Isabel Lüdi Roth

ALMA ESPAÑOLA presents GRAMMY Award-winning singer Isabel Leonard and GRAMMY Award-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin in an all-Spanish recording for voice and guitar, including twelve arrangements by Ms. Isbin in their premiere recordings. Duos by Federico García Lorca, Manuel de Falla, Xavier Montsalvatge, Agustín Lara and Joaquín Rodrigo, with guitar solos by Granados and Tárrega, are heard in performances that evoke the rich and magnificent tradition of Spain. The Philadelphia Inquirer described Leonard & Isbin's performance as “Feasts of beautifully sculpted phrases… glimpses of heaven", and The New York Times referred to the “Soulful depth" of their interpretations. The collaboration of Isabel Leonard and Sharon Isbin brings together one of today's brightest vocal stars, heard on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, and Paris Opera, with a guitar virtuoso acclaimed as “the pre-eminent guitarist of our time."

Yes, there was another Cleopatra! She was married to Tigranes the Great, King of Armenia, and together they created an Armenia that reached from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. The resplendent and regal voice of soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian is perfectly suited to the role of Cleopatra. Bayrakdarian shines in arias from three rarely heard operas about King Tigranes and his queen. Bayrakdarians multi-hued voice relates the passion, drama, and fervor of the love story of Tigranes and Cleopatra. Bayrakdarian sparkles in five arias from Il Tigrane by Baroque master Johann Adolph Hasse, famous in his day as one of the foremost composers of opera. Arias by Vivaldi and Gluck add further excitement to the album.Bayrakdarian is supported by the Grammy-nominated team of Constantine Orbelian the singers dream collaborator (Opera News) and his marvellous Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra.

Saint-Saëns's first opera, Le Timbre d'argent initially composed in 1864 need not fear comparison with some of the most celebrated works in the nineteenth-century French repertory. It depicts the nightmare of a man whose hallucinations anticipate by twenty years the fantastical apparitions of Offenbach's Les Contes d Hoffmann.

Paris, early Twentieth Century: in the space of three ballets, a previously unknown Russian composer revolutionised the music of his time. With The Firebird and Petrushka, respectively fairytale and folktale, and of course The Rite of Spring, a telluric invocation with its insanely innovative harmonies and rhythms, Stravinsky dynamised the Late Romantic orchestra, taking it to literally unheard-of places.

Rhino released a new David Lee Roth box-set, The Warner Recordings 1985-1994, which features newly remastered versions of the former Van Halen lead singer’s first five solo releases. Roth released his debut EP, Crazy From The Heat while still a member of Van Halen. Consisting of cover versions, it was a hit, reaching number 15 on the Billboard 200. Following on from this success, David Lee Roth departed Van Halen in the summer of 1985 and his first solo album, Eat ‘Em and Smile, would follow in the July of 1986. More straightforwardly ‘rock’ than his EP, it still retained some of the wide-ranging tastes explored previously, including a cover of Frank Sinatra’s ‘That’s Life’. 1987’s Skyscraper, included the hit ‘Just Like Paradise’ and 1991’s A Little Ain’t Enough continued Roth’s run of success, with another top 20 placement on the Billboard 200. 1994’s Your Filthy Little Mouth was produced by Nile Rogers although the shifting musical landscapes, especially the emergence of grunge, meant Your Filthy Little Mouth would not match the success of Roth’s previous albums, in America. The new box set features the debut EP and the following four albums as a 5CD set in a clamshell box.