Arnold Hatherleigh Matters (11 April 190121 September 1990) was an Australian operatic baritone and producer, whose career was mostly in England during the 1930s and 1940s. He was a mainstay of the Sadler's Wells Company in London from 1946 to 1957. Biography Arnold Hatherleigh Matters was born in the Adelaide suburb of Malvern on 11 April 1901. His father, Richard Adams Matters, an ironmonger, and his mother, Emily Grace ( Williams), already had three children. He was educated at Unley High School, Matters at first took up a position in the South Australian bureaucracy and was admitted as an associate of the Federal Institute of Accountants in 1925, but in his spare time pursued his interests in music and singing. He obtained a place at the Elder Conservatorium of Music at Adelaide and studied singing under Clive Carey, graduating AMUA in 1926. In due course he won the Sun Aria Prize and other coveted awards, and began to attract a good deal of attention. He was invited by Dame Nellie Melba to join her touring company, and met with such success that he decided to make music his profession. In 1930 he abandoned his government position and went to England, at first continuing his studies in London under Johnston Douglas. He became a member of the Westminster Abbey choir and was given a good deal of solo work. But his dramatic ability, fine voice and stage presence led him towards the theatre, and in 1932 he joined the Vic-Wells Opera Company, his debut being as Valentine in Gounod's Faust at the Old Vic in 1933. He soon made himself established as a popular Figaro, Don Alfonso, Silvio, Escamillo, and Sharpless. He afterwards found his own favourite role as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and also became famous in the title role in Falstaff, as Dr Bartolo, Don Giovanni, the Die Walküre Wotan and as Wolfram in Tannhäuser. In 1935, 1938 and 1939 he 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 the war he returned to Australia and maintained a very successful concert and opera career there. In 1946 he was invited back to England, to Sadler's Wells, where he resumed his regular position in the company, also making occasional guest appearances at Covent Garden. He was especially