Flora Mendoza, coloratura mezzo-soprano and actor, got her start as a young chorus member of the Metropolitan Opera. She went on to graduate cum laude from Miss Porter’s School and with distinction from Yale University, where she co-founded the college’s first Latino theatre company, Teatro de Yale, and studied voice at the School of Music with the legendary contralto, Lili Chookasian.
After a period of studying the bel canto technique in Florence, Flora resettled in New York City, where she continues to be a performer of various kinds of music, predominantly opera, in addition to jazz, musical theatre, and R & B. Having played numerous pants roles and comedic character ingénues, she has shared the stage with an array of artists that include Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Samuel Ramey, Astrid Hadad, Gloria Estefan, Patti LaBelle, Ben E. King, and Michael Bolton under the baton of distinguished conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, James Levine, Krzysztof Penderecki, Sir Neville Mariner, Sir David Willcocks, among others. Her performances have been televised on CBS and NBC and featured in independent films and studio recordings.
As a tribute to her dual Mexican and Spanish heritage, Flora is committed to performing music of the Ibero-American classical and popular traditions. An advocate of arts education and service, she appeals to a broad audience by singing an expanding repertoire of regional art song, zarzuela, tango, flamenco, fado, rancheras, and Sephardic hymns in various Hispanic dialects, Portuguese, and Ladino. She has been commissioned to perform such music, as well as sacred, choral, and new works, at various events and venues throughout the United States and Puerto Rico, Denmark, Colombia, India, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Argentina, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia.
