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Mildred Miller Posvar

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Mildred Miller Posvar was born December 16, 1924 in Cleveland, OH. For her bachelors she studied at Cleveland Institute of Music with Marie Simmelink Kraft, an artist diploma at New England Conservatory and studied with Marie Sundelius, and spent two summers at the Tanglewood Music Festival studying under Boris Goldovsky. Her early career includes performances with Bavarian State Opera, Vienna State Opera, Edinburgh Festival, and Glyndebourne Festival. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera on November 17, 1951 as Cherubino in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. She stayed with the Met for the next 23 years. She portrayed many famous roles including 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. Her final and 338th performance at the Met was on December 3, 1974 as Lola in Cavalleria rusticana. She has also performed with many other opera companies including Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt, 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.

 

Today she teaches at Carnegie Mellon University and works with the  Opera Theater of Pittsburgh which she established in 1978.

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