Greevy, Bernadette (1939—)

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Greevy, Bernadette (1939—)

Irish mezzo-soprano. Born in Dublin, Ireland, on August 29, 1939; sixth of seven children of Josephine (Miller) and Patrick Joseph Greevy; educated at Holy Faith Convent, Clontarf, Dublin and at Guildhall School of Music, London; married Peter A. Tattan, in 1965 (died March 1983); children: one son (b. 1967).

Awards:

Harriet Cohen Award (1964); honorary doctorates of music from University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin; life member Royal Dublin Society; Order of Merit (Order of Malta); Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (Vatican).

Bernadette Greevy, born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1939, came from a musical family who consistently supported her musical career. She was educated at a school which also had a strong musical tradition. She later paid tribute to this. "We got a marvelous general education and a wonderful musical education. We were encouraged to think and do things for ourselves and to be creative and imaginative." She performed in school operas and musical plays and regularly took part in local musical competitions in Dublin, and in choral groups and trios. When she was 16, she took lessons from the Dublin teacher Jean Nolan. She then went to London to study at the Guildhall School which she found somewhat restricting; she also studied privately with Helene Isepp and later with Nadia Boulanger in Paris which she found particularly valuable for her later performances of French songs. She made her professional debut in Dublin in 1961 and the following year she performed at the Wexford Festival in Mascagni's L'Amico Fritz. In 1964, she made her London debut at the Wigmore Hall.

Greevy later recalled the pressures she faced after her successful debut. "I was being shoved all over the place with contracts to join here and there. That never appealed to me.… I knew from the first day that I was going to be free to make my mistakes or to be successful. It would be my choice." She turned down offers to sing with Scottish and Welsh Opera, and at Covent Garden. "I'm a very disciplined person," she later said, "but I can't bear the constraints of an opera house or something where I'd have to go in every day and be told what to do. I liked my independence." She also described herself as a perfectionist. "Every avenue has to be explored, you have to go into every area. I really do want to know every dot around me. I want everything to be perfect and then there'll be a good show." As her career developed, Greevy did comparatively little opera. She was offered the role of Carmen early on but declined it as she felt her voice was not ready. She returned to Wexford in Massenet's Hérodiade and also sang Laura in Ponchielli's La Gioconda in Dublin and Geneviève in Debussy's Pelléas et Melisande at Covent Garden. Greevy's marriage in 1965 and the birth of her son Hugh in 1967 also made her less willing to embark on a peripatetic career around the opera houses of Europe. She based herself in Dublin where she had strong family support which enabled her to undertake engagements abroad.

Instead of embarking on an operatic career, she forged fruitful working relationships in the 1960s with the Hungarian conductor Tibor Paul and the Radio Eireann Symphony Orchestra in Dublin, and with Sir John Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester. "It was a crucial, very interesting time in my life, working with these two powerful but different men." With Barbirolli, she performed works with which she became particularly associated, notably Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and the Angel in Elgar's Dream of Gerontius. Greevy greatly regretted that Barbirolli's death in 1970 cut short their work together. Other conductors with whom she enjoyed working included Franz-Paul Decker, Janos Fürst and Paul Hamburger.

Greevy was best known for her recordings of Elgar and Mahler but she also made several recordings of French songs, including Berlioz and Duparc. She performed with the chamber group Musica Antica e Nuova and said later that she had learned a great deal from working with instrumentalists, especially cellists. On the concert platform, she sang most of the major requiems and oratorios. She considered Bach and Schubert to be particularly demanding but regretted that Mozart composed so little for the mezzo repertory. She also created roles in works by leading Irish composers: Seoirse Bodley's Meditations on lines from Patrick Kavanagh (1971), A Girl (1978) and The Naked Flame (1987); Brian Boydell's A Terrible Beauty is Born (1965); and Gerard Victory's requiem cantata Ultima Rerum (1984).

In 1984, she gave the first in what was to be a regular series of master classes at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. She stipulated that "the only emotion that I want to see is healthy competition. I don't want to see any jealousy or petty rivalry. The fact that one person has a better voice than another is something that we have no control over. It's what we do with our hundred per cent that matters. Don't be envious of someone's better instrument, learn from them. That's the attitude I look for." Greevy emphasized the importance of carefully maintaining the voice, citing her own experience. "If anyone tries to make you do something that causes stress or strain, just walk away. Otherwise you'll be sung out.… I've seen it with my own contempo raries. I've seen it with people years younger than me." As her performances became less frequent, she concentrated more on teaching both in Ireland and abroad.