By MARTY LEVINE
Mildred Miller Posvar, an active Pitt advocate as spouse of Chancellor Wesley Posvar (1967-1991), as well as an internationally renowned opera singer and founder of the Pittsburgh Festival Opera, died Nov. 29, 2023, just a few weeks short of her 99th birthday.
“The University dramatically elevated both its quality and its impact during Wes Posvar’s years as chancellor,” recalled former Chancellor Mark Nordenberg. “Millie was there at every step along the way, not only as a supportive spouse but as a distinctively positive representative of Pitt in her own right. Even though she literally had performed on the world stage, Millie was completely committed to Pitt and to Pittsburgh.
“The Posvars were such incredibly high achievers,” Nordenberg said, “that very early in my own service as chancellor, I literally turned to my wife and asked what the two of us were doing in Wes and Millie’s jobs. There was no good answer to that question, but I took comfort from knowing that Wes and Millie were pleased that we had become their successors.
“Nearly two decades later, after I announced that I would be stepping down as chancellor, Millie reached out to share her belief that I was going to be missed. That meant a great deal to me, not only because it was so kind but because Wes and Millie had set such a high standard.”
“Mildred made Pittsburgh her home, and I think it is to our benefit that she did so,” said G. Reynolds Clark, who served as Nordenberg’s chief of staff. He first got to know Mildred Posvar when he chaired the Westinghouse Foundation and was invited, along with other foundation leaders, to the chancellor’s house for dinner. It was then that he got to know firsthand, “she really was very interested in making Pittsburgh a better place.”
The two became friends, and she would often call him to make certain she could come to Pitt choir concerts at Heinz Chapel and other musical events on campus. “She really loved Pitt football,” he recalled. “She always called up when we were going to have a coaching change; she always had an opinion on what the qualifications should be.”
He also remembered her consulting on strategies for raising funds for the Pittsburgh Festival Opera. “She did her homework and I think that disarmed so many of the individuals she was asking for funding.”
Visiting her in later years in her home in Oakland, Clark said, “as long as I knew her, even after Dr. Posvar’s passing, she was really a strong advocate for Pitt and really focused on how the success of Pitt was involved in the success of Pittsburgh. The way she presented herself every day — always immaculately dressed and very enthusiastic — I never saw her in a bad moment or a down moment ever.”
Martha H. Munsch also met the Posvars early on — when Munsch, a Pitt first-year student in 1967, was among student leaders invited to the chancellor’s home early in Wesley Posvar’s term. “She was just the most gracious, beautiful person students would have had the pleasure of meeting,” she said of Mildred Posvar. “Visible and active and delightful. It was a pleasure for any student who had an opportunity to engage with her.
“Wes and Millie were new leaders and it was a different time,” with the Vietnam War at its peak, she added. “But my recollection is that they made a very, very positive impression on me.”
Munsch got to know the Posvars much better later, as an alumni leader and board member. Some of her most treasured memories of the couple occurred on trips to away football games, particularly the New Year’s Day Cotton Bowl in 1983, which was Pitt quarterback Dan Marino’s last game for the school, ending in a 7-3 defeat.
“She was cheering and singing and just seemed to have a wonderful time with these events,” Munsch recalled — especially Mildred Posvar’s voice soaring above others for the “Star Spangled Banner” and alma mater.
And since the Posvars loved tennis, Munsch said, they rented a court in Dallas and played with Munsch and her husband during the Cotton Bowl trip. “They loved doing that, and I remember Millie Posvar was pretty competitive.”
Munsch marvels at Mildred Posvar still teaching voice lessons late in life: “What a talent she was.”
Mildred Miller Posvar, singing professionally as Mildred Miller, was one of the leading mezzo sopranos of her day, performing from the Metropolitan Opera stage and in other major opera houses across the United States and Europe, on popular television and radio shows, and with famed conductors. She was a recording artist as well as a mentor and coach, a founder of the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh in 1978 (now the Pittsburgh Festival Opera) and a full-time voice teacher at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music for 20 years, retiring at age 95.
Born on Dec. 16, 1924, in Cleveland, Ohio, as Mildred Müller, she graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1946 and then attended the New England Conservatory of Music, graduating in 1948. She made her opera debut in 1946 at the Tanglewood Music Festival in the U.S. premiere of Benjamin Britten's “Peter Grimes,” with Leonard Bernstein conducting. She then performed with the New England Opera Theater (1947-1948) before accepting a Frank Huntington Beebe Fellowship to work in Italy. There she re-met a high school classmate, Wesley Wentz Posvar, who was on a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. They married in 1950 and moved to Oxford, while Mildred continued to sing with operas from Austria to Scotland.
She made her debut at the Met on Nov. 17, 1951, as Cherubino in “The Marriage of Figaro,” which she performed 61 times — a house record. She spent 23 years at the Met, singing 21 different roles on its stage 338 times, including 31 live radio broadcasts. Her final performance at the Met was on Dec. 3, 1974.
As a recitalist and soloist with orchestras, she performed for audiences in North America, Europe and Southeast Asia, from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl and the White House, at a retirement dinner for Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1969. In 1971, she sang the National Anthem at the first-ever night game of baseball’s World Series, at Three Rivers Stadium.
As a recording artist, she received the Grand Prix du Disque for the 1963 release of Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer” and Brahms’ “Alto Rhapsody” with the New York Philharmonic.
During the 1950s and 1960s, at the height of her TV and radio appearances, she sang on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and in movies as Meg Page in the opera adaptation of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” in 1965.
In 2011, Pittsburgh Festival Opera established the Mildred Miller International Voice Competition. She stepped down as the company’s artistic director in 1999 but continued as an active board member. She was also a longtime board member of the Pittsburgh Opera and served on the Music Advisory Board for the National Endowment for the Arts. She was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania and received a Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The Cleveland Institute of Music, the New England Conservatory of Music, Bowling Green State University and Washington & Jefferson College recognized her with honorary degrees.
Pitt’s School of Music in 1972 established the Mildred Miller Posvar Scholarship, and today Pitt’s archives house the Mildred Miller Posvar Papers, 1939-2008, a mixed-media collection documenting her performing career at the Met, her training at the New England Conservatory of Music, her position as first lady of the University of Pittsburgh, and her founding and artistic leadership of the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh/Pittsburgh Festival Opera.
She is survived by her children, Wesley William Posvar, Marina Posvar and Lisa Posvar Rossi (Nicholas); grandsons Wesley Fishwick Posvar, Winston Blair Posvar (Jackie), Brian Benjamin Green (Taylor), Derek Wentz Green (Meghan Gill); Christopher Posvar Rossi (Sarah di Marco), Nicholas William Rossi (Rebecca) and Gian Marco Rossi; and great-grandchildren Ethan Posvar, Jacob Posvar, Penelope Green, Noah Green, Flavio Rossi, Gemma Rossi and Giada Rossi.
Memorial gifts are suggested to the Pittsburgh Festival Opera, the Mildred Miller Scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh or the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music.
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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