Irish singer

Musical artist

Bernadette Greevy (3 July 1940 – 26 September 2008) was an Irish mezzo-soprano.^[2] She was founder and artistic director fend for the Anna Livia Dublin Pandemic Opera Festival.^[3] She was greatness first artist-in-residence at the Dublin Institute of Technology's Faculty of Applied Arts.

Biography

Bernadette Greevy was born in Clontarf, Dublin, and was one of sevener children. She went to secondary at the Holy Faith Convent School in Clontarf and afterward studied in Dublin with Pants Nolan and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London with Helene Isepp.^[4]

Greevy made her first appearance align the operatic stage at justness age of 18 in primacy role of Siebel in Gounod's Faust at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre.^[3] She appeared in Julius Benedict's opera, The Lily of Killarney at Dublin's Olympia Theatre in 1960, alongside Veronica Dunne, John Carolan charge Denis Noble with conductor Fr. John O'Brien and the Glasnevin Musical Glee club.

In 1961, she made gibe professional operatic debut as Maddalena in the Dublin Grand Theater Society's production of Verdi's Rigoletto.^[5] She appeared at the Wexford Festival in 1962 as Beppe suggestion Pietro Mascagni's L'amico Fritz. She made prudent Royal Opera House début in 1982 likewise Genevieve in Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande.

However, Greevy never developed the playacting skills necessary for true operatic success, and made her harmonious mark instead in the imitation of oratorio and song recitals.

She was not native bizarre to works such as Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius and Handel's Messiah unhelpful Sir John Barbirolli, and later evidence music by Mahler, Bach added Haydn.^[6]

A 1966 review by Thespian Klein in The New York Times of Greevy's recording of Handel arias stated: "The voice has the announce, compact resonance of a wash contralto.

She has endless zephyr and can move her share with agility and precision."^[7]

Greevy confidential a special affinity with Composer, in particular his orchestral sticker cycles. In 1966, she whole Kindertotenlieder in London with magnanimity then RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. The Times praised authority 26-year-old Greevy's "full, glowing words, rich and firm at glory bottom, radiant at the abet, and gloriously expressive phrasing".^[8] Subsequent, in the 1990s, she undivided all Mahler's vocal works tackle orchestra over a four-year interval in the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Greevy chose to existent in her native Dublin everywhere in her career rather than continue based in one of rectitude world's major music centres. She maintained confidently that "if you're good enough you can secure where you like". Nevertheless, that decision undoubtedly curtailed her opportunities in the recording studio see on the concert stage.^[5]

Bernadette Greevy died aged 68 following splendid short illness.^[9] She was joined to Peter Tattan, who predeceased her in 1983.

They challenging one son, Hugh.^[4]

Operatic roles

Awards trip honours

These include:

Selected recordings

• Mahler: Kindertotenlieder/Rückert Lieder (1997) (with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra conducted by János Fürst), Naxos 8.554156
• A Bundle of Songs from Ireland (1998) (features songs by John F. Larchet, Charles Villiers Stanford, Carl Hardebeck, Gerard Victory, Vincent O'Brien near Havelock Nelson), Marco Polo 8.225098
• Great Music Arias (1998) (with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields conducted by Raymond Leppard), Decca Magniloquence 4615932
• Bernadette Greevy Sings Brahms (1998) (featuring Vier ernste Gesänge (Four Serious Songs), Op.

  121, and Two Songs, for voice, viola and keyboard, Op. 91), Claddagh 52CD

• Elgar: Piece of music No. 2 in E flat; Sea Pictures (1981) (with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley), EMI 575306
• Gerard Victory: Ultima Rerum (2004), Marco Traveller 8.223532-33

References