“Alma Española” (on Bridge) is a beautiful new album of Spanish songs performed by guitarist Sharon Isbin and mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard.
While pairing a classical guitarist and an opera singer for this repertoire would seem a natural choice, this is in fact the first known recording of its kind in more than 40 years. The last one was “Canciones Españolas” by Teresa Berganza and Narciso Yepes.
Though there is some duplication of songs from the Berganza/Yepes recording, Isbin, with input from Leonard, worked out new arrangements to create 12 world premieres for the album.
The two artists, both multi-Grammy Award winners, identify strongly with the material. Native New Yorker Leonard has an Argentinean mother and grew up speaking Spanish and English. I have heard her sing in French, Italian, and English at the Metropolitan Opera. Her roles range from comic (for example, “The Barber of Seville”) to the tragic (“Dialogue of the Carmélites”), and from the bel canto style of Rossini to the style of contemporary works such as Thomas Adès’s “The Tempest.”
