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Born: June 20, 1933 - Prichard, Mobile County, Alabama, USA
Died: February 14, 2006 - Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA |
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The American bass-baritone, Benjamin Matthews, was born in Prichard, Mobile County, Alabama. After moving to Chicago for high school, he enlisted in the Army; while stationed in Germany, he won second place in an all-Army singing contest. He had never formally studied voice, but upon his discharge he entered the Chicago Conservatory, and he later studied opera with Boris Goldovsky. His teachers were initially skeptical about whether such a late starter could make a career in music. He did.
As a singer, Benjamin Matthews appeared often in opera, oratorio and concert. He made his debut at Chicago Civic Opera. He appeared in the Metropolitan Opera's chamber production of Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts and with New York City Opera, Austria's Graz Opera, and Milwaukee's Florentine Opera, as well as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, and other orchestras. His repertoire was wide and varied and included the roles of Mephistopheles in Charles Gounod's Faust and Gershwin's Porgy; solo roles in cantatas and oratorios by George Frideric Handel, J.S. Bach, and Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah; and African-American spirituals and work songs. He made his City Opera debut in Leon Kirchner's opera Lily, based on the novel Henderson the Rain King, in 1977. He appeared in recital at Carnegie Hall in 1986. He also sang frequently with the Collegiate Chorale.
Benjamin Matthews also collected African-American music and performed it in recitals and master-classes around the world, emphasizing the performance style of spirituals, work songs, Creole music and neglected African-American composers. In 1973, Matthews co-founded with the pianist Wayne Sanders Ebony Opera, a New York-based company devoted to African-American operatic repertoire; he served as artistic director until his death. Opera Ebony, gave him another forum for championing black artists, be it by offering an all-black cast in Charles Gounod's Faust or by commissioning new operas based on the lives of historical figures like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. The company's many premieres included Matthews' Oh Freedom, written with Lena McLin, and Journin'. The company, which still performs regularly, also revived a piece by William Grant Still.
Benjamin Matthews died on February 14, 2006 at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan. He was 72. The cause was the effects of a stroke he had in early January, said Anthony Turner. He was survived by a son, Derrick, of Jackson, Miss.; four sisters, Juanita Mickles, Willie Alice Seales and Catherine Ward of Prichard, Ala., and Stella M. Conner of Eight Mile, Ala.; two brothers, Willie Matthews Jr. of Saginaw, Mich., and Wesley Matthews of Mobile; three granddaughters; and a stepgrandson. |
