Mary Jane Phillips-Matz (January 30, 1926 – January 19, 2013) was an American biographer and writer on

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

. She is mainly known for her biography of

Giuseppe 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 ...

, a result of 30 years' research and published in 1992 by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

. Born in

Lebanon, Ohio Lebanon is a city in and the county seat of Warren County, Ohio, United States. The population was 20,841 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Cincinnati metropolitan area. History Lebanon is in the Symmes Purchase. The first European settler ...

and educated at

Smith College Smith College is a private liberal arts women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith and opened in 1875. It is the largest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite women's coll ...

and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, she lived for many years in Italy, and even after her return to the United States in the early 1970s spent her summers in Verdi's hometown of

Busseto Busseto ( Bussetano: ; Parmigiano: ) is a ''comune'' in the province of Parma, in Emilia-Romagna in Northern Italy with a population of about 7,100. Its history has very ancient roots which date back to the 10th century, and for almost five hundre ...

where she continued her exhaustive research into his life. She died in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

at the age of 86, survived by three of her five children.

Biography

Mary Jane Phillips was born in

to William Mason Phillips and Hazel Spencer Phillips. Her mother was the author of several books on Ohio history and folklore. She grew up in

Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...

and acquired her interest in opera as a child from family excursions to the

Cincinnati Zoo The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is the sixth oldest zoo in the United States, founded in 1873 and officially opening in 1875. It is located in the Avondale neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. It originally began with in the middle of the c ...

where the price of admission included a free performance by

Cincinnati Opera Cincinnati Opera is an American opera company based in Cincinnati, Ohio and the second oldest opera company in the United States (after the New York Metropolitan Opera). Beginning with its first season in 1920, Cincinnati Opera has produced operas ...

in the zoo's pavilion. After earning a bachelor's degree in medieval literature and modern European history in the late 1940s from

and a master's degree from

, she began a 50-year period of contributing to ''

Opera News ''Opera News'' is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to engender the appreciation of opera and also suppor ...

''.

Fox, Margalit Margalit Fox (born 1961) is an American writer. She began her career in publishing in the 1980s, before switching to journalism in the 1990s. She joined the obituary department of ''The New York Times'' in 2004, and authored over 1,400 obituarie ...

(26 January 2013)
"Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, Verdi and Puccini Biographer, Dies at 86"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Retrieved 31 January 2013. She married Charles Albert Matz Jr., a writer and literary historian, in 1950 while still a Masters student at Columbia and published under the name Mary Jane Matz until the couple divorced in 1977. Her first book, ''Opera Stars In The Sun: Intimate Glimpses Of Metropolitan Personalities'' was published in 1955 and dedicated to her parents. The 1960s saw the publication of two more books, a biography of the philanthropist and arts patron

Otto Kahn Otto Hermann Kahn (February 21, 1867 – March 29, 1934) was a German-born American investment banker, collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. Kahn was a well-known figure, appearing on the cover of '' Time'' magazine and was sometim ...

and ''Opera: Grand and Not So Grand''. The latter was an analysis of the modern opera business which she characterized as "monstropera", contrasting what she felt was its dehumanized, bourgeois approach with its past as a flamboyant yet more human spectacle. During the 1960s and early 1970s Phillips-Matz lived in Venice with her young family. She continued her research and writing and also taught English to the employees of Venice's public boat system. She and her husband became friends with

Olga Rudge Olga Rudge (April 13, 1895 – March 15, 1996) was an American-born concert violinist, now mainly remembered as the long-time mistress of the poet Ezra Pound, by whom she had a daughter, Mary. A gifted concert violinist of international reput ...

and

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

who lived nearby and introduced Pound to

Gian Carlo Menotti Gian Carlo Menotti (, ; July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007) was an Italian composer, librettist, director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept ...

, another old friend. During this time, Phillips-Matz was also general manager, fund-raiser, and public relations director for Menotti's

Festival dei Due Mondi The ''Festival dei Due Mondi'' (Festival of the Two Worlds) is an annual summer music and opera festival held each June to early July in Spoleto, Italy, since its founding by composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1958. It features a vast array of conc ...

Spoleto Spoleto (, also , , ; la, Spoletum) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome. History Sp ...

. Although she returned the United States and settled in Manhattan in the early 1970s, Phillips-Matz spent part of every year in

, where Verdi spent many of his early years, where she lived in an old rectory rented to her by the local priests and continued her exhaustive research into the composer's life. She was one of the founders of the American Institute for Verdi Studies at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

in 1976 and served as its co-director with Andrew Porter. Over the years, she was instrumental in helping the institute acquire microfilm copies of correspondence and documents relating to Verdi from numerous collections in Italy, including those at Verdi's Sant'Agata estate. Her 900-page ''Verdi: A Biography'' was published by Oxford University Press in the UK in 1992 and in the US the following year. It has since been published in multiple editions and translated into French and Spanish. The biography won the

Royal Philharmonic Society The Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) is a British music society, formed in 1813. Its original purpose was to promote performances of instrumental music in London. Many composers and performers have taken part in its concerts. It is now a memb ...

Book Award in 1993 and the ASCAP

Deems Taylor Joseph Deems Taylor (December 22, 1885 – July 3, 1966) was an American music critic, composer, and promoter of classical music. Nat Benchley, co-editor of ''The Lost Algonquin Roundtable'', referred to him as "the dean of American music." Earl ...

Award in 1994.

Edward Rothstein Edward Benjamin Rothstein (born October 16, 1952) is an American critic. Rothstein wrote music criticism early in his career, but is best known for his critical analysis of museums and museum exhibitions. Rothstein holds a B.A. from Yale Universi ...

writing in ''

'' called it an "important biography" which "provides us with a more complicated portrait of the man than we have had so far."Rothstein, Edward (4 January 1994)
"The Furious Man From Busseto"
''The New York Times''. Retrieved 2 February 2013. The new light shed on Verdi's life by Phillips-Matz's book included evidence that Verdi's family roots and his own emotional ties were actually in the

Province of Piacenza The province of Piacenza ( it, provincia di Piacenza) is a province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its provincial capital is the city Piacenza. As of 2016, it has a total population of 286,572 inhabitants over an area of , giving it a popu ...

, rather than

Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second m ...

, and that far from being poor, his father had owned a substantial amount of land and could read and write at a time when 90% of Italians were illiterate. More controversially, she found evidence suggesting that

Giuseppina Strepponi Clelia Maria Josepha (Giuseppina) Strepponi ( Lodi, 8 September 1815 – Villanova sull'Arda, 14 November 1897) was a nineteenth-century Italian operatic soprano of great renown and the second wife of composer Giuseppe Verdi. She is ofte ...

gave birth to a daughter in 1851 while she was Verdi's mistress but years before they married.Dyer, Richard (15 January 1994)
"A meticulous portrait of Verdi"
''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

''. Retrieved 2 February 2013 via HighBeam Research . The child was abandoned at an orphanage in

Cremona Cremona (, also ; ; lmo, label= Cremunés, Cremùna; egl, Carmona) is a city and ''comune'' in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po river in the middle of the ''Pianura Padana'' ( Po Valley). It is the capital of the ...

but then entrusted to the care of a family living near Verdi's estate at Sant' Agata. Biographies of the opera singers

Rosa Ponselle Rosa Melba Ponzillo, known as Rosa Ponselle (January 22, 1897 – May 25, 1981) was an American operatic soprano. She sang mainly at the New York Metropolitan Opera and is generally considered to have been one of the greatest sopranos of the 20t ...

and

Leonard Warren Leonard Warren (April 21, 1911 – March 4, 1960) was an American opera singer. A baritone, he was a leading artist for many years with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Especially noted for his portrayals of the leading baritone roles in ...

followed in 1997 and 2000, the latter a commission from the Leonard Warren Foundation. Her last major work was her biography of

Giacomo 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 ...

, published in 2002, although she continued to lecture and in 2005 wrote the text for a book commemorating the 50th anniversary of the

Washington National Opera The Washington National Opera (WNO) is an American opera company in Washington, D.C. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Perform ...

. Phillips-Matz died at her home in Manhattan, near Verdi Square shortly before her 87th birthday. She was survived by three of her five children; one of her daughters had died of cancer at the age of five, and another was killed in a car accident in 1983.Campbell, Mary (13 March 1994)
"Verdi Biography Was Long Labor of Love"
''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the '' Chicago ...

''. Retrieved 31 January 2013 via

HighBeam Research HighBeam Research was a paid search engine and full text online archive owned by Gale, a subsidiary of Cengage, for thousands of newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines, and encyclopedias in English. It was head ...

Works

In addition to the following books and her articles for ''Opera News'', Phillips-Matz also wrote regular program notes for London's

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal ...

, essays in '' The Cambridge Companion to Verdi'' and ''The Puccini Companion'', and feature articles for ''

Playbill ''Playbill'' is an American monthly magazine for theatergoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for home delivery, most copies of ''Playbill'' are printed for particular productions and distributed at the door as the show's p ...

''. Among the many opera libretti published by the

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is opera ...

which she translated and annotated were Verdi's '' Falstaff'', '' Simon Boccanegra'', ''

I Lombardi alla prima crociata ''I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata'' (''The Lombards on the First Crusade'') is an operatic ''dramma lirico'' in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on an epic poem by Tommaso Grossi, which was "very much a ...

'', and ''

Don Carlos ''Don Carlos'' is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on the dramatic play '' Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien'' (''Don Carlos, Infante of Spain'') by Fried ...

''.

Books

*''Opera Stars In The Sun: Intimate Glimpses Of Metropolitan Personalities'', 1955, Farrar, Straus & Cudahy *''The Many Lives of Otto Kahn'', 1963,

Macmillan MacMillan, Macmillan, McMillen or McMillan may refer to: People * McMillan (surname) * Clan MacMillan, a Highland Scottish clan * Harold Macmillan, British statesman and politician * James MacMillan, Scottish composer * William Duncan MacMillan ...

(2nd edition published 1984, Pendragon Press) *''Opera: Grand and Not So Grand'', 1966,

William Morrow and Company William Morrow and Company is an American publishing company founded by William Morrow in 1926. The company was acquired by Scott Foresman in 1967, sold to Hearst Corporation in 1981, and sold to News Corporation (now News Corp) in 1999. ...

*'' Verdi il grande gentleman del Piacentino'', 1992, Banca di Piacenza (republished in 2013 to mark the bicentenary of Verdi's birth) *''Verdi: A Biography'', 1992 Oxford University Press *''Rosa Ponselle: American Diva'', 1997,

Northeastern University Press The University Press of New England (UPNE), located in Lebanon, New Hampshire and founded in 1970, was a university press consortium including Brandeis University, Dartmouth College (its host member), Tufts University, the University of New Hampsh ...

*''Leonard Warren: American Baritone'', 2000, Amadeus Press *''Puccini: A Biography'', 2002, Northeastern University Press

Tommasini, Anthony Anthony Carl Tommasini (born April 14, 1948) is an American music critic and author who specializes in classical music. Described as "a discerning critic, whose taste, knowledge and judgment have made him a must-read", Tommasini was the chief c ...

(9 October 2002)
"Books of the Times: The Procrastinating Idol Of an Opera-Mad World"
Retrieved 31 January 2013 *''Washington National Opera, 1956–2006'', 2005, Washington National Opera

References

External links

*Phillips-Matz's 1955 boo
''Opera Stars In The Sun Intimate Glimpses Of Metropolitan Personalities''
(digitized on archive.org) *Phillips-Matz on '' I due Foscari'' i
"Venice, Verdi and 'The Two Foscari'"
written for the official blog of

Los Angeles Opera The Los Angeles Opera is an American opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth-largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center. Leader ...

in August 2012, six months before her death
Works by and about Mary Jane Phillips-Matz
on

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

Mary Jane Phillips-Matz collection, 1948-1993
Music Division,

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, is located in Manhattan, New York City, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on the Upper West Side, between the Metro ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane 1926 births 2013 deaths Smith College alumni Columbia University alumni People from Lebanon, Ohio Writers from Dayton, Ohio New York University people American writers about music 20th-century American biographers American women biographers 21st-century American biographers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers Women writers about music New York University faculty Verdi scholars