Mezzo-soprano Mildred Miller Posvar sang opera’s so-called trouser roles so many times that one of her daughters once told a friend, “My mommy is a boy.”
In her 23 years at the Met, she sang with the greatest stars of her day. She had a second career as a leading figure in the artistic life of Pittsburgh.
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.