 
Mezzo-soprano Mildred Miller Posvar was a featured artist for
23 consecutive seasons at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She
appeared with every major opera company in the United States and the leading
houses of Europe, and toured the world as an acclaimed recitalist. Ms.
Miller is widely recognized for her work with young singers.
As a recording artist, she holds the Grand Prix du Disque for Bruno
Walter’s only recording of Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer. She
appeared regularly on radio and television, poularizing the classics on
The Bell Telephone Hour and The Voice of Firestone. She has sung to audiences
as far-flung as Borneo and as all-American as the White House. She has
won special acclaim for her singing of German Lieder. Her operatic roles
include Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro— her debut role at the
Met and her exclusive domain there for a decade; the title role in Carmen;
Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier; Suzuki in Madama Butterfly; Rosina in
The Barber of Seville; and Dorabella in Così fan tutte. In 1978,
she
founded the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh. She has taught at Carnegie Mellon
University for several years and conducts master classes throughout the country.
In 1978, Ms. Miller founded the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh as a professional
company
featuring emerging singers and dedicated to education and audience development.
She
fashioned the company after Boris Goldovsky’s New England Opera
Theater where she
performed before beginning her career as a principle artist at the Metropolitan
Opera. She
has taught at Carnegie Mellon University for several years and conducts
master classes
throughout the country.
Ms. Miller studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the New England
Conservatory,
and in Europe. She holds honorary degrees from the Cleveland Institute,
the New England
Conservatory, Bowling Green (Ohio) University, and Washington and Jefferson
College.
She is a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania (past President), and
is a director of a
number of arts organizations and foundations including the Goldovsky Foundation.
Among recent awards are a Gold Medal from the National Society of Arts
and Letters; the
Keystone Salute from the Pennsylvania Association of Music Clubs; the
Distinguished
Service Award from Slippery Rock University; and the Distinguished Alumnae
Award from
the Cleveland Institute of Music. The University of Pittsburgh maintains
a music scholarship
in her name.
Mildred Miller and her late husband, Wesley W. Posvar, University of
Pittsburgh Chancellor
Emeritus, have three children and seven grandsons.
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