Mildred Allen (soprano)
Encyclopedia
Mildred Allen is an American
opera
tic soprano
who had an active career during the 1950s and 1960s. She notably was a regular performer at the Metropolitan Opera
between 1957 and 1962. She later became a member of the voice faculty at Birmingham-Southern College
where she taught from 1987-2009.
and Tennessee
and studied piano as a child. She attended the University of Mississippi
where she earned a B.A. of Music in 1954 and then pursued graduate studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston
, earning a masters degree in Vocal Performance in 1956. While in Boston she studied under the great impresario
and conductor
, Boris Goldovsky
. She made her professional opera debut at the age of 24 on August 6, 1956 portraying the title role in the first staged production of Lukas Foss
's Griffelkin
at the Tanglewood Music Festival
.
Early on in her career Allen joined the roster of sopranos at the Metropolitan Opera
in 1957. She initially was hired to replace Roberta Peters
, who was out having a baby, as Papagena in Mozart's The Magic Flute
in March 1957. Rudolph Bing
was pleased with her performance and she was offered a long-term contract with the company . She sang regularly at the Met for the next 5 years for a total of 208 performances. Her more notable roles at the Met included Amore in Gluck
's Orfeo ed Euridice
, Giannetta in Donizetti
's L'elisir d'amore
, Guadalena in Offenbach
's La Périchole
, Micaela in Bizet's Carmen
, Oscar in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera
, Yniold in Debussy
's Pelléas et Mélisande
, and Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni
. She also portrayed a number of smaller supporting roles, including Annina in La Traviata
to the Violettas of Licia Albanese
, Maria Callas
, and Victoria de los Angeles
and the role of Ines in Il Trovatore
to Lucine Amara
's Leonora . Her last performance at the Met was on April 2, 1962 as the Crowned Child in Verdi's Macbeth
with Anselmo Colzani
in the title role and Irene Dalis
as Lady Macbeth.
During her years at the Met, Allen also occasionally sang roles with other companies. She toured North America with the NBC Opera Theatre
singing Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro with Phyllis Curtin
as the Countess and Walter Cassel
as the Count. In 1957 she made her debut with the Santa Fe Opera
(SFO) as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly
with Regina Sarfaty
as Suzuki and Loren Driscoll
as Pinkerton. She made several more appearances with the SFO over the next ten years, including portraying Isabella Linton in the world premiere of Carlisle Floyd
's Wuthering Heights
in 1958. Her other roles at the SFO included, Mimi in La bohème
(1958, 1967), Despina in Così fan tutte
(1958), Nannetta in Falstaff
(1958), Adele in Die Fledermaus
(1959), Cio-Cio-San (1959, 1963, 1965), Alexandra Giddens in Marc Blitzstein
's Regina
(1959), Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro (1960, 1965), Anne in The Rake's Progress
(1960), Zerlina (1963), La Chauve-Sourris in L'Enfant et les sortileges
(1963), St. Margaret in Arthur Honegger
's Joan of Arc at the Stake (1963), and Costanza in Hans Henze's The Stag King
(1965). Her final role with the company was in 1967 as Micaela in Bizet
's Carmen
.
After leaving the Met in 1962, Allen became a regular performer at the Washington National Opera
during the 1960s. She made her debut with the company in 1962 singing Violetta in La Traviata
opposite Stanley Kolk as Alfredo. Her other roles with the company included Adele in Die Fledermaus and Cio-Cio San. She also sang a number of leading roles with the Central City Opera
and with a few opera houses in Europe, including the role of Amore at the Liceu
.
From 1987-2009 she was a member of the voice faculty at Birmingham-Southern College
where she taught voice, directed student opera productions, and taught a variety of subjects that encompassed art and literature in addition to music. Retired now, she still teaches privately out of her home in Birmingham, Alabama
. She is married to Edward Taub
, an internationally known neuroscientist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
who had an active career during the 1950s and 1960s. She notably was a regular performer at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
between 1957 and 1962. She later became a member of the voice faculty at Birmingham-Southern College
Birmingham-Southern College
Birmingham–Southern College is a 4-year, private liberal arts college located three miles northwest of downtown Birmingham. Founded in 1856, it is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Approximately 1400 students from 30 states and 23 foreign countries attend the college...
where she taught from 1987-2009.
Biography
Allen grew up in MississippiMississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
and Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
and studied piano as a child. She attended the University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
where she earned a B.A. of Music in 1954 and then pursued graduate studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, earning a masters degree in Vocal Performance in 1956. While in Boston she studied under the great impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
, Boris Goldovsky
Boris Goldovsky
Boris Goldovsky was a Russian conductor and broadcast commentator, active in the United States. He has been called an important "popularizer" of opera in America...
. She made her professional opera debut at the age of 24 on August 6, 1956 portraying the title role in the first staged production of Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss was a German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist.-Music career:He was born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922. His father was the philosopher and scholar Martin Fuchs...
's Griffelkin
Griffelkin
Griffelkin is an opera by Lukas Foss with a libretto by Alastair Reid. The opera was first performed on November 6, 1955, in a nationwide telecast by the NBC Opera Theatre.-Background:...
at the Tanglewood Music Festival
Tanglewood Music Festival
The Tanglewood Music Festival is a music festival held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Lenox, Massachusetts in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts....
.
Early on in her career Allen joined the roster of sopranos at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
in 1957. She initially was hired to replace Roberta Peters
Roberta Peters
Roberta Peters is an American coloratura soprano.One of the most prominent American singers to achieve lasting fame and success in opera, Peters is noted for her 35-year association with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York...
, who was out having a baby, as Papagena in Mozart's The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
in March 1957. Rudolph Bing
Rudolph Bing
Sir Rudolf Bing was an Austrian-born opera impresario who worked in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, most notably being General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1950 to 1972...
was pleased with her performance and she was offered a long-term contract with the company . She sang regularly at the Met for the next 5 years for a total of 208 performances. Her more notable roles at the Met included Amore in Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
's Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing...
, Giannetta in Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
's L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore
L'elisir d'amore is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts...
, Guadalena in Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's La Périchole
La Périchole
La Périchole is an opéra bouffe in three acts by Jacques Offenbach. Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy wrote the French-language libretto based on the 1829 one act play Le carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée, which was revived on 13 March 1850 at the Théâtre-Français...
, Micaela in Bizet's Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
, Oscar in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
, Yniold in Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
's Pelléas et Mélisande
Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)
Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande...
, and Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
. She also portrayed a number of smaller supporting roles, including Annina in La Traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
to the Violettas of Licia Albanese
Licia Albanese
Licia Albanese is an Italian-born American operatic soprano. Noted especially for her portrayals of the lyric heroines of Verdi and Puccini, Albanese was a leading artist with the Metropolitan Opera of New York from 1940 to 1966...
, Maria Callas
Maria Callas
Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...
, and Victoria de los Angeles
Victoria de los Ángeles
Victoria de los Ángeles was a Spanish Catalan operatic soprano and recitalist whose career began in the early 1940s and reached its height in the years from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Her obituary in The Times noted that she must be counted “among the finest singers of the second half...
and the role of Ines in Il Trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
to Lucine Amara
Lucine Amara
Lucine Amara is an American soprano who was largely based at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.-Biography:Amara was born Lucine Armaganian in Hartford, Connecticut, of Armenian heritage, before moving to San Francisco where she was raised.She studied at the San Francisco's Community Music School...
's Leonora . Her last performance at the Met was on April 2, 1962 as the Crowned Child in Verdi's Macbeth
Macbeth (opera)
Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name...
with Anselmo Colzani
Anselmo Colzani
Anselmo Colzani was an Italian operatic baritone who had an international opera career from the late 1940s through 1980. He particularly excelled in the Italian repertory and was most associated with the works of Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini...
in the title role and Irene Dalis
Irene Dalis
Irene Dalis is an American mezzo-soprano born in San José, California. She made her debut in 1953 as Eboli in Don Carlo by Giuseppe Verdi in Germany. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, also as Eboli in Don Carlo, on March 16, 1957, earning fine reviews. That was the first of ...
as Lady Macbeth.
During her years at the Met, Allen also occasionally sang roles with other companies. She toured North America with the NBC Opera Theatre
NBC Opera Theatre
The NBC Opera Theatre was an American opera company operated by the National Broadcasting Company from 1949 to 1964. The company was established specifically for the purpose of filming both established and new operas for television...
singing Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro with Phyllis Curtin
Phyllis Curtin
Phyllis Curtin is an American classical soprano who had an active career in operas and concerts from the early 1950s through the 1980s. She was known for her creation of new roles such as the title role in the Carlisle Floyd opera Susannah, Catherine Earnshaw in Floyd's Wuthering Heights, and in...
as the Countess and Walter Cassel
Walter Cassel
Walter Cassel was a renowned American operatic baritone and actor. He began his career singing on the radio during the mid 1930s and appeared in a couple of Hollywood musical films in the late 1930s. He made his first stage appearances in a handful of Broadway productions during the late 1930s and...
as the Count. In 1957 she made her debut with the Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera
The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...
(SFO) as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
with Regina Sarfaty
Regina Sarfaty
Regina Sarfaty is an American operatic mezzo-soprano who had an active career during the 1950s through the 1980s. Sarfaty first rose to prominence through her work at the Santa Fe Opera and the New York City Opera during the late 1950s...
as Suzuki and Loren Driscoll
Loren Driscoll
Loren Driscoll was an American tenor who had an active international career from the 1950s through the mid 1980s...
as Pinkerton. She made several more appearances with the SFO over the next ten years, including portraying Isabella Linton in the world premiere of Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South...
's Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights (opera)
Wuthering Heights is an opera in a prologue and three acts with music and a libretto by Carlisle Floyd. The work is adapted from Emily Brontë's novel of the same name. The opera premiered at the Santa Fe Opera on July 16, 1958 in a production directed by Irving Guttman...
in 1958. Her other roles at the SFO included, Mimi in La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
(1958, 1967), Despina in Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
(1958), Nannetta in Falstaff
Falstaff (opera)
Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. It was Verdi's last opera, written in the composer's ninth decade, and only the second of his 26 operas to be a comedy...
(1958), Adele in Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus
Die Fledermaus is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée.- Literary sources :...
(1959), Cio-Cio-San (1959, 1963, 1965), Alexandra Giddens in Marc Blitzstein
Marc Blitzstein
Marcus Samuel Blitzstein, better known as Marc Blitzstein , was an American composer. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration...
's Regina
Regina (opera)
Regina is an opera by Marc Blitzstein, to his own libretto based on the play The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman. It was completed in 1948 and premiered the next year. Blitzstein chose this source in order to make a strong statement against capitalism...
(1959), Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro (1960, 1965), Anne in The Rake's Progress
The Rake's Progress
The Rake's Progress is an opera in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings A Rake's Progress of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on May 2, 1947, in a Chicago...
(1960), Zerlina (1963), La Chauve-Sourris in L'Enfant et les sortileges
L'enfant et les sortilèges
L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties is an opera in one act, with music by Maurice Ravel to a libretto by Colette. It is Ravel's second opera, his first being L'heure espagnole...
(1963), St. Margaret in Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...
's Joan of Arc at the Stake (1963), and Costanza in Hans Henze's The Stag King
König Hirsch
König Hirsch is an opera in three acts by Hans Werner Henze to an German libretto by Heinz von Cramer after a fable by Carlo Gozzi.-Performance history:...
(1965). Her final role with the company was in 1967 as Micaela in Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
's Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
.
After leaving the Met in 1962, Allen became a regular performer at the Washington National Opera
Washington National Opera
The Washington National Opera is an opera company in Washington, D.C., USA. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Performances are now given in the Opera House of the John F...
during the 1960s. She made her debut with the company in 1962 singing Violetta in La Traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
opposite Stanley Kolk as Alfredo. Her other roles with the company included Adele in Die Fledermaus and Cio-Cio San. She also sang a number of leading roles with the Central City Opera
Central City Opera
Central City Opera is the fifth-oldest opera company in the United States, founded in 1932. Each festival is presented in the 550-seat historic Central City Opera House built in 1878 in the gold mining era town of Central City, Colorado. Pelham G...
and with a few opera houses in Europe, including the role of Amore at the Liceu
Liceu
The Gran Teatre del Liceu , or simply Liceu in Catalan and Liceo in Spanish, is an opera house on La Rambla in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain...
.
From 1987-2009 she was a member of the voice faculty at Birmingham-Southern College
Birmingham-Southern College
Birmingham–Southern College is a 4-year, private liberal arts college located three miles northwest of downtown Birmingham. Founded in 1856, it is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Approximately 1400 students from 30 states and 23 foreign countries attend the college...
where she taught voice, directed student opera productions, and taught a variety of subjects that encompassed art and literature in addition to music. Retired now, she still teaches privately out of her home in Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
. She is married to Edward Taub
Edward Taub
Edward Taub is a behavioral neuroscientist on faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is best known for his involvement in the Silver Spring monkeys case and for making major breakthroughs in the area of neuroplasticity and discovering/developing constraint-induced movement therapy;...
, an internationally known neuroscientist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham
University of Alabama at Birmingham
The University of Alabama at Birmingham is a public university in Birmingham in the U.S. state of Alabama. Developing from an extension center established in 1936, the institution became an autonomous institution in 1969 and is today one of three institutions in the University of Alabama System...
.