Page 35 - Classical Singer magazine Spring Issue 2020

chided her: “Are you going to raise children or are you going to sing opera?” Luckily, she was able to do both.
“It was di cult,” Miller shares. “Even a career, in
itself, is kind of lonely. You’re o by yourself singing for an audience that doesn’t care about your personal life, just what you can produce. The last 10 years of my career were the easiest because my mother came to live with us. One needs the support of an entire family.”
And while pants roles were her specialty (Der Rosenkavalier’s Octavian was her favorite role), Miller’s repertoire included the Composer (Ariadne auf N axos), Suzuki (M adama Butter y), Prince Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus), Rosina (The Barber of Seville), Meg Page (Falsta ), and Nicklausse (The T ales of H o mann). “Octavian was my passion and obsession,” she says. “It was vocally
so much more rewarding and . . . it was much higher. It was almost written like a soprano but comfortable for a mezzo.
“I always wanted to do Butter y, so badly! I ended up doing close to 100 Suzukis. I did it with Tebaldi, Price, Albanese, Dorothy Kirsten. And by the way, I always felt Dorothy and I put on the biggest show of all.
“We had those people just crying in the aisles. She
was wonderful to work with. She was made of steel. I remember after her absence she came back and sang Butter y and fell right on her back during Butter y’s entrance. She got right up, kept singing, and took the high D- at.”
Still, the old and new Met were not the only houses she sang in. There were important engagements in Europe, of course, as well as at San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Carnegie Hall, to name a few. In between, she appeared on The Bell T elephone H our, The Ed Sullivan Show, and The Voice of Firestone.
But today she is busy teaching a new generation of singers. “Today the singers expect so much from their undergraduate level; they’re very impatient,” she relates. For Miller, in her own edgling college days, her teachers “were not really strong on vocal technique.”
While at the Cleveland Institute of Music, she had
a teacher who really made a point to introduce her “to German Lieder, French songs, and contemporary stu . As a matter of fact, I did not have any opera or arias until I was done with my undergraduate work. I ended up singing almost more recitals than opera, and now I’m teaching it.”
T ony Villecco is a frequent contributor to Classical Singer and is interested in preserving memories of the great singers’ pasts. H is second book, Pola Negri: The Hollywood Years, was released in 2017 to critical acclaim. In addition to writing, he is a tenor soloist and adjudicates voice for the N ew York S tate School MusicAssociation (NYSS MA).
Columbus State University
Schwob School of Music Voice Studies
Alumni
Maureen McKay, soprano
Metropolitan Opera, Komische Oper Berlin
Michael Sumuel, baritone
Finalist, 2012 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions; San Francisco Opera; Houston Grand Opera; Glyndebourne Festival (England)
Paula Sides, soprano
English Opera Company
Gwendolyn Reid, mezzo soprano
Universität der Künste, Berlin, Germany
Kimberli Render, soprano
Metropolitan Opera; First Place Winner, Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition
Faculty
Earl Coleman
William and Isabelle Curry Eminent Scholar Chair in Voice
Michelle Murphy DeBruyn Ianthe Marini
The Paul S. and Jean R. Amos Distinguished Chair for Choral Activities
Joshua May Debbie Anderson
choral | studio | opera
Degrees
BA in Music | BM in Music Performance | MM in Music Performance BM in Music Education | Artist Diploma
Awards
Over $800,000 in music scholarships annually
Woodruff Award: For entering undergraduate students. Winners receive full tuition, room and board, plus a $5,000 stipend. Video applications due March 1
Assistantships: Tuition plus stipend for qualifying graduates
For audition and scholarship information, please visit our website.
ColumbusState.edu/music
www.csmusic.net 35