Larisa performs for the Boys & Girls
Clubs of Puerto Rico fundraiser. 2017.
Larisa as Rosario in Bare Opera's Goyescas. 2015.
Her budding talent was obvious, and Larisa was
recommended to participate in an extension program
offered by the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico
in San Juan, a storied institution that was founded in
1959 by world renowned cellist Pablo Casals.
“I started there as a 14-year old,” Larisa states.
“I studied piano as a teenager, as well as music
theater, and was a member of the Puerto Rican
national choir. I traveled widely with them,
including a trip to Austria, where the group won a
Dress rehearsal for the world premiere of Francesca da Rimini by Mercadante.
Festival della Valle D'Itria, Martina Franca, Italy. Conductor: Fabio Luisi
Director: Pier Luigi Pizzi. 2016.
Performing on Andrea Bocelli's East Coast Tour.
Madison Square Garden. 2017.
competition. That was my introduction to classical
music. After returning to Puerto Rico, members of
the choir would be hired to sing in the chorus with the
national symphony orchestra.”
Although her vocal talents were becoming more
and more refined, Larisa still hadn’t settled on singing
as a career. “I was really interested in medicine,” she
notes, “and I needed a degree that would have the
prerequisites to go into medicine, so I began to study
environmental sciences at the University of Puerto
Rico. I wanted to study everything, so I picked the
hardest degree program they offered!”
Attending the university and conservatory
simultaneously was challenging. “It was insane,” she
recalls today. At the same time, Larisa started getting
offers to sing in locally-produced operas and
Zarzuelas (a lyric-dramatic genre from Spain that
alternates between spoken and sung scenes,
incorporating operatic and popular song, as well as
dance). “I was drawn to that world.”
LATINAStyle Vol. 25, No. 1, 2019 www.latinastyle.com 23
/www.latinastyle.com
