Arnold Matters leaves Adelaide accountancy to become star baritone of Sadlers Wells opera in 1930s/40s London
Adelaide baritone Arnold Matters in his famous title role in Falstaff for the Sadler’s Wells opera company in London.
Arnold Matters, a South Australian operatic baritone and operatic producer, established a career mostly in England during the 1930s and 1940s and became a mainstay of Sadler’s Wells Company in London.
Born in the Adelaide suburb of Malvern in 1901 and educated at Unley High School,Matters worked in the South Australian government public service and was admitted as an associate of the Federal Institute of Accountants in 1925. In his spare time, he pursued his interests in music and singing.
He gained a place at Adelaide University’s Elder Conservatorium of Music and studied under director of singing Clive Carey. He graduated in 1926 with an associate in music, University of Adelaide (AMUA), a degree introduced by the university in 1900 as a diploma course, predating the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) in 1918 and phased out in 1972.
Matters went on to win the Sun Aria Prize and other major singing awards and began to attract wide attention. He was invited by Nellie Melba to join her touring company and decided on a music profession based on his success.
In 1930, Matters left his government position and went to England, at first continuing his studies in London under Johnston Douglas. He became a member of Westminster Abbey choir, featured in a lot of solo work. His dramatic ability, voice and stage presence led him towards the theatre and, in 1932, he joined the Vic-Wells Opera Company. His debut was as Valentine in Gounod’s Faust at the Old Vic in 1933.
Matters soon made himself established as a popular Figaro, Don Alfonso, Silvio Escamillo and Sharpless. He found his own favourite role as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and became famous in the title role in Falstaff, as Dr Bartolo, Don Giovanni and the Die Walküre Wotan and as Wolfram in Tannhäuser. In 1935, 1938 and 1939, Matters joined the British singers in the international seasons at Covent Garden where he was particularly successful as Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde, with Eva Turner as Isolde.
During World War II, Matters returned to Australia and maintained a successful concert and opera career. In 1946, he was invited back to England, to Sadler's Wells, to resumed his regular position and made occasional guest appearances at Covent Garden. He was especially effective as Scarpia and as Simone Boccanegra in the English revival, opposite Howell Glynn’s Fiesco, and recorded excerpts of this work. He was also most effective in Papageno, Rigoletto, Iago, Germont père, Conte di Luna, Amonasro, Pizarro and Governor, Varlaam, Kecal, Peter, Figaro and Almaviva, Mephistoles, Telramund and the Dutchman roles.
In 1949, Matters played Eochaidh, the king, in the revival of Rutland’s Boughton’s The Immortal Hour at the People's Palace. At Covent Garden, in April 1951, he created the role of the Pilgrim in Ralph Vaughan Williams’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and, in 1953, Cecil in Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana. In 1954, Matters introduced the role of Sir William Hamilton in Lennox Berkeley’s opera Nelson at Sadler's Wells.
Matters was awarded the medal of the Order of Australia in 1955 for “service to music, particularly as an opera singer and teacher”.
