Mildred Miller

Mildred Miller Posvar, born Mildred Müller on December 16, 1924, in Cleveland, Ohio, was an American classical mezzo-soprano whose career encompassed opera, concert, and recital performance across the mid-twentieth century. The daughter of Elsa and Wilhelm Müller, emigrants from Stuttgart, Germany, she grew up in Cleveland, attended the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, and graduated from West High School in 1942. Her stage work extended to Broadway, where she appeared in 1924 in the play Mr. Pitt.

Miller began her formal musical training at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied voice under Marie Simmelink Kraft, graduating in 1946. She then enrolled at the New England Conservatory, studying with Marie Sundelius and spending two summers working on opera with Boris Goldovsky at the Tanglewood Music Center. Her operatic debut came in 1946, when she sang one of the nieces in the United States premiere of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes at the Tanglewood Music Festival, a production conducted by Leonard Bernstein. She subsequently performed with Goldovsky's New England Opera Theater in 1947 and 1948, appearing in productions of Carmen and Idomeneo.

Following the completion of her Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory in 1948, Miller received the Frank Huntington Beebe Fellowship, which funded several months of operatic study in Italy. In 1949 she joined the roster of the Staatsoper Stuttgart, the city from which her parents had emigrated, fulfilling a two-year commitment there. During that period she made debuts at the Bavarian State Opera, the Vienna State Opera, and the Edinburgh Festival. In 1951 she appeared at the Glyndebourne Festival as Preziosilla in Verdi's La forza del destino. It was also during her European years that she reconnected in Boston in 1949 with Wesley Posvar, a U.S. Air Force officer and World War II test pilot then studying on a Rhodes Scholarship, whom she had previously known in high school in Cleveland. The two married in 1950.

While Miller was performing in Germany, Metropolitan Opera General Manager Rudolf Bing offered her a contract with the company. She initially declined, finding the proposed roles too small, but accepted a subsequent offer. She made her Met debut on November 17, 1951, singing Cherubino in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro alongside Cesare Siepi, Nadine Conner, John Brownlee, Victoria de los Angeles, and conductor Fritz Reiner. That debut also marked the first time she performed under the name Mildred Miller, a change Bing had suggested to avoid any anti-German sentiment that the surname Müller might provoke in the postwar climate.

Miller remained a principal artist at the Metropolitan Opera for the next 23 years, through 1974. The roles she portrayed at the house included Annina and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Feodor in Boris Godunov, Magdalene in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Meg Page in Falstaff, Nicklausse in The Tales of Hoffmann, the Page in Salome, Preziosilla, Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, Rosette in Manon, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, the Second Lady in The Magic Flute, the Second Esquire in Parsifal, Siebel in Faust, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, and the title role in Carmen. She became particularly associated with pants roles, earning the nickname "Legs Miller," with her portrayal of Cherubino cited as a signature performance. Her 338th and final appearance at the Met took place on December 3, 1974, as Lola in Cavalleria rusticana, with Elinor Ross, Harry Theyard, and conductor John Nelson.

Alongside her Met commitments, Miller performed as a guest artist at opera houses around the world. She appeared regularly at the Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt between 1959 and 1973, and also sang with the San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Cincinnati Opera, San Antonio Grand Opera Festival, Pittsburgh Opera, Kansas City Opera, Fort Worth Opera, and Opera Pasadena. As a recitalist she performed at venues including Carnegie Hall and the White House. She was a frequent presence on radio and television, appearing regularly on The Bell Telephone Hour and making multiple appearances on The Voice of Firestone and The Ed Sullivan Show. Miller won particular recognition for her singing of German Lieder and recorded with conductor Bruno Walter, with whom she received a Grand Prix du Disque for her recording of Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.

In 1967, Miller and her husband relocated to Pittsburgh when Wesley Posvar was appointed President, and later Chancellor, of the University of Pittsburgh, a position he held for nearly 25 years. Miller established herself in Pittsburgh as a teacher, vocal coach, and producer of opera. In 1978 she co-founded the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh with Helen Knox, serving as its Artistic Director through 1999 and continuing her involvement with the company beyond that date. She also taught at the Carnegie Mellon School of Music and gave master classes internationally. The University of Pittsburgh awards an annual music scholarship in her name.

Among her honors, Miller received a Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and held honorary degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, the New England Conservatory, Bowling Green State University, and Washington & Jefferson College. Her husband Wesley Posvar died of a heart attack in 2001, after more than 50 years of marriage. The couple had three children: Wesley William Posvar, Marina Posvar, and Lisa Posvar Rossi. Mildred Miller Posvar died on November 29, 2023, at the age of 98, from Parkinson's disease.