Casa Paoli's

     The attorney Gladys Tormes recounted to me that the prominent businessman Efraín Figueroa also told her that Mercedes, days before her death, requested to be buried with the compositions on paper that Juan had dedicated to her.[3] Many of the sheets of Morel's famous dances were printed in Europe and the U.S. by Bazar Otero. Figueroa also told Gladys that Arias worked at the Teatro Fox Delicias, performing the piano scores that came with the silent film reels. (The first sound films shown in Ponce were presented at the Teatro Habana.) Efraín commented that Mercedes is buried in the Catholic Cemetery of Ponce. Arias studied music with Morel Campos at the famous Bazar Otero, located many years ago on Atocha Street, in the same space that the Bazar Atocha once occupied. The father of our dear friends Uchi, Edna, and Toñito Penna bought that property in the 1940s.

     The Otero family has held a very prominent place in our country's history. One need only recall Antonio (Totón) Otero, one of the founders and owners of Bazar Otero; Olimpio Otero, a fondly remembered businessman and politician in Ponce; and Ana Otero, from Humacao, the country's most important pianist of her generation. Thus, Mercedes carried two loves imprinted on her heart: the music of her beloved Tormento and the ink of her printer where she honed her musical talent.

     Mercedes was also one of the favorite piano students of music teacher Julio Carlos de Arteaga. This distinguished musicologist, born in Yauco and an adopted son of Ponce, studied piano at the Paris Conservatory of Music, where he won an award for his skillful piano accompaniment. Arias repeatedly demonstrated her rare talents as an accomplished pianist. At soirées and concerts, she received constant and well-deserved ovations, being highly applauded for the exquisite intonation and impeccable taste with which she performed the most difficult pieces in her vast repertoire. In 1928, Ponce organized a Symphony Orchestra. Mercedes was one of the first artists to be hired. The artistic life of Ponce was very vibrant.

     Under the leadership of Juan Morel Campos, Mercedes Arias, and  soprano Lizzie Graham, numerous performances, concerts, gatherings and recitals took place between 1850-1927, according to Héctor Campos Parsi [4]. Not content with being a highly talented artist, she dedicated herself to teaching, in which she was very successful, training female students who honored her. In 1892, Mercedes held an audition to showcase the progress made by the students who had pursued their musical studies under her direction. That evening, she also demonstrated her excellent school and great vocation for teaching. Several of her students displayed their talent: Amelia Serra, Lila Salazar, Leonor Valdivieso, Celina Besosa, María Rodríguez, Panchita Colon, Elisa Tavarez, and María and Mercedes Laguna.[5]

     In her personal interactions, she was affable and kind, winning everyone's affection with her sweet and charming modesty. She taught until her untimely passing, taking her soul to the heavens of enchantment that had so often graced her life. Mercedes Arias is among the group of women from Ponce who distinguished themselves in Puerto Rican music. We remember with great pride Elisa Tavárez de Storer, Genoveva de Arteaga, Lola (Lolita) Tizol, Amalia Paoli, Arcela (Selita) and Consuelo Menchaca, Palmira Felicci, Lolita Aspiroz, and others. Long live women! 

​

NOTES

[1] Data provided by Eric Rodríguez.​

[2] Nestor Murray-Irizarry, editor, "Fernando Callejo: Ensayo de música." In commemoration of the publication of his book, Música y músicos portorriqueños. Casa Paoli and Ediciones Gaviota, 2015, pp. 371.

[3] Roberto H .Todd indicated that the following dances by Juan Campos [sic] were inspired by Mercedes Arias to whom Todd ''…dedicated to the one and only ideal of Campos's life (sic) to a woman who never loved him nor could I share his love…” : Dream of love, Golden dream, Dreaming, I am happy, Your divine face, Have mercy, Absence,  Happy hours, Give in to my prayers, I can't live without you, Blessed be you. For you, Joys and sorrows, Absence, You love me, My pearl, Say you love me, Sublime soul, Yours is my life, Do not martyr me, Never without you, By your side to paradise, Your return, were written and dedicated by Campos to that beautiful ideal woman, an artist like him, a winner like him, and like the one loved by all of Ponce, having reached the goal of his artistic career in the best theaters in Europe and America as he had also arrived in the homeland'' .               

     But that love was impossible. The social distances between the two were insurmountable. Campos (sic) belonged to a different world from the one in which the goddess of his dream moved and although he esteemed her, to the extent that predilection could do it, the admiration that Campos (sic) had for her, knew how to disillusion him from the beginning by through friends of both: Tell him that can't be and never was, he told his friends. And they both died unmarried. And it is known that she had very good opportunities to join in marriage with gentle gallants when brilliant proposals were made to them both in Europe and on the island of Cuba.               

     There are those who believe that how prolific Campos (sic) was in composing those beautiful productions, which honored and continue to honor the country, was due precisely to the disappointment he had in his love affairs.'' [Roberto H. Todd, Campos y sus Danzas, El Mundo, January 10, 1943: 4 and 12.] For his part, the famous Puerto Rican writer José Agustín Balseiro commented that Morel Campos was a poet in everything and that the divinity of his compositions did not exceed the names with which he wrote them. baptized. ''Each one of them is a poem in itself and an indisputable success…'' According to Balseiro they are…suggestive phrases that speak, with sad eloquence, of the immense love that perfumed his never understood soul, because he was unaware that the men of powerful imagination are often like birds of powerful flight able to walk the earth '', as Goethe said. ´´[José A. Balseiro, Juan Morel Campos: The man and the musician. San Juan: Typography German Diaz, 1922.16 and 17.]  

 

(4) Hector Campos Parsi. In The Great Encyclopedia of Puerto Rico, Volume: Music. San Juan: Puerto Rico in hand and The Great Encyclopedia of Puerto Rico, Inc. p.179; 263.(5) News. La Democracia, May 10, 1892. February 26, 2018