woman he loves — yet her story is the one Ms. DiDonato wants to tell.