Dr Naomi Matsumoto

Naomi has scholarly interests in Italian opera, Purcell and Monteverdi and Baroque period performance practice.

Staff details

Position

Reader in Music; Convenor of the Integrated Degree in Music, Foundation Year Programme; International Admissions Tutor

Dr Naomi Matsumoto is a musicologist working particularly in the field of opera studies. Before launching her musicological career, she worked as professional singer, having trained at Aichi Prefectural University of Arts (Japan), Liceo Musicale di G.B. Viotti (Italy) and Trinity College of Music. Her vocal teachers were Rita Orlandi, the late Robert Spencer, Ian Partridge and Teresa Cahill.

Her doctoral thesis (2005) investigates the origins and early development (up to c. 1700) of the operatic mad scene. For this work, she was awarded The Overseas Research Scholarship and the British Federation of Women Graduates National Award. After the degree, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation British and Commonwealth Award enabled her to pursue further archival research in Venice, Padua, Verona and Genoa.

While Monteverdi, Purcell and their contemporaries constitute her main scholarly interests, she has also extended her researches into 19th-century opera and produced several articles on Donizetti鈥檚 Lucia di Lammermoor. Recently, she has started working on the reception of Western opera in the Far East and contributed a chapter on Bizet鈥檚 Carmen in Japan in Carmen Abroad: Bizet鈥檚 Opera on Global Stage (Cambridge University Press, 2020), which won the Royal Musical Association Outstanding Edited Collection Prize (2021).

Naomi is keen on interdisciplinary work, collaborating with scholars in diverse fields such as medical history, literature, translation studies and cultural studies. She instigated several international and interdisciplinary research projects and as the research lead, won the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation Award (2011) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Symposium Award (2013).

She is a member of the Royal Musical Association, the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music (USA), and the Japan Musicological Society. She also holds fellowships of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Historical Society. She was recently appointed to the editorial board of the Swiss Journal of Musicology.

Academic qualifications

BA, LTCL (vocal performance), Perfezionamento Diploma di Canto Lirico (Liceo Musicale di Viotti), Postgraduate Diploma (Trinity College of Music), MMus (London), PhD (London), Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy.

Publications and research outputs

Book

Matsumoto, Naomi. 2026. The Challenge of Music History: 10 Works from the 'Musical Canon' and Their Meanings. Tokyo: Asahi Newspaper Publications Inc.. ISBN 9784022953582
Canova-Green, Marie-Claude and Matsumoto, Naomi. 2024. Christophe Ballard/Michel Richard de Lalande Ballet de La Jeunesse. Paris: Classiques Garnier.
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2023. Music Historiography: How and why music history has been written. Tokyo: Yamaha Music Entertainment Holdings, Inc.. ISBN 9784636101164

Edited Book

Norton, Barley and Matsumoto, Naomi, eds. 2019. Music as Heritage: Historical and Ethnographic Perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9781138228047
Matsumoto, Naomi, ed. 2015. Staging Verdi and Wagner. Turnhout: Brepols. ISBN 9782503564821
Matsumoto, Naomi and Yamamoto, Kazuto, eds. 2014. SHIZENGAKU: the Search for a Coming Aesthetic. Kyoto: Nakanishiya. ISBN 978-4-9907368-0-4

Book Section

Matsumoto, Naomi. 2026. Dreaming of Wagner: Performing Gluck and the Aspiration for a National Theatre in Japan. In: Clair Rowden; Paulo M K眉hl and Barbara Gentili, eds. Opera in Transnational Contexts: Circulating Identities and Cultures. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781032861111
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2026. 'Madama Butterfly' and the Puccini-esque in Japan: Adaptation, Popularisation and the Search for the Cultural Fusion. In: UNSPECIFIED, ed. Puccini 24: Atti del convegno internazionale di studi. Florence: Leo Olschki.
Canova-Green, Marie-Claude and Matsumoto, Naomi. 2024. Exoticism or Eclecticism? Carnival at Court and the Mascarade du Roy de la Chine. In: Marie-Claude Canova-Green, ed. Spectacular Orientalism in Early Modern Europe. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols. ISBN 9782503610566

Matsumoto, Naomi. 2023. Realising Arianna: the Problematic Accompaniments of Claudio Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna. In: Marcello Mazzetti, ed. Basso Continuo in Italy: Sources, Pedagogy and Performance. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, pp. 3-29. ISBN 9782503608501
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2023. Representational Conventions and Varieties of Operatic Madness: The Gap between Dramaturgy and Diagnosis. In: Lorenzo Lorusso; Michele Augusto Riva and Vittorio Alessandro Sironi, eds. Effects of Opera Music from Brain to Body: A Matter of Wellbeing. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 125-129. ISBN 9783031347689
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2022. Notice sur l'茅tablissement de la musique. In: Marie-Claude Canova-Green and Suzanne Jones, eds. Raymond Poisson: Th茅芒tre complet. Paris: Classique Garnier, pp. 53-60. ISBN 9782406125198
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2020. The Other Reversed? Japan鈥檚 Assimilation of Carmen, 1885 to 1945. In: Richard Langham Smith and Clair Rowden, eds. Carmen Abroad: Bizet's Opera on the Global Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 284-303. ISBN 9781108481618
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2018. Pio Enea Obizzi: Power and Authorship. In: R Rasch, ed. Music and Power in the Baroque Era. 6 Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 275-298. ISBN 9782503580715
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2018. L'opera dei pupi, Torneo, and Early Opera: Shared Traditions and Intangible Experiences. In: Barley Norton and Naomi Matsumoto, eds. Music as Heritage: Historical and Ethnographic Perspectives. Routledge-Taylor and Francis. ISBN 9781138228047
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2017. Giovanni Vittorio Rosi's Musical Theatre: Opera, Operetta and the Westernisation of Modern Japan. In: Michela Niccolai and Clair Rowden, eds. Musical Theatre in Europe 1830-1945. Turnout: Brepols, pp. 351-385. ISBN 9782503577661
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2015. Charles Marshall鈥檚鈥淒ioramic鈥� Scenery: Staging Verdi in Victorian London. In: UNSPECIFIED, ed. Staging Verdi and Wagner. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 53-80. ISBN 9782503564821
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2014. Michael Costa at the Haymarket: the Establishment of the Modern Role of 'The Director of Music'. In: Roberto Illiano and Michela Niccolai, eds. Orchestral Conducting in the Nineteenth Century. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 25-60. ISBN 9782503552477
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2014. Nature in Music, Music in Nature: Imitation, Quotation and Representation. In: Naomi Matsumoto and Kazuto Yamamoto, eds. SHIZENGAKU: the Search for a Coming Aesthetic. Kyoto, Japan: Nakanishiya, pp. 124-133. ISBN 9784779507915
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2011. Manacled Freedom: 19th-Century Vocal Improvisation and the Flute-Accompanied Cadenza in Donizetti鈥檚 Lucia di Lammermoor. In: Rudolf Rasch, ed. Beyond Notes: Improvisation in Western Music of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 295-316. ISBN 978-2503542447
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2007. 1001 Classical Recordings. In: Matthew Rye, ed. 1001 Classical Recordings. London: Quintessence, 24-34, 38, 42-48, 50-54, 56-59, 62-64.

Article

Matsumoto, Naomi. 2025. "Madama Butterfly": Prospettive occidentali e giapponesi a confronto. Commentari dell'Ateneo di Brescia per l'anno 2023, CCXXII, pp. 211-230. ISSN 1594-8218
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2024. Representing Insanity and the Crisis of Identity through Henry Purcell鈥檚鈥淏ess of Bedlam鈥�. Swiss Journal of Musicology, 40, pp. 11-40. ISSN 0259-3165
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2021. Madam Butterfly and the Forging of Japanese Identity. History Today, 71(3), pp. 28-37. ISSN 0018-2753

Matsumoto, Naomi. 2019. The Mad Scene: Portrayals of Insanity in Opera. Japanese Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 48(3), ISSN 0300-032X
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2016. "Ghost Writing鈥�: an Exploration of Presence and Absence in Lucia di Lammermoor (1835)鈥�. Word and Music Studies, 15, pp. 63-84. ISSN 1566-0958
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2015. Book Review: James Kennaway (ed.), Music and the Nerves, 1700鈥�1900 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014),. Medical History, LIX(2), pp. 333-335. ISSN 0025-7273
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2014. Il plagio vs "una piacevole reminiscenza al nostro orecchio". The Siege of Rochelle (1835) di Michael Balfe e il "lavoro culturale" della critica estetica. Estetica Studi e Ricerche, iv(1), pp. 83-100. ISSN 2039-6635
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2012. Instrumental Music and the Industrial Revolution. Ad Parnassum: Journal of 18th and 19th century Instrumental Music, 10(20),
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2012. Liner notes to Angelo Ephrikian (dir.), Jacopo Peri: L鈥橢uridice. Jacopo Peri: L鈥橢uridice,
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2012. Liner notes to Cappella Marciana, Voce Mea ad Dominum: Celebrations of the 400th Anniversary of the death of G. Croce da Chioggia. Celebrations of the 400th Anniversary of the death of G. Croce da Chioggia,
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2012. Liner notes to Paolo Cammozzo (dir.), Laudate Dominum: Masters of the Chapel of St Mark鈥檚. Laudate Dominum: Masters of the Chapel of St Mark鈥檚,
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2012. Liner notes to Quintetto Vocale Italiano, Gesualdo. Gesualdo Six Books of Madrigals for 5 Voices,
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2011. Pio Enea degli Obizzi and the Opera Torneo Genre 鈥� Towards an Understanding of the Commercialisation of Early Italian Opera鈥�. The Journal of the Musicological Society of Japan, lvii(1), pp. 56-68. ISSN 00302597
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2010. Englishness and Burlesque on the London Stage: the Case of The Dragon of Wantley. The Journal of the Musicological Society of Japan, 55(2), pp. 97-110.
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2009. The dating of MS, GB-Lcm: n. 927, The Dragon of Wantley. The Journal of the Musicological Society of Japan, 54(1), pp. 75-77.
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2008. Motoo Ohtaguro interviews Prokofiev. Three Oranges: the Journal of the Sergey Prokofiev Foundation, 15, pp. 9-13.
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2008. The Identity of the librettist of Monteverdi鈥檚 Il ritorno d鈥橴lisse in patria. The Journal of the Musicological Society of Japan, 53(2), pp. 134-137.
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2006. An anonymous setting of L鈥橭spedale and the question of an 鈥渁sylum opera鈥� genre. The Journal of the Musicological Society of Japan, pp. 45-61.

Conference or Workshop Item

Matsumoto, Naomi. 2002. 'Global Presentations of Madness in Musical Theatres: a Comparative Study of Britten鈥檚 Curlew River and Juro Motomasa鈥檚 Sumidagawa'. In: Musicology and Globalization: Proceedings of the International Congress. Shizuoka, Japan.

Film/Video

Matsumoto, Naomi. 2017. Goldsmiths Research Questions: How does opera represent madness?.

Project

Matsumoto, Naomi. 2012. Anonymous: Lo Spedale.
Matsumoto, Naomi. 2011. Pierto A. Ziani: Le fortune di Damira e Rodope.

Thesis

Matsumoto, Naomi. 2005. The operatic mad scene: its origins and early development up to c.1700. Doctoral thesis, 樱桃视频

Areas of supervision

Music and medicine

17th century and 19th century Italian opera

The inter-cultural reception of Western musical theatre

Baroque performance practice

樱桃视频