An operatic mezzo-soprano, Inez Matthews is best known for her roles in Broadway’s Carmen Jones and Lost in the Stars by Kurt Weill.  A gifted singer and musical interpreter, a 1954 article described her as follows:

“It is almost impossible to write of Inez Matthews without overworking superlatives. Typed as a mezzo-soprano, she has a splendid, long-ranged voice, so controlled that she can color its dark, lovely timbre with exquisite lyricism, and flute a sparkling coloratura with an always prevailing limpid clarity of tone. The instrument is remarkable. But that is not all.  Her teachers insist that she is an earnest, intelligent student (no detail is too much trouble), and seems unaware of her great personal beauty.“

Born into a musical family, Inez’s father was Reverend Edward J. Matthews of the Star of Bethlehem Church.  Her mother Mary sang in the church choir and the Matthews children would have their first public singing experiences at Star. (Inez’s older brother, Edward, was also a well-respected classical singer, creating the role of Jake the Fisherman in George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess [click here to hear him] and as well as Saint Ignatius in Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s 1928 opera Four Saints in Three Acts.  He would go on to enjoy a successful operatic and recital career before a car accident claimed his life in 1954.)

Brother Edward would give concerts around Westchester at hospitals and veterans’ homes, and the story goes that Inez (who was ten years younger) would tag along, ending his recitals with her rendition of “Rock-a-Bye Baby” sung to her doll dressed in matching clothes, to enthusiastic applause.

While at Ossining High School, she studied voice with Katherine Moran Douglas, a Briarcliff Manor singing teacher whose operatic career had included singing Wagner’s Parsifal in Bayreuth, Germany, Madama Butterfly with Enrico Caruso under Giaccomo Puccini’s supervision, and appearing in the first Metropolitan Opera production of Manon Lescaut. The connection came through Inez’s brother who began his vocal studies with Douglas after she heard him singing as he mowed her lawn after school one day.

After graduating from Ossining High School in 1935, Inez continued her vocal studies.  In 1942, she auditioned for the famed acting duo Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne and was cast in their Broadway play The Pirate.

The next year, she would perform as a soloist in the Broadway revival of Hall Johnson’s 1933 folk opera Run, Little Chillun.  [Fun Facts:  The production also starred actor Earle Hyman in his Broadway debut, and Leslie Uggams’ aunt Eloise Uggams.]

1943 would see her cast in the Broadway premiere of Carmen Jones, a Broadway opera based on the music of George Bizet’s Carmen, but with an updated storyline.  Initially a member of the chorus, Inez would stay for the entire run, understudying and then taking over the lead role.

But American opera houses were not open to Black singers at the time — remember, it wasn’t until 1955 that New York’s Metropolitan Opera would hire Marian Anderson (to sing the small role of Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera.) 

Inez would tour as a soloist with various Black-helmed choirs, such as the De Paur Infantry Singers and the Juanita Hall Chorus.   Making her Town Hall recital debut in New York City in 1947, Inez sang a varied repertoire that ranged from Shubert lieder to operatic arias to spirituals.  The New York Times noted that her “work impressed because of the keen intelligence, the grasp of style and the emotional warmth displayed throughout the various offerings.  Here was an artist with a real understanding of the nature of the music presented and interpretive ability far above the average.”  

1949 would find her on Broadway again, in the role of Irina in the premiere of Kurt Weill’s Broadway opera Lost in the Stars.

She would marry the Rev. Ulysses Jackson in 1950 and continue to perform, touring internationally in a production of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (with her brother Edward).

Inez would return to Broadway in 1952 for a ground-breaking production of the 1928 opera Four Saints in Three Acts.  (Both Inez and Edward would appear together in this production, as would a young mezzo-soprano named Betty Allen* and diva-to-be Leontyne Price.)

Inez would enjoy a successful recital career for the next decade, recording several albums of Shubert lieder and spirituals to add to her cast albums of Porgy and Bess, Lost in the Stars and Four Saints in Three Acts. She would close out the 1950s dubbing the role of Serena, played onscreen by Ruth Attaway, in the Samuel Goldwyn-produced film of Porgy and Bess.

Click here to hear selections from “Inez Matthews Sings Spirituals.”

Click here to hear Inez Matthews sing “My Man’s Gone Now” from a 1959 recording of Porgy and Bess.

Click here to hear Inez Matthews sing “Stay Well” from the 1949 cast album of Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars.

In the 1960s, she would scale back her performing, teaching several generations of students both privately and at Virginia State College.  Her occasional participation in productions – a 1970s Four Saints in Three Acts for example — as well as solo recitals in the New York area were consistently noted and enthusiastically praised by the local press.

She passed away in the Bronx in 2004.

*PERSONAL NOTE FROM THE CURATOR: Back in the 1980s and 1990s, I studied voice with mezzo-soprano Betty Allen who performed with Inez Matthews in several productions of Four Saints in Three Acts. I was quite thrilled to discover this connection as I researched Matthews’ life for this exhibit.

Sources:

Story, Rosalyn M.  And So I Sing. 1990, Warner Books, Amistad. (p. 89)
“Conversation with Inez Matthews” by Kari Paulson, 1997
“Found in the stars” by Mary Craig, Musical Courier, August 1954