- Madam Butterfly and the Forging of Japanese Identity Matsumoto, Naomi. 2021. Madam Butterfly and the Forging of Japanese Identity. History Today, 71(3), pp. 28-37. ISSN 0018-2753
- The Mad Scene: Portrayals of Insanity in Opera Matsumoto, Naomi. 2019. The Mad Scene: Portrayals of Insanity in Opera. Japanese Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 48(3), ISSN 0300-032X
- "Ghost Writing”: an Exploration of Presence and Absence in Lucia di Lammermoor (1835)’ Matsumoto, Naomi. 2016. "Ghost Writing”: an Exploration of Presence and Absence in Lucia di Lammermoor (1835)’. Word and Music Studies, 15, pp. 63-84. ISSN 1566-0958
- Book Review: James Kennaway (ed.), Music and the Nerves, 1700–1900 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Matsumoto, Naomi. 2015. Book Review: James Kennaway (ed.), Music and the Nerves, 1700–1900 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014),. Medical History, LIX(2), pp. 333-335. ISSN 0025-7273
- Il plagio vs "una piacevole reminiscenza al nostro orecchio". The Siege of Rochelle (1835) di Michael Balfe e il "lavoro culturale" della critica estetica. 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
- Instrumental Music and the Industrial Revolution Matsumoto, Naomi. 2012. Instrumental Music and the Industrial Revolution. Ad Parnassum: Journal of 18th and 19th century Instrumental Music, 10(20),
- Liner notes to Quintetto Vocale Italiano, Gesualdo Matsumoto, Naomi. 2012. Liner notes to Quintetto Vocale Italiano, Gesualdo. Gesualdo Six Books of Madrigals for 5 Voices,
- Liner notes to Paolo Cammozzo (dir.), Laudate Dominum: Masters of the Chapel of St Mark’s Matsumoto, Naomi. 2012. Liner notes to Paolo Cammozzo (dir.), Laudate Dominum: Masters of the Chapel of St Mark’s. Laudate Dominum: Masters of the Chapel of St Mark’s,
- Liner notes to Cappella Marciana, Voce Mea ad Dominum: Celebrations of the 400th Anniversary of the death of G. Croce da Chioggia 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,
- Liner notes to Angelo Ephrikian (dir.), Jacopo Peri: L’Euridice Matsumoto, Naomi. 2012. Liner notes to Angelo Ephrikian (dir.), Jacopo Peri: L’Euridice. Jacopo Peri: L’Euridice,
- Pio Enea degli Obizzi and the Opera Torneo Genre – Towards an Understanding of the Commercialisation of Early Italian Opera’ Matsumoto, Naomi. 2011. Pio Enea degli Obizzi and the Opera Torneo Genre – Towards an Understanding of the Commercialisation of Early Italian Opera’. The Journal of the Musicological Society of Japan, lvii(1), pp. 56-68. ISSN 00302597
- Englishness and Burlesque on the London Stage: the Case of The Dragon of Wantley 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.
- The dating of MS, GB-Lcm: n. 927, The Dragon of Wantley 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.
- Motoo Ohtaguro interviews Prokofiev Matsumoto, Naomi. 2008. Motoo Ohtaguro interviews Prokofiev. Three Oranges: the Journal of the Sergey Prokofiev Foundation, 15, pp. 9-13.
- The Identity of the librettist of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria Matsumoto, Naomi. 2008. The Identity of the librettist of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. The Journal of the Musicological Society of Japan, 53(2), pp. 134-137.
- An anonymous setting of L’Ospedale and the question of an “asylum opera” genre Matsumoto, Naomi. 2006. An anonymous setting of L’Ospedale and the question of an “asylum opera” genre. The Journal of the Musicological Society of Japan, pp. 45-61.
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
Department
n.matsumoto (@gold.ac.uk)
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’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Recently, she has started working on the reception of Western opera in the Far East and contributed a chapter on Bizet’s Carmen in Japan in Carmen Abroad: Bizet’s 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
- The Challenge of Music History: 10 Works from the 'Musical Canon' and Their Meanings Matsumoto, Naomi. 2025. The Challenge of Music History: 10 Works from the 'Musical Canon' and Their Meanings. Tokyo: Asahi Newspaper Publications Inc..
- Christophe Ballard/Michel Richard de Lalande Ballet de La Jeunesse Canova-Green, Marie-Claude and Matsumoto, Naomi. 2024. Christophe Ballard/Michel Richard de Lalande Ballet de La Jeunesse. Paris: Classiques Garnier.
- Music Historiography: How and why music history has been written Matsumoto, Naomi. 2023. Music Historiography: How and why music history has been written. Tokyo: Yamaha Music Entertainment Holdings, Inc.. ISBN 9784636101164
Edited Book
- Music as Heritage: Historical and Ethnographic Perspectives Norton, Barley and Matsumoto, Naomi, eds. 2019. Music as Heritage: Historical and Ethnographic Perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9781138228047
- Staging Verdi and Wagner Matsumoto, Naomi, ed. 2015. Staging Verdi and Wagner. Turnhout: Brepols. ISBN 9782503564821
- SHIZENGAKU: the Search for a Coming Aesthetic Matsumoto, Naomi and Yamamoto, Kazuto, eds. 2014. SHIZENGAKU: the Search for a Coming Aesthetic. Kyoto: Nakanishiya. ISBN 978-4-9907368-0-4
Book Section
- Dreaming of Wagner: Performing Gluck and the Aspiration for a National Theatre in Japan Matsumoto, Naomi. 2025. Dreaming of Wagner: Performing Gluck and the Aspiration for a National Theatre in Japan. In: Clair Rowden; Paulo M Kuhl and Barbara Gentili, eds. Opera in Transnational Contexts: Circulating Identities and Cultures. Routledge.
- Exoticism or Eclecticism? Carnival at Court and the Mascarade du Roy de la Chine 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
- Realising Arianna: the Problematic Accompaniments of Claudio Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna 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
Article
- Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly' and the Puccini-esque in Japan: Adaptation, Popularisation and the Search for the Cultural Fusion Matsumoto, Naomi. 2025. Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly' and the Puccini-esque in Japan: Adaptation, Popularisation and the Search for the Cultural Fusion. Studi Pucciniani, 9,
- Representing Insanity and the Crisis of Identity through Henry Purcell's 'Bess of Bedlam' Matsumoto, Naomi. 2024. Representing Insanity and the Crisis of Identity through Henry Purcell's 'Bess of Bedlam'. Swiss Journal of Musicology, 40, pp. 11-40. ISSN 0259-3165
- "Madama Butterfly": Prospettive occidentali e giapponesi a confronto Matsumoto, Naomi. 2023. "Madama Butterfly": Prospettive occidentali e giapponesi a confronto. Commentari dell'Ateneo di Brescia, ISSN 1594-8218
Conference or Workshop Item
- Global Presentations of Madness in Musical Theatres: a Comparative Study of Britten’s Curlew River and Juro Motomasa’s Sumidagawa Matsumoto, Naomi. 2002. 'Global Presentations of Madness in Musical Theatres: a Comparative Study of Britten’s Curlew River and Juro Motomasa’s Sumidagawa'. In: Musicology and Globalization: Proceedings of the International Congress. Shizuoka, Japan.
Film/Video
- Goldsmiths Research Questions: How does opera represent madness? Matsumoto, Naomi. 2017. Goldsmiths Research Questions: How does opera represent madness?.
Project
- Anonymous: Lo Spedale Matsumoto, Naomi. 2012. Anonymous: Lo Spedale.
- Pierto A. Ziani: Le fortune di Damira e Rodope Matsumoto, Naomi. 2011. Pierto A. Ziani: Le fortune di Damira e Rodope.
Thesis
- The operatic mad scene: its origins and early development up to c.1700 Matsumoto, Naomi. 2005. The operatic mad scene: its origins and early development up to c.1700. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London
Areas of supervision
Music and medicine
17th century and 19th century Italian opera
The inter-cultural reception of Western musical theatre
Baroque performance practice