Biography
Geraldine McGreevy studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the National Opera Studio, after which she continued her studies with Richard Smart. She has spent time studying in France, Italy and Germany and sings in these languages with exceptional semantic insight and lack of accent.
Geraldine recently returned to sing the Marschallin at the Komische Oper, Berlin; her performance of Alcina in that house inspired the critic Rolf Königsdorf to name her Berlin's Best Singer of 2004. Other roles she has sung include Iphigenie Iphigenie en Tauride, Marie Wozzeck, Donna Clara Der Zwerg (Komische Oper, Berlin); Gerhilde Die Walküre (Royal Opera House); Giunone La Calisto (Bayerische Staatsoper); Ellen Orford (Oper Frankfurt); The Governess Turn of the Screw (Leipzig Opera); Alice Ford (Aix-en-Provence); Contessa Almaviva, Donna Anna, Vitellia, First Lady and Miss Jessel (Welsh National Opera); Ghita Der Zwerg (La Monnaie); Fiordiligi (Opera Zuid); Alcina and Cleopatra (Early Opera Company); and for British Youth Opera, Donna Anna, First Lady, Mistress Page Sir John in Love and Casilda Gondoliers. She recently sang the role of Michiko in the UK premiere of Philip Glass’ Hotel of Dreams at the Grimeborn Festival in London, and Berenice in the the first performance for 500 years of Mazzoni's Antigono, at the Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon. In concert she has sung Freia Das Rheingold with Sir Simon Rattle at the BBC Proms; Chrysothemis Elektra with Edo De Waart and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Female Chorus Rape of Lucretia with Donald Runicles at the Edinburgh Festival; Theodora (Handel) with Emmanuele Haim and Le Concert d’Astrée; and Alice Ford with Edo De Waart and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Her operatic recordings include Berg’s Wozzeck Fragments and Lulu Suite with the Gothenberg Symphony and Venzago, Rebecca in Sullivan's Ivanhoe, with David Lloyd-Jones and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Handel’s Arminio with Alan Curtis (EMI) and Handel’s Riccardo Primo with Kammerorchester Basel and Goodwin (DHM).
An experienced recitalist, Geraldine has recorded Wolf, Fauré, Schumann, Schubert and many English Songs for Hyperion, and has regularly broadcast recitals for the BBC as well as other European broadcasting institutions. She has returned to the Wigmore Hall frequently since her 1997 debut after winning the 1996 Kathleen Ferrier Award, most recently with two solo recitals of Fauré, Schumann, Schubert and Brahms. She made her De Singel recital debut in 2006 and has since returned there several times singing Fauré and Schubert with Graham Johnson, with whom she has appeared in recitals in venues across Europe and North America. She has worked with chamber musicians including Steven Isserlis, Michael Collins and the Nash Ensemble, and also with many early music groups including the viol quartet Phantasm, with whom she has made recital tours and recorded Byrd consort songs.
Her concert repertoire reflects her vocal and musical versatility; she is as much at home in period-instrument performances of Baroque music as in larger works such as Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Ninth Symphony. Other concert repertoire includes Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire; Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5; Britten's Les Illuminations and War Requiem; Strauss' Vier Lezte Lieder; Telemann's Brockes Passion; and Honneger’s Le Roi David which she sang at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival. Ensembles and conductors with whom she has worked include The English Concert with Trevor Pinnock, The Kings Consort with Robert King, The Academy of St Martin in the Fields with Sir Neville Marriner, Jos van Veldhoven and De Nederlandse Bachvereniging, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra in Zurich with Jane Glover, the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Kurt Masur, the Sharoun Ensemble and Anne Manson in the Cologne Philharmonic and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchetra with Petr Altrichter and Libor Pesek.