Geraldine McGreevy

Soprano

Opera: live, recordings, in concert

Live opera

Sound of a Voice, Grimeborn, London

Geraldine McGreevy’s commanding performance as Michiko, the madam with her own history of longing and loss, is unmissable.

The Stage (David Gutman)

Iphigenie auf Tauris, Komische Oper, Berlin

Geraldine McGreevy is a forceful Iphigenie, driven past the borders of sanity, yet magnificently eloquent in her arias.

Financial Times (Shirley Apthorp)

Marschallin, Der Rosenkavalier, Komische Oper, Berlin

This whole evening is a sensation…  The theatre might be in crisis and our musical education might have gone downhill, but with singing such as Geraldine McGreevy’s crystal clear and rose-scented soprano, opera is definitely not dead.  Take us by the hand and take us with you – wherever to, just take us with you.  Ovations all round.

Der Tagesspiegel  (Christine Lemke-Matwey)

Geraldine McGreevy is a beautiful and sensual Marschallin, soft in charisma to start with, developing into a tense, serious and distanced person as the drama and direction requires her to do in the big monologue.

Berliner Zeitung (Jan Brachmann)

Geraldine McGreevy as a word perfect Marschallin was the highlight of the evening.

Die Welt (Kai Luehrs-Kaiser)

The premiere was celebrated with a huge ovation, especially for the singers and the orchestra … Geraldine McGreevy sings with a most beautifully balanced soprano: a young noblewoman of the opera stage, exactly what the composer wanted.

Berliner Morgenpost (Klaus Geitel)

That there are moments of pure magic is due mostly to the wonderfully sensitive musical reflections of the Marschallin of Geraldine McGreevy.

Neues Deutschland (Ekkehart Krippendorff)

The young Marschallin, in the bell-like soprano of Geraldine McGreevy, relishes every tender moment of her monologue, and completely identifies herself in every single note.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Eleonore Büning)

Geraldine McGreevy’s Marschallin is an object lesson in perfect diction, a warmly radiant presence.

Financial Times (Shirley Apthorp)

Alcina, Komische Oper, Berlin

McGreevy offered some superb Handel singing, with gorgeously spun, soaring, shining phrases and radiant, crystal clear embellishments. Moreover, she made Alcina a believable character, a modern woman whose world is shattered when she realizes she is powerless against the powers of love.

Opera News (Jochen Breiholz)

Geraldine McGreevy, who took over for an ill colleague only days before the premiere, sang a touching and dominant Alcina. Her clear intonation and brilliant technique gained her the biggest applause of the evening.

Opera Japonica (Uwe Schneider)

Vitellia, Clemenza di Tito, WNO

Geraldine McGreevy (Vitellia) has a voice like a stream of molten gold running down your spine. Wheedling, manipulative, vengeful, she makes all the other characters look lifeless, and when she finally melts into self-awareness in the wonderful, basset-horn acompanied Non piu di fiori, it is as though the Sun has broken through.

The Times (Robert Thicknesse)

Miss Jessel, Turn of the Screw, WNO

The unnatural, here represented by Geraldine McGreevy and Paul Nilon … throughout have the advantage. Both sing with superb control and power, words insinuating and fearful in their clarity.

The Stage (David Blewitt)

Cleopatra, Giulio Cesare, Early Opera Company

With the best music going to Cleopatra, the opera might almost be named for her: the bright-toned Geraldine McGreevy, now showing real stage presence, delivered her laments magnificently.

The Times (John Allison)

Poppea, Agrippina, Early Opera Company

The other outstanding voice was Geraldine McGreevy as Poppea: warm, richly coloured sound and witty characterisation, recognising that Handel was always at his best when writing for amorous women.

The Times (Rodney Milnes)

Alice, Falstaff, Aix-En-Provence

Geraldine McGreevy sang a wonderful Alice Ford, with a bell-clear voice and an irresistible smile

Wall Street Journal (Judy Fayard)

Fiordiligi, Cosi fan tutte, Royal Academy of Music

… and a miraculous Fiordiligi. Geraldine McGreevy ... was devastating in Per Pietà, the aria that exposes all the character's vulnerability. With limpid top register, fast light passagework and a warmly coloured, telling lower register, she is certainly a compelling new star in the firmament.

Evening Standard (Tom Sutcliffe)

Opera recordings

Sullivan: Ivanohoe, Chandos

But it's Geraldine McGreevy and James Rutherford, astonishing as Rebecca and Brian, who will really sweep you away.

Guardian (Tim Ashley)

Ms McGreevy sang with radiance and purity of tone and produced some beautifully controlled pianissimi, especially at the end of Lord of our chosen race where her ascent up the scale to a top B flat was exquisite.

Opera Britannia (Faye Courtney)

James Rutherford as Sir Brian de Bois –Guilbert and Geraldine McGreevy as Rebecca combine to bring the most out of Act 2, Scene 3 – the opera’s musical high point.

Gramophone (Andrew Lamb)

Berg: Orchestral Works, Chandos

That the suites from Wozzeck and Lulu are the most pressing reasons to hear this set is due in large part to the stature and eloquence of Geraldine McGreevy’s contributions, for if she ever sang either of Berg’s hapless heroines on stage in the UK, I would beat a path to the opera-house door.  In the first of them, Marie’s Act 3 scena with the family Bible is painfully intimate and more accurate than many, yet with no lack of strength for her pleading outbursts of mercy, and she seems to inspire an acute degree of sympathy from the orchestra and Venzago.

Gramophone (Peter Quantrill)

 

Handel: Riccardo Primo, Deutsche Harmonium Mundi

Goodwin’s cast is superb … especially the fiery Geraldine McGreevy as the jealous termagant.

The Sunday Times (Hugh Canning)

Geraldine McGreevy makes a very pleasing contribution.   Her voice sounds well-oiled, as it were, and she is as comfortable in lyric passages, like Lord of our chosen race, well-phrased and persuasively delivered, as in Rebecca's repelling of Guilbert's advances.

International Record Review (John T Hughes)

The voice of Geraldine McGreevy is darker than Rial's, with a greater palette of hues, and serves her well in every aria, being flexible enough for Pulcheria's most ornate displays.  She is really at home in the attractively scored Quell' innocente.

International Record Review (John T Hughes)

Perhaps the most rewarding vocalizing emanates from Geraldine McGreevy as Pulcheria, a somewhat more interesting character than Costanza. Her light, rapid and well-placed vibrato complements her silvery tone and fast, accurate coloratura; it is surprising but true that this versatile singer also engages with Wagner and Strauss.

Opera (Sandra Bowdler)

Concert

Purcell: The Fairy-Queen, Wigmore Hall

But it was Geraldine McGreevy’s wonderful O let me weep that was the highlight and still centre of the evening... It’s hard to imagine this being better or more movingly performed.

The Times (Robert Thicknesse)

Alcina, Wigmore Hall

Curnyn leant on the languid fluidity of the music, all phrasing, shading and drawn-out cadences, a perfect accompaniment for the beautiful voice of Geraldine McGreevy, singing Alcina from the wings. Her six arias cover all bases from honey-dripping seduction to scorned fury, and McGreevy handled this study in power and insecurity with effortless grace.

The Times (Robert Thicknesse)