Betty Allen was a American mezzo soprano who overcame a turbulent girlhood to become an internationally known opera singer and later a prominent voice teacher and arts administrator. Allen was part of the first great wave of black singers to appear on the world’s premier stages in the postwar years. Active from the ‘50s to the ‘70s, she performed with the New York City Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, and the opera companies of Houston, Boston, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Buenos Aires, among others.