Mildred Miller Posvar, famed mezzo-soprano and founder of Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, dies at 98

Mildred Miller Posvar, a Rust Belt singing sensation who soared to stardom on some of the world’s biggest opera stages before finally alighting in Pittsburgh, where she coached voice for decades, founded an opera company and became an indefatigable booster of the arts and the University of Pittsburgh, died Wednesday.

Posvar, who was married to the late Wesley Posvar, a former chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, was 98 and had Parkinson’s disease.

A daughter of German immigrants, the dark-haired, blue-eyed mezzo-soprano grew up Mildred Müller in Cleveland, which served as the cradle of her vocal talents and the springboard to a long, glamorous career that took her to opera houses throughout Europe and in the U.S.

Over the years, she also performed at Carnegie Hall, the White House and at Three Rivers Stadium, where she sang the national anthem in 1971 at a special Pittsburgh Pirates event — the first night game in World Series history.

Nearly 20 years earlier, in November 1951, Posvar had debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City’s Lincoln Center as Cherubino, a character in Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.”

The New York Times reviewer approved, extolling her “warmth and insight, musicality and intelligence.”

“The young newcomer had everything in her favor, including a handsome magnetic stage presence; a fine, fresh voice expertly produced, and pronounced histrionic ability,” he wrote, lauding the “velvety texture” of her voice.

For the next 23 years, Posvar would commute to the Met in New York, singing in 338 performances that spanned 21 roles.

Posvar, who performed as Mildred Miller, the Americanized form of her surname, graduated in 1946 from the Cleveland Institute of Music and then the New England Conservatory of Music. She studied opera at the famed Tanglewood Music Center, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

From there, her career took off, bringing her into the orbit of some of opera’s most renowned names, including Placido Domingo and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

Even non-students of the art form might be familiar with some of the operas in which she sang: “Carmen,” “Madama Butterfly” and “Boris Godunov.” While she played the title role in “Carmen,” Posvar often appeared as male characters in so-called “pants” roles, many of which were suited to her vocal range, one notch lower than the sopranos typical of many leading ladies.

Her favorite role, according to her family: Octavian, a princess’s young lover, in “Der Rosenkavalier,” a comic Strauss opera.

While in Italy in her 20s, Posvar reconnected with a high school classmate from Cleveland, Wesley Posvar. In 1950, they married in Stuttgart, Germany, in the same chapel where her parents had wed.

Wesley Posvar amassed a considerable collection of impressive credentials: first in his class at West Point, a brigadier general in the Air Force, a Ph.D. from Harvard, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and 24 years as Pitt’s chancellor.

But Mildred Posvar hardly stood in her husband’s shadow. In the 1950s, an era of often impenetrable glass ceilings, she made her own way with an impressive career.

While never achieving superstardom and perhaps considered underappreciated by some opera aficionados, Posvar was a force on stage and screen. She appeared not only in magnificent opera houses but also on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” in the 1965 movie “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” and in the recording studio, where she specialized in singing Lieder, a type of German song that sets poetry to music.

Lisa Posvar Rossi, her youngest daughter, said her mother was happy and satisfied with her body of work, never seeking more fame.

“Does that mean she didn’t feel slighted from time to time?” Posvar Rossi said Friday. “She probably did. But such is show biz.”

Posvar balanced her high-caliber work with raising three children — though being pregnant with her first child delayed her Met debut by a year.

“She was in many ways ahead of her time in support of women having their own careers and leading a parallel life,” Posvar Rossi said.

Indeed, a collection of newspaper headlines compiled by her daughters from the early stages of her career noted her twin identities. “Dual Career, the Met and Motherhood” read one; “Opera Star with a Double Life” read another; and this gem: “Carmen in the Kitchen.”

Despite the rarefied company she kept, when Posvar was home, she was a mom through and through, cooking traditional German meals and throwing birthday parties, according to Posvar Rossi.

One thing Posvar wasn’t, according to her daughter — pretentious.

A book kept in her Oakland home called “The Divas” bears this inscription from a friend: “To a great diva, who happily is not in this book.”

Her independence aside, Posvar bowed to her husband’s career when it came to moving to Pittsburgh in 1967. He served as Pitt’s chancellor until 1991.

She embraced the city, the university and the arts, celebrating Pitt sports, hosting school dinners and receptions. In time, she wouldn’t hesitate to yell at the TV during a Pitt football game.

Posvar initially postponed performing as “Carmen” upon arriving in Pittsburgh because she didn’t want the public’s first image of the new Pitt chancellor’s wife to be “this sexy Gypsy on stage,” her daughter said. After making her name as Mildred Posvar for a year, she finally had her Pittsburgh debut as Mildred Miller.

As her on-stage career wound down, Posvar shifted to teaching and coaching, co-founding the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, now Pittsburgh Festival Opera, modeled after the company started by a mentor from her New England days.

She also served on the board of the Pittsburgh Opera and a board advising the National Endowment of the Arts.

Posvar taught voice at Carnegie Mellon University, only retiring at age 95. Her family said until last year she attended board meetings, the symphony, opera and football games.

Tom Wentling, chairman of the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh’s board in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, recalled Posvar as a “lioness” and a “dynamo” who fought for her vision of the company as an incubator for up-and-coming opera singers.

Around 1990, the Pittsburgh Opera tried to absorb Posvar’s smaller company while pledging to keep it autonomous. The two sides met in a conference room at a law office to finalize the move.

“I thought we were going to leave that room shaking hands, the deal is done,” Wentling recalled. “Halfway through the meeting, Mildred stands up and says, ‘I want to thank you all, ladies and gentlemen, for coming. This has been most interesting to me. I have no interest in pursuing this any further.’ And she left the room.”

The deal was off. Posvar feared that her labor of love wouldn’t survive a merger.

“Initially I just couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what to say,” said Wentling, who had spent the better part of a year putting the deal together. “But she was dead right.”

In addition to Posvar Rossi, Posvar is survived by children Wesley William Posvar and Marina Posvar, as well as seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

A visitation will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Dec. 8 at John A. Freyvogel Sons in Shadyside, followed by a funeral service at 2 p.m. Dec. 9 at Calvary Episcopal Church, 315 Shady Ave.