"[3] Nelepp's life trajectory from farmhand to celebrated opera singer was marked by two youthful choices—joining the Russian Revolution as a member of the Red Army and successfully auditioning for a place in the opera-singing course at the Leningrad Conservatory despite having no previous musical training.

In her autobiography, soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, his co-star in Fidelio, described an incident in which a woman came to the Bolshoi Theater and spat on Nelepp, claiming he had destroyed her family.

[4] As a member of the Young Communist League, Nelepp obtained transfer to Leningrad, where he entered a military topographical school, graduating in 1927.

His voice is fully blended throughout the registers, metallic, exceptionally beautiful timbre, natural resonance, pure intonation, good musical and rhythmical ability, appearance on stage: promising.

Writing about the performance ten years later, E. Ol’khovskii described Nelepp's characterization of the romantic hero, which played upon Lensky's weakness, femininity, and hypersensitivity.

[4] Renowned Russian tenor Leonid Sobinov commented on the performance: "Georgy Nelepp possesses superb vocal material, a beautiful timbre and a sure instinct for dramatic accentuation.

"[8] In 1939 Nelepp "was deemed a sensation" and rose to stardom, according to Malisch, in the role of Matiushenko in the world premiere of Oles' Chishko's (Battleship Potemkin.

[8] In the years to come, Nelepp would collaborate with composers of Soviet operas, who valued his real experience of the conditions they were theatrically depicting.

With a repertoire of 50 roles, Nelepp sang the dramatic tenor parts in classical Russian operas including the title role in Sadko, the Pretender in Boris Godunov, Gherman in Pique Dame, Czarevitch Guidon in The Tale of Tsar Saltan, Sobinin in Ivan Susanin, Yuri in The Enchantress, Finn in Ruslan and Ludmilla, Tucha in The Maid of Pskov, Toropka in Askold's Grave, Jontek in Halka, Jenik in The Bartered Bride, Andrey in Mazeppa, Vakula in The Slippers, and Golitsin and Andrey in Khovanshchina.

Interviewed for a Russian documentary about Nelepp, opera director Boris Alexandrovich Pokrovsky recalled how the tenor continually asked for even the slightest suggestions to improve his facial expressions, hand gestures, posture and any other conveyance of his character.

However, Nelepp's more complicated interpretation incorporated admirable qualities, conveying, for example, that Gherman gambled to provide for his beloved Lisa.

"[11] However, compared to the marketing of celebrities today, the Bolshoi Theater's promotion of Nelepp was minimal, due in part perhaps to his death at the early age of 53.

[...] Nelepp sings his demanding role with a combination of dramatic intensity, technical ease, and handsome vocal quality that places his Florestan near the very top of the list among recorded interpretations.

His voice is big enough to capture Herman's macabre obsession but he also gives us a rounded character whose noble side, so often neglected by singers, helps explain Lisa's attraction to him.

[10] The same year, at the Kirov, he was the subject of a scholarly lecture in the series “Dazzling Names of the Kirov-Mariinsky Theatre.”[16] The Bolshoi commemoration features recollections from Nelepp's director and friend L. V. Baratov: "When he was singing .