Maria Elisabete da Silva Duarte Matos GOIH OIH (born 6 September 1964) is a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

and politician. In January 2022 she was elected to the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic as a member of the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

, representing the

Braga Braga ( , ; cel-x-proto, Bracara) is a city and a municipality, capital of the northwestern Portuguese district of Braga and of the historical and cultural Minho Province. Braga Municipality has a resident population of 193,333 inhabitants (in ...

constituency.

Biography

Elisabete Matos was born in 1964 in

Caldas das Taipas Caldelas (also known as Caldas das Taipas and, in the past, S. Tomé de Caldelas) is a Portuguese civil parish in the municipality of Guimarães. With an area of 2.69 km² and 6304 inhabitants (2021 census). Its population density is 2 343.5 h ...

Guimarães Guimarães () is a city and municipality located in northern Portugal, in the district of Braga. Its historic town centre has been listed as a UNESCWorld Heritage Sitesince 2001, in recognition for being an "exceptionally well-preserved and a ...

, Portugal and she began her first musical studies in at the Conservatório de Música Calouste Gulbenkian de Braga. Firstly she started to study

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

and then singing, alongside. After she finished the Conservatory, Matos won a scholarship from the renowned

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation ( pt, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian), commonly referred to simply as the Gulbenkian Foundation, is a Portuguese institution dedicated to the promotion of the arts, philanthropy, science, and education. One o ...

which allowed her to finish her studies in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, Spain. A second place in a European Singing Contest made her be noticed and her international career was launched by the roles of Donna Elvira in

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

's opera ''

Don Giovanni ''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; Vienna (1788) title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanis ...

'' and Alice Ford from

Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...

's ''

Falstaff Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays '' Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Part 2'', w ...

'' at the Hamburg Opera. Shortly after that, in the year of 1997, she made a triumphal debut in Madrid at the reopening of the

Teatro Real The Teatro Real (Royal Theatre) is an opera house in Madrid, Spain. Located at the Plaza de Oriente, opposite the Royal Palace of Madrid, Royal Palace, and known colloquially as ''El Real'', it is considered the top institution of the performing a ...

as an opera house, interpreting the leading role of Marigaila in the opening of '' Divinas Palabras'', by

Antón García Abril Antón García Abril OAXS (19 May 1933 – 17 March 2021) was a Spanish composer and musician. He composed many classical orchestral works, chamber and vocal pieces, as well as over 150 scores for film and television. Biography Between 1974 ...

, with

Plácido Domingo José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French, ...

in the tenor part. Her performance impressed him very much and he invited her to sing with him

Massenet Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are ''Manon'' (1884) and ''Werther'' ...

's ''

Le Cid ''Le Cid'' is a five-act French tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille, first performed in December 1636 at the Théâtre du Marais in Paris and published the same year. It is based on Guillén de Castro's play ''Las Mocedades del Cid''. Castro' ...

'' (Chimène) and Dolly from '' Sly'', by

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (born Ermanno Wolf) (January 12, 1876 – January 21, 1948) was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as '' Il segreto di Susanna'' (1909). A number of his works were based on plays by ...

with

José Carreras Josep Maria Carreras Coll (; born 5 December 1946), better known as José Carreras (, ), is a Spanish operatic tenor who is particularly known for his performances in the operas of Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini. Born in Barcelona, he made his de ...

Marcello Giordani Elisabete Matos Nicola Luisotti Curtain Call

After all these successes, Elisabete Matos has sung in many major opera houses around the world, like the

Gran Teatre del Liceu Gran may refer to: People *Grandmother, affectionately known as "gran" * Gran (name) Places * Gran, the historical German name for Esztergom, a city and the primatial metropolitan see of Hungary * Gran, Norway, a municipality in Innlandet coun ...

La Fenice Teatro La Fenice (, "The Phoenix") is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre" and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice beca ...

Teatro Nacional de São Carlos The ''Teatro Nacional de São Carlos'' () (''National Theatre of Saint Charles'') is an opera house in Lisbon, Portugal. It was opened on June 30, 1793 by Queen Maria I as a replacement for the Tejo Opera House, which was destroyed in the 1755 Li ...

(

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

La Scala La Scala (, , ; abbreviation in Italian of the official name ) is a famous opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the ' (New Royal-Ducal Theatre alla Scala). The premiere performan ...

, Maestranza de Sevilla,

Teatro Regio di Torino The Teatro Regio (Royal Theatre) is a prominent opera house and opera company in Turin, Piedmont, Italy. Its season runs from October to June with the presentation of eight or nine operas given from five to twelve performances of each. Several bu ...

and the

Teatro di San Carlo The Real Teatro di San Carlo ("Royal Theatre of Saint Charles"), as originally named by the Bourbon monarchy but today known simply as the Teatro (di) San Carlo, is an opera house in Naples, Italy, connected to the Royal Palace and adjacent t ...

(

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

). She has made appearances too at the Macerata Festival and the Mérida Festival, Japan,

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and all around Spain. In 2001, Matos participated in the commemorations of the centenary of Giuseppe Verdi's death, singing again with

and other names, under the musical direction of

Zubin Mehta Zubin Mehta (born 29 April 1936) is an Indian conductor of Western classical music. He is music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and conductor emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Mehta's father was the foun ...

, in Rome. In January 2009 she sang the title role of '' La Gioconda'' in Tokyo for the Fujiwara Opera. Elisabete Matos portrayed Minnie in two performances of Puccini's ''

La Fanciulla del West ''La fanciulla del West'' (''The Girl of the West'') is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by and , based on the 1905 play '' The Girl of the Golden West'' by the American author David Belasco. ''Fanciulla'' followe ...

'' at the Metropolitan Opera during the 2010–2011 season. In 2019 it was announced that Matos would become the artistic director of Lisbon's

Repertory

A ''lirico-spinto''

, Elisabete Matos owns a large voice capable of a dramatic intensity with a timbre of sheer beauty. Her most performed composers are

Puccini Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long lin ...

and

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

, but she has also sung the works of many others, counting more than fifty roles in her repertory.

Roles in opera

*Norma, ''Norma'' (Bellini) *Cassandre from Les Troyens (Berlioz) *Micaela from ''Carmen'' (Bizet) *Dolores in ''La Dolores'' (Bretón) *Margarita, ''Margarita la Tornera'' (Chapí) *Salud, ''La Vida Breve'' (Falla) *Marigailla, ''Divinas Palabras'' (García Abril) *Iphigénie, ''Iphigénie en Tauride'' (Gluck) *Rosa, ''Gaudí'' (

Joan Guinjoan Joan Guinjoan i Gispert (28 November 1931 – 1 January 2019) was a Catalan composer and pianist. Life Born in Riudoms, Guinjoan studied at the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu in Barcelona. In 1954, he moved to Paris and continued ...

) *La del Alba, ''Don Quijote'' (Halffeter) *Kátja, ''Kátja Kabanowá'' (Janáček) *Zazà, ''Zazà'' (Leoncavallo) *Santuzza, ''Cavalleria rusticana'' (Mascagni) *Chiméne, ''Le Cid'' (Massenet) *Donna Elvira, ''Don Giovanni'' (Mozart) *Contessa, ''Le nozze di Figaro'' (Mozart) *Ermissende, ''Els Pirineus'' (Pedrell) *Mimí, ''La Bohème'' (Puccini) *Minnie, ''La fanciulla del West'' (Puccini) *Tosca, ''Tosca'' (Puccini) *Suor Angelica, ''Suor Angelica'' (Puccini) *Principessa Turandot, ''Turandot'' (Puccini) *Gioconda, ''La Gioconda'' (Ponchelli) *Madame Lidoine, ''Dialogues des Carmélites'' (Poulanc) *Contessa, ''Capriccio'' (Strauss) *Abigaille, ''Nabucco'' (Verdi) *Elisabetta, ''Don Carlo'' (Verdi) *Amelia, ''Simón Boccanegra'' (Verdi) *Lida, ''La Battaglia di Legnano'' (Verdi) *Amelia, ''Gustavo III'' (Verdi) *Amelia, ''Ballo in maschera'' (Verdi) *Leonora, ''Il trovatore'' (Verdi) *Alice Ford, ''Falstaff'' (Verdi) *Sieglinde, ''Die Walküre'' (Wagner) *Senta, ''Der Fliegende Holänder'' (Wagner) *Freia, ''Das Rheingold'' (Wagner) *Elsa, ''Lohengrin'' (Wagner) *Isolde, ''Tristan und Isolde'' (Wagner) *Gutrune und Dritte Norn, ''Götterdämmerung'' (Wagner) *Elisabeth, ''Tanhäuser'' (Wagner) *Dolly, ''Sly'' (Wolf-Ferrari)

Recordings

*''La Dolores'' (Tomás Bretón), with Elisabete Matos, Plácido Domingo, Tito Beltrán, Conductor Antoni Ros Marbá, DECCA (winner of the 2000 Latin Grammy for ''Best Classical Album'') *''Requiem'' (Suppé), with Elisabete Matos, César Hernández, Giorgio Cebrian and the Orchestra and Corus of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Conductor Michel Corboz VIRGIN *''

Les Troyens ''Les Troyens'' (; in English: ''The Trojans'') is a French grand opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself from Virgil's epic poem the ''Aeneid''; the score was composed between 1856 and 1858. ''Les Tro ...

'' ( Berlioz), with Elisabete matos (Cassandre),

Lance Ryan Lance Ryan (born 1 May 1971) is a Canadian operatic tenor, who has worked from Germany since 2005. He is known for singing Siegfried in Wagner's ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'', which he performed at opera houses in Europe including the Bayreuth Fest ...

(Énée), Daniele Barcellona (Didon), Gabriele Viviani (Chorèbe), Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana, Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, conducted by

Valery Gergiev Valery Abisalovich Gergiev (russian: Вале́рий Абиса́лович Ге́ргиев, ; os, Гергиты Абисалы фырт Валери, Gergity Abisaly fyrt Valeri; born 2 May 1953) is a Russian conductor and opera company d ...

, stage Director Corlus Podrisso. DVD Unitel Classica 2010 - 2011.

Distinctions

National orders

PRT Order of Prince Henry - Grand Officer BAR

Grand Officer of the

Order of Prince Henry the Navigator The Order of Prince Henry ( pt, Ordem do Infante Dom Henrique) is a Portuguese order of knighthood created on 2 June 1960, to commemorate the quincentenary of the death of the Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator, one of the main initiators of t ...

(7 June 2013) * PRT Order of Prince Henry - Officer BAR

Officer of the

(8 March 1999)

References

External links

Official SiteMatos singing Madama ButterflyMatos singing Chimène (Le Cid)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Matos, Elisabete Living people Portuguese operatic sopranos People from Guimarães 1964 births 20th-century Portuguese women opera singers 21st-century Portuguese women opera singers Grand Officers of the Order of Prince Henry Officers of the Order of Prince Henry