Mildred Allen Taub

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Mildred Allen Taub. She was a beautiful person who bestowed sweetness, love, and kindness on all whose lives she touched. The world was a better place for her presence.

Mildred was a distinguished opera singer. She was a principal artist at the Metropolitan Opera and made her debut in The Magic Flute as Papagena, Mozart’s joyous bird girl. She also sang leading roles at the Santa Fe Opera, Washington Opera Society, Central City Opera, and many other opera companies and symphony orchestras. For some years she was closely associated with Igor Stravinsky, Robert Craft, and Leonard Bernstein. John Crosby, director of the Santa Fe Opera, was a close friend; she sang Cio Cio San in Madama Butterfly in the opening season of the opera house and many other roles for 8 seasons afterward. Butterfly was her favorite role, followed by Mimi in La Boheme. She had a talent for conveying vulnerability.

After her performing career, Mildred taught voice at Birmingham Southern College and their Opera Workshop for 25 years. She also directed full opera productions there periodically. She was a long time member of the Birmingham chapter of the National Society of Arts and Letters, of which she was president for two years.

Mildred’s performing years were centered in New York, but she was a daughter of the South. Although she was born in Akron, Ohio, she spent her early childhood on a farm in Lewisburg, Tennessee. While still young her family moved to Memphis, Tennessee and then Oxford, Mississippi where she went to school at the University of Mississippi. She had been an early prodigy on the piano and went on from Ole Miss to the New England Conservatory on a piano scholarship. However, she soon switched to study voice and opera performance as a student of Boris Goldovsky, becoming a singing actress in the tradition of Stanislavsky.

Mildred loved beauty. She enjoyed flowers and nature. On her daily long walks in the Shades Crest area, she would whistle to the birds, who answered. Mildred was a rare person; supremely gifted and skilled, but modest and unassuming. She is irreplaceable.

Mildred is survived by her husband of 62 years, Dr. Edward Taub, University Professor and Behavioral Neuroscientist in the Psychology Department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He loves her deeply and cherishes her memory. She is also survived by her sister- and brother-in-law, Phyllis and Greg Greer, and her niece, Amelia Greer with whom she was close.

The memorial service will be held at Ridout's Southern Heritage Funeral Home in Pelham, Alabama on Wednesday, July 28, 2021, at 11:00 am. A reception will follow.

In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to an opera, music, or arts society of your choice.