Isabel Bayrakdarian - Cleopatra (2004)

In 2002, the beautiful Canadian-Armenian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian scored a major success when she appeared as Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, in Handels opera Giulio Cesare for the Canadian Opera Company. As one critic observed at that time, "Cleopatra is one of Handels most superb, and psychologically intricate, creations. The luminous Bayrakdarian has made a wonderful beginning in a role she will surely take to the great stages of the worldat first childishly seductive, then calculating, and ultimately revealing a profound nobility and vulnerability." For her third CD for CBC Records, Ms. Bayrakdarian has chosen arias from four works focusing on the Egyptian femme-fatale.