Csn&y Dejavu

GREATEST HITS is a more specific offering than the concept often suggests, culling hits from '84, '85 and '88. With a career stretching back to the mid-'60s, the cuts found here are but a sampling of Ruben Blades' decade or so with his illustrious sextet, Seis Del Solar. As the father of progressive salsa/tropical pop, some of Blades' greatest songwriting of the period is to be found here, in all its glistening studio glory. "Buscando America" opens with wafts of foreboding, Tyner-esque piano before easing into Blades' stirring, synth-laden call for Pan-American unity. With a piercing trombone arrangement that recalls Blades' days in Willie Colon's band, "La Marea" is a sinewy cut of salsa that explicates all the seasick tosses-and-turns of a choppy love affair. The singer's early predilection for doo-wop rears its head on the "who-oh" chorus of the soaring "El Padre Antonio" and the tongue-in-cheek intro to the witty "Decisiones." In the context of that dark morass of pop hell known as the mid-'80s, seekers of sweet melody and politically-conscious songcraft have plenty to dig on GREATEST HITS, Spanish-speaking or not.

2017 marks the tenth anniversary of the release of Rodrigo y Gabriela’s breakthrough self-titled album. To celebrate the occasion, the acclaimed Mexican duo have remastered the album and dipped into their archive to share a scintillating live CD/DVD. “Rodrigo y Gabriela” was produced by Rodrigo and Gabriela with John Leckie, best known for his work with Radiohead and The Stone Roses. Affectionately known to fans as “the Crocodile album," the record has gone on to sell 750,000 copies worldwide. The new remaster was done by Robyn Robins, who mastered the original album in 2006. The live album was recorded during a string of shows at The Olympia Theatre in Dublin to coincide with their Irish triumph in 2006, performing tracks from the new album as well as their back catalog.

L’arbore di Diana (The Tree of Diana), which was staged at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 2009, is a two-act opera buffa by the composer Vicent Martín i Soler with a libretto by the famous Lorenzo Da Ponte. The opera focuses on the temptation and joy of falling in love. Though the plot includes features borrowed from the pastorale and erotic comedy, it also had political intentions and endorsed the abolition of convents and monasteries decreed by the emperor.

This doble CD contains the opera Ifigenia in Aulide by Vicente Martín y Soler (1754-1806), a Spanish opera composer whose European recognition rivalled that of Mozart —in 2004 the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birthday was celebrated. The libretto is based on a classical tragedy named after the Greek heroine Ifigenia. The action takes place in Troya in 1100 B.C. and among the characters are Ifigenia, Aquiles, Agamenón, Ulises, and Arcadia. The author of the libretto was Luigi Serio. This opera had not been represented since its premiere at San Carlo theatre in Naples in 1779. Its premier in Úbeda-Baeza was an important landmark in the first years of the Festival, due to the complexity of the production and the excellent artistic results.