Kevin Miller studied voice at the Elder Conservatory in Adelaide, where he also gained his first stage experience in student performances.
While still working in business for money, he made his professional debut on 21 February 1951 in Melbourne as Almaviva; he was so
successful that the Adelaide daily "The News" granted him financial support for further studies in London, where he trained with Dino Borgioli and Joan Cross. Then he went to Italy, took voice lessons in Siena and Rome,
and toured Italy and Germany as a soloist of the "Gruppo di Musica Rara".
In 1954/55, he was a chorister at Glyndebourne; his lucky moment came when in a Glyndebourne guest performance at the Edinburgh Festival,
he got to step in for Juan Oncina as Fenton, successfully. In 1956 and 1957, he still
sang in Glyndebourne, now as a soloist (Pedrillo, Monostatos, Scaramuccio); in 1956, he also joined the Elizabethan Opera Company on its
tour to Australia. In the 1957/58 season, he appeared in Cardiff, Dublin, and with the Touring Opera (formed from the remnants of the
liquidated Carl Rosa Company).
From 1959 to the end of his career, he was a member of Sadler's Wells in London. He also sang in a few TV opera and operetta productions
at the BBC. In the earlier years of his career, he sang a few main roles (Almaviva, Don Ottavio, Pâris, Eisenstein), but
essentially, he was a comprimario with a neck for operetta.
In his last years at Sadler's Wells (1970–73), he already got involved in stage directing, and that's what he went on with after the
end of his singing career. He returned to Adelaide in 1976, where he taught at the Elder Conservatory until 1994, then in Hong Kong until
2002.
Reference 1; reference 2; reference 3; reference 4:
Kutsch & Riemens; reference 5: The Advertiser, 22 February 1951
