Teatro Lirico is the ECM leader debut of American lutenist Stephen Stubbs. The album features a diverse and multifaceted early music program connecting historically informed performance with improvisation. It offers a traditional early music instrumentation with four highly informed and accomplished early music interpreters: Milos Valent - violin, viola, Maxine Eilander - Spanish and Italian harps, Erin Headley - viola da gamba, lirone and Stephen Stubbs - baroque guitar, chitarrone. The immediately appealing sets of Italian "La Folia" variations, both virtuosic and grand, are interspersed with stylistically assured improvisations on the "Folia" bass line. Originating in Portugal and Spain and later known in France as "folies d'espagne," the "Folia" variations over characteristic chord patterns started as mere dance accompaniments and harmonic basis for song, but in the early 17th century developed into a musical form allowing the musicians, especially the guitarists, to display their virtuosity. In the recording process with ECM producer Manfred Eicher, the improvisational element came more to the fore not only in the typical baroque way of ornamenting and embellishing given melodies and chords, but as spontaneous and highly individual sets of new variations over the "Folia" bass line.