Edward Matthews

Edward Matthews was an American baritone who created leading parts in two landmark American operas a year apart: Ignatius of Loyola in Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts in 1934, and Jake in Porgy and Bess in 1935. He returned to Jake in the 1942 revival and sang it on the three-album 1951 set, the fullest recording of the opera made to that point. His last stage appearance was the Broadway revival of Four Saints in 1952. He was killed in a car crash two years later, at forty-nine.