Rosa Mercedes
Spanish Artist Of Movement For The Opera
By Chris Trask
Skimming the internet for information on how to improve my voice quality, I connected with a voice teacher, Maria Todaro. Click-n-type, I made the appointment and arrived February 8th for my first lesson.
I overheard her husband Louis Otey, a baritone opera singer famous for singing in the world’s major international theaters, teaching a student on the internet. He walked out of the voice studio with his computer in his arms. I was greeted by the warm, inviting, beautiful smile of Maria Todaro, a French opera mezzo-soprano who is renowned for her virtuosity in the florid works of Rossini, Handel, Purcell, Vivaldi and Mozart, performing in Europe, the U.S. and South America. She is also a Co-Founder and Executive Director of The Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice. I modestly said,” I am here to learn how to breathe. I am a beginner.”
“You came to the right place,” she replied. Feeling calm and in tune with Maria immediately, I realized we were supposed to meet. I shared my world of ballroom dancing and connected her to the owner of Allstar dance studio whereby she shared her world as an accomplished pianist, conductor, librettist, actress, vocal teacher, stunt performer, painter and connected me with Rosa Mercedes.
Rosa, born in Barcelona, Spain, is an internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer whose illustrious career in all of the styles of Spanish dance took her from dance companies to the world’s great opera houses, as principal dancer, choreographer and movement coach. She has had her work featured on the stages of The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Seattle Opera, Atlanta Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Baltimore Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Florentine Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Dallas Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Tulsa Opera, Palm Beach Opera, and many others. She has choreographed such operas as Salome, Samson et Dalila, Aida, La Traviata, Carmen, Die Zauberflöte, Faust, Rigoletto, Lucia di Lammermoor, Un ballo in maschera, The Merry Widow, La Gioconda, Die Fledemaus, L’incoronazione de Poppea, and Romeo et Juliette, spanning a wide range of dance styles.
In addition to choreographing dancers for productions at major opera houses around the world, Rosa takes great pride in her individual work coaching singers in their preparation of roles that require special attention towards movement and physicality. “These are the moments you see an artists transform,” she explains. “I empower them, and that is so satisfying. They come with their character well thought out, with a deep understanding of what they would like to communicate, but often without the tools or breadth of physical vocabulary to bring those things out. My sessions with singers are about freeing them to express with their bodies the way they already are so accustomed to expressing with their voices. I love it!”
One of her greatest rewards is experiencing a singer’s performance that she has prepared,
and the gratitude and admiration they show for her--for her knowledge and expertise in
the art form, for her grace, her persistence in never giving up on them, and for her unique
and special way of sharing of her artistry in a way that elevates those around her.
To learn more about her work, visit www.RosaMercedes.com