MILDRED MILLER
Mildred Miller, mezzo-soprano of the Metropolitan Opera association was born in Cleveland and received all her early training here. For over four years she was a pupil of Marie Simmelink Kraft, head of the voice department for the Cleveland Institute of Music, where Miss Miller (formerly Mueller) graduated with high honors in 1946. Further study in Boston brought her experience in the New England Opera Theatre. Then she went to Europe, sang in opera at Stuttgart and Munich, and appeared in the Edinburgh Festival. It was in Germany that Rudolph Bing, manager of the Metropolitan, heard her sing, and at once signed her for the Metropolitan.
In Europe Mildred Miller renewed her friendship with Wesley Posvar, whom she had while attending West High School in Cleveland. His mother lives at 1576 Winton Avenue in Lakewood. Posvar was then a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. They were married at Stuttgart in the same church in which Mildred's parents were married. Here the young singer had a contract with the Stuttgart Opera Company.
Now Mildred and her husband, Captain Posvar live at Croton-on-Hudson, where the brilliant young captain drives to West Point to attend to his duties as instructor of the United States Military Academy, and his talented young wife commutes to New York to attend daily rehearsals at the Metropolitan Opera.
Miss Miller's Metropolitan Opera debut, as Cherubino in Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" took place on November 18, 1951. The New York times confirmed and amplified the good news from abroad with the headline -- "NEWCOMER SCORES IN FIGARO AT THE MET." Towards the end of her season at the Metropolitan (March 10, 1952), Mildred Miller made a last minute radio debut, substituting for Marion Anderson who was ill, on a nationwide broadcast of the Telephone Hour over NBC -- a debut which made front-page news in the newspapers and brought cross-country praise. She has appeared in concert performances under Dimitri Mitropoulos at New York's Stadium Concerts and Philadelphia's Robin Hood Dell; under Rudolph Ringwall in Cleveland for one of the Summer Pops Concerts; has recitaled throughout the States, appeared on the Firestone Hour, on television, and in opera here during the annual visit by the Met in Cleveland each spring.