Mendelssohn: Lobgesang / Constellation Choir & Orchestra 2026
“Hilary Cronin—endowed with electrifying radiance, highly refined phrasing, superb clarity, a captivatingly resonant vocal foundation, and a commanding stage presence.”
Bachtrack
Melissa: Amadigi di Gaula / Buxton International Festival 2026
“Hilary Cronin rises to the heights of arias of frustration and fury with richness and virtuosity.”
The Arts Desk
“Melissa deserves her own spin-off series for her power-suited villainy served with a hip-wiggle and an eyebrow-raise, every dastardly thought or passing mischief used to mould the shapes of Handel’s coloratura. When you hear what Cronin can do with an appoggiatura, you understand precisely how she’ll deploy that curler. All that, and then she breaks your heart in a final aria delivered simply, straight down the lens.”
The Guardian
“Hilary Cronin’s Melissa is the alpha female here, dominating the men and vamping up the manipulation with gleeful relish, her voice and her presence absolutely commanding.”
Northern Arts Review 5*
“Hilary Cronin’s narcissistic Melissa tirelessly hip-swivelled her way through a maelstrom of self-pity, as her various plots and deceptions came to naught, maintaining a drama-tinged soprano throughout.”
Opera
“Hilary Cronin impressed with her excellent characterization of the sorceress-cum-TV show hostess Melissa, whose main motivation was to ensnare Amadigi as her new lover. She was obsessive, aggressive, ruthless and demanding and not averse to a little torture along the way. Cronin, however, never took the role too seriously and turned Melissa into quasi-comic character, in which even the torture scene was a bit of fun. Yet, her underlying emotions were real enough, and when she raged, she really was angry, and when she stormed off the stage towards the end of the opera, she really was hurting. It was a well-constructed, layered reading, which she supported with an equally strong vocal interpretation. Her recitatives were full of emotion and expertly delivered. The presentation of her arias was tightly focused to bring out their full meaning, and it also displayed her fine technique to good effect, no more so than in the rage aria “Desterò dall’empia Dite,” in which, following Amadigi’s rejection, she gave voice to her feelings in an explosive rendition full of rapid passages of coloratura, ornate embellishments and dynamic contrasts that conjured up an emotional whirlwind.”
OperaWire
“Hilary Cronin delivers Melissa’s increasingly intense and virtuosic arias with skill and panache.”
The Stage
“As Melissa, Hilary Cronin is a silver-suited TV presenter with a touch of Claudia Winkleman, and tackles Handel’s brilliant score with unbuttoned assurance and exuberance – a remarkable transformation from the oratorio soloist with which we are more familiar.”
The Telegraph
“Hilary Cronin not only goes all-out to give us the smarmy personality of the TV show host but rises to the heights of arias of frustration and fury with richness and virtuosity.”
Theatre Reviews North
A Bach Easter Trilogy / Springhead Constellation 2026
“Above all, Hilary Cronin. The soprano’s name is one to remember. He dazzled with her silvery, radiant and exprsssive voice.”
KURIER
Handel: Messiah / Linn CD 2026
“Hilary Cronin’s “Rejoice Greatly” is frothy and fun, pin-sharp in its virtuosic runs.”
The Arts Desk
“Hilary Cronin’s sweet-sounding soprano stands out among the solo voices.”
The Guardian
“Hilary Cronin doesn’t turn “Rejoice Greatly” into a sporty, coloratura storm, but into a genuine, infectious leap of the soul.”
Klassik begeistert
“Hilary Cronin radiates purity and joy.”
The Times
Iole: Hercules / The English Concert 2026
“Hilary Cronin did some of the most rapturous singing in the performance as Iole.”
Broadway World
“Hilary Cronin was excellent. She showed in her aria about jealousy and the marvellous “My breast with tender pity swells” why she is a leading Handel singer, with a bright, gentle tone, scintillating energy, and musical phrasing that is a natural fit for Handel.”
New York Classical Review
“As Iole, Hilary Cronin revealed a soprano of winning complexity and emotional weight.”
New York Times
“The British Baroque soprano of the moment, in the bright tradition of Lynne Dawson, Hilary Cronin made a lovely impression. Deep feeling augmented smooth passagework, sustained phrases and a ncely blooming upper register.”
Opera News
“The exquisite Hilary Cronin brought her pure and golden soprano to the role of Iole. She then fired volleys of extravagant coloratura at Dejanira after she accuses him of captivating the gullible Hercules. Cronin crowned the afternoon with a sublime rendition of “My breast with tender beating swells.”
Parterre Box
“Hilary Cronin, as Iole, was captivating.”
San Francisco Classical Voice
“Hilary Cronin stole the show as Iole with one beautifully executed aria after another. Her satiny tone, command of dynamics, drama and pinpoint coloratura paid dividends in “Ah! Think what ills the jealous prove,” warning Dejanira that she was wrong to accuse Hercules. Her suppleness of tone in “My breast with tender pity swells” brought a welcome balm to the final minutes of the opera.”
Seen and Heard International
Splendour and Devotion / London Handel Festival 2026
“…the mellifluous delights of Hilary Cronin’s soprano voice, which seemed to effortlessly fill the church as she sang of the loving kindness of the Lord.”
The Arts Desk
L’Orontea / MusikTheater an der Wien 2025
“Hilary Cronin’s clear, flexible soprano and expressive phrasing make her exceptionally well suited to Cesti’s long lines and to the psychological nuance of the role.”
European News Agency
“As Orontea, Hilary Cronin captivates with her magnificent soprano.”
Kurier
“With her radiant soprano, Hilary Cronin gives a passionate performance as Orontea.”
Oper in Wien
“The central visual and vocal delight of the evening is Hilary Cronin, whether majestically enthroned, comically slapstick or ranting jealousy from the gallery.”
Der Standard
Handel: Alexander’s Feast / Irish Baroque Orchestra at BBC Proms 2025
“Rising (or more accurately, risen) stars Hilary Cronin and Guy Cutting projected an easy conjuring of every situation with top notes that radiantly rang with support from the warmth the Albert Hall has to offer at its best.”
The Arts Desk
“The soprano Hilary Cronin sounded a born Handelian.”
Church Times
“The soprano part was carried with clean, objective brilliance by Hilary Cronin.”
Classical Source
“Hilary Cronin’s soprano was possessed of a beautiful combination of richness and elegance so that projection was always at a premium, even as the sound retained a divine quality.”
Music OMH
“Hilary Cronin’s soprano glistened in her opening recitative, ‘’Twas at the royal feast,’ and ‘With ravish’d ears’ showed an easy top register and phenomenally smooth melismas.”
Opera Today
“Hilary Cronin sang ‘With ravish’d ears the monarch hears’ with such a powerful projection filling the entire hall with a golden gleaming.”
Seen and Heard International
“Hilary Cronin was the real discovery of this performance: the combination of accuracy and glow in her singing was reinforced by wonderfully mellow fullness in several parts of her voice.”
Slipped Disc
“Hilary Cronin confirmed that she is one of the best young Handel sopranos around with superbly clear and stylish singing.”
The Times
Semele / Waterperry Opera Festival at Opera Holland Park 2025
“Hilary Cronin is mightily impressive. She walked between the aisles and stopped to sing just next to me as I was in the end seat. Her voice literally shook me up. She is awesome, really commands not just the stage but the entire auditorium.”
LondonTheatre1
“Hilary Cronin’s Semele was the evening’s magnetic centre. She captured both the character’s charm and her dangerous naivety, her soprano glinting with precision in “Endless Pleasure” and laced with self-satire in “Myself I shall adore.” By the time she launched into the terrifying defiance of “No, no, I’ll take no less!”, Cronin had fully convinced the audience of Semele’s seductive power and tragic hubris.”
London Unattached
“Hilary Cronin’s Semele was doing wonderful things with ‘O Sleep’ and the rest: all the right flutterings and technical expertise, plus a properly sensual delivery and a real musical sense that kept you gripped with its little shades and variations through these longish songs. She is one of the best things to have happened to baroque singing here for a while.”
Opera Now
Semele / Waterperry Opera Festival 2025
“Hilary Cronin delivered each of the heroine’s arias with pristine, gleaming tone and impeccable style.”
Operalogue
“Hilary Cronin’s Semele was radiant and compelling, her vocal sheen allied to a performance that charted the character’s vanity, ambition and vulnerability with equal conviction.”
Opera Scene
“…the wonderful soprano Hilary Cronin.”
Ox in a Box
First Harlot: Solomon / Gabrieli Consort & Players 2025
“…it was Cronin’s finely moving First Harlot who stayed in the memory, with an engagingly uplifting duet with Mead’s Solomon, and she got to complete this part with her engagingly pastoral final aria.”
Planet Hugill
Bach & Charpentier: A Baroque Christmas / English Baroque Soloists 2024
“A highlight was the wonderful, crystal-clear soprano Hilary Cronin in the aria “Auch mit gedämpften schwachen Stimmen.””
Frankfurter Rundschau
“Soprano Hilary Cronin sounded ravishing in the climactic aria of “Schwingt Freudig Euch Empor.””
The Guardian
“Hilary Cronin impressed, duetting rapturously with the orchestra’s leader, Madeleine Easton, in the cantata’s long final aria with solo violin obbligato.”
Operalogue
“Hilary Cronin poured unseasonal warmth on her duettists, vocal and instrumental alike.”
The Times
First Harlot: Solomon / Gabrieli Consort & Players 2025
“…it was Cronin’s finely moving First Harlot who stayed in the memory, with an engagingly uplifting duet with Mead’s Solomon, and she got to complete this part with her engagingly pastoral final aria.”
Planet Hugill
Bach & Charpentier: A Baroque Christmas / English Baroque Soloists 2024
“A highlight was the wonderful, crystal-clear soprano Hilary Cronin in the aria “Auch mit gedämpften schwachen Stimmen.””
Frankfurter Rundschau
“Soprano Hilary Cronin sounded ravishing in the climactic aria of “Schwingt Freudig Euch Empor.””
The Guardian
“Hilary Cronin impressed, duetting rapturously with the orchestra’s leader, Madeleine Easton, in the cantata’s long final aria with solo violin obbligato.”
Operalogue
“Hilary Cronin poured unseasonal warmth on her duettists, vocal and instrumental alike.”
The Times
J.S. Bach: Christmas Oratorio / DG CD 2024
“…the superbly expressive soprano Hilary Cronin.”
Gramophone
Piacere: Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno / Early Opera Company 2024
“Hilary Cronin’s delightfully truculent Pleasure emerges as the moral heart of the piece – her Lascia la spina, the aria which would later become Rinaldo’s Lascia ch’io pianga, is radiantly sung.”
The Guardian
“Hilary Cronin’s Pleasure sings one of Handel’s most beautiful melodies – better known from its later use in Rinaldo – impeccably.”
The Stage
“Hilary Cronin’s Pleasure steals the show with the tune everyone knows, Lascia la spina…”
The Telegraph
Arianna: Arianna a Creta / La Nuova Musica at London Handel Festival 2024
“In the title role Hilary Cronin revealed a soprano that felt as beautiful as it was secure, with her lines being well shaped and her sound positively gleaming at the top of her register.”
Music OMH
“The titular Arianna was sung by soprano Hilary Cronin. She has a bright soprano that is agile enough to surmount any of Handel’s many demands. The apex of the performance was her ‘anger aria’ that ends the first act, ‘Segno, amore’ (Disdain, love), which became ever more elaborate, ever more involving.”
Opera Today
Handel (art. Mozart): Messiah / Britten Sinfonia 2023
“…the heart-soaring soprano of Hilary Cronin…”
iNews
“Hilary Cronin’s voice is sweet and bell-like, but it also has heft, such that the accounts of ‘And there were shepherds’ and ‘Rejoice Greatly’ contrasted well.”
Music OMH
“…the gleamingly pure soprano of Hilary Cronin…”
Seen and Heard International
“Hilary Cronin is surely the stand-out Handelian soprano of the moment; ‘Rejoice Greatly’ was predictably thrilling.”
The Telegraph
Handel: Messiah / The Hallé 2023
“Hilary Cronin has the ideal soprano for this work. In her arias, her pure tone floated celestially in the hall, aided by pristine diction.”
Bachtrack
Handel: Messiah / The Sixteen 2023
“…particularly brilliant upper voice soloists in Hilary Cronin (Soprano) and Helen Charlston (alto).”
The Observer
Oriana: Amadigi / The English Concert 2023
“Best of all was Hilary Cronin’s golden-toned Oriana, a big voice of great controlled emotion and poise…This is a star voice, no mistake.”
Opera Now
Purcell: Dido and Aeneas / Pentatone SACD
“‘Gitter Ground / Oft she visits,’ is simply stunning…Hilary Cronin swirls the clave rhythm into her solo and embellishments. Magic!”
BBC Music Magazine
Handel: L’allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato / St Martin-in-the-Fields 2023
“As her flawless contribution to the unsurpassable Irish Baroque Orchestra Messiah at the Wigmore Hall earlier this year proved, Hilary Cronin has everything in her vocal armoury for this music. It even sounds, for all the white-note beauty, that there’s dramatic-soprano potential, but that might mean sacrificing some of the agility. There was everything here from hypnotic softness in the registering of “the far-off curfew” and “Hide me from day’s garish eye” to the quirky imitation of the cricket on the hearth, and the trilling games with leader Kati Debretzeni in “Orpheus’ self may heave his head”.”
The Arts Desk
Handel: L’allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato / Carnegie Hall 2023
“Hilary Cronin’s impressive vocal range was showcased throughout the performance. She rendered her accompagnato “There held in holy passion” with a full and radiant timbre while the sostenuto line in “Hide me from day’s garish eye” was as though dipped in silver.”
Bachtrack
“Hilary Cronin…One of those pure British soprano voices with both a shining, rounded timbre and the ability to limit vibrato (like Margaret Marshall and Lynne Dawson), Cronin delighted in all of her numbers. She also made meaningful contact with her texts…”
Classical Voice North America
“Hilary Cronin was a wonder with her lighter-than-air soprano.”
New York Classical Review
J. S. Bach: B Minor Mass / Carnegie Hall 2023
“The soprano Hilary Cronin sang with a rich body and luminous purity.”
New York Times
Oriana: Amadigi / The English Concert 2023
“Oriana is another rather passive character. It is to Hilary Cronin’s credit that in Act One, she made Oriana’s goodness believable and it helped that Cronin sang with a lovely combination of warmth and clarity. Her opening Siciliana had a radiance to it whilst her first aria managed to be dignified but also believable. But when the going got tough, Cronin’s Oriana was no wilting flower, she was rather feisty indeed. In her first aria in Act Two, Cronin really spat out the vituperation at Melissa and Cronin was similarly dramatic in her final Act Two aria, whilst in Act Three she got to be gloriously pathetic (in the 18th-century sense) before a moving duet with Amadigi.”
Planet Hugill
J. S. Bach: B Minor Mass / English Baroque Soloists 2023
“There was notably bubbly singing from the soprano Hilary Cronin.”
The Times
Messiah / Irish Baroque Orchestra 2023
“…there was expressive perfection in Hilary Cronin’s “Rejoice greatly” (the romping original version) and “I know that my Redeemer liveth” (much needed balm after so many preceding choral thrills).”
The Arts Desk
Fauré: Requiem / Teatro La Fenice 2023
“The soprano Hilary Cronin seduced the audience with the sweetness of her singing of Pie Jesu.”
GB Opera
Christmas Oratorio / English Baroque Soloists 2022
“…outstanding especially…the interchanges of Hilary Cronin, one of the meatier sopranos in Gardiner’s ensemble, with oboist Michael Niesemann and their echo doubles in Part Four…”
The Arts Desk
Messiah / The Sixteen 2022
“Hilary Cronin, whose lovely ample voice could have dominated a nave three times the length of this one…highly skilled, notably agile in melismatic passages.”
Bachtrack
Poppea: Agrippina / English Touring Opera 2022
“Hilary Cronin’s Poppea was a schemer, with a serious core to her performance, giving us a woman well aware of her sexual power, plus some sparkling singing.”
Opera
Purcell & Blow / The English Concert 2022
“The sound was always refined, gilded by Hilary Cronin’s soprano.”
The Times
Telaïre: Castor et Pollux / The Rameau Project
“Hilary Cronin sang Telaïre with a rich palette of tone and nuance.”
Opera
St John Passion / VOCES8 2022
“But it was in the arias that things really took flight. Hilary Cronin’s golden-toned “Ich folge dir gleichfalls” danced around a pair of flutes…”
The Arts Desk
Music for Holy Week / London Handel Festival 2022
“Hilary Cronin sang the whole motet with a glorious sense of technical security allied to fine style, she projected strong direct tones, and moved easily between the brilliant trumpet and the more intimate.”
Opera Today
Telemann: Die Donnerode / Magdeburger Telemann Festtage 2022
“Hilary Cronin’s gloriously golden-toned soprano was a sublime, ethereal delight…”
Bachtrack
Ode an Purcell / Freiburg Baroque Orchestra 2022
“Hilary Cronin sang with luminously clear purity…”
Bachtrack
London Handel International Singing Competition 2021 / St George’s Hanover Square
“Particular congratulations to this year’s winner Hilary Cronin whose expression and communication captured the true spirit of Handel.”
Laurence Cummings
Mother: Hansel and Gretel / Silent Opera at Opera Holland Park
“…generously warm-toned…”
Opera
Poulenc: Salve Regina / York Early Music Christmas Festival
“Hilary Cronin was luminously clear in the high soprano part of Poulenc’s Salve Regina.”
The Press
Mrs Waters: The Boatswain’s Mate / Grimeborn Festival
“Hilary Cronin as the landlady, Mrs Waters, seizes the opportunity of her two memorable set-pieces…”
Evening Standard
“Hilary Cronin presents a suitably feisty and authoritative Mrs Waters, the landlady of the pub in which the action takes place. Her beautifully performed ‘What If I Were Young Again’ proves to be one of the show’s most poignant highlights, matched only by her final aria at its climax.”
Musical Theatre Review
“…her creamy, fluting soprano took flight in the lyrical episodes.”
Opera
“Hilary Cronin made a delightful Mrs Waters…Cronin managed to bring a nice mix of solid strength to the role, with some charming girlish touches when Mrs Waters realises she has caught Ned Travers’ eye. Cronin has a lovely bright, flexible voice which I suspect will grow. Here she coped ably with the tessitura and was touching in Mrs Waters’ big solo scene…”
Planet Hugill
