Bryn Terfel: From Elvis to Wagner

By PETER HUCK

When Bryn Terfel saunters through the stage door of the San Francisco Operahouse, the Welsh bass-baritone is wearing shorts, sandals and an Elvis T-shirt.

Just back from a trip to Lake Tahoe with his family, the 1.9m singer looks the picture of carefree contentment. And well he might.

Blessed with a spectacular voice, able to swell effortlessly from a silky whisper to a titanic fortissimo, in today's opera firmament Terfel is the brightest star since the Three Tenors, a phenomenon whose records outsell every other classical artist except Cecilia Bartoli.

Little wonder that he was recently crowned honorary king of a small island off the north coast of Wales near his Snowdonia home. For even by Terfel's standards as an international star it's been a heady year. Over the past 12 months he has performed the title role in Falstaff on the opening night at Covent Garden's revamped Royal Opera House, been voted best male artist in the Classical Brit Awards, and sung the Rugby World Cup's theme song with Shirley Bassey in Cardiff.

In June he was playing Nick Shadow in the San Francisco Opera's production of The Rake's Progress. This month Terfel makes his New Zealand debut in Auckland on July 19, singing Celtic songs and material by Schubert, Schumann, Ibert and Butterworth, followed by an appearance in Wellington on July 22. He will be accompanied on piano by Malcolm Martineau, who appeared with Terfel on his 1999 Australian tour.

The San Francisco production marks Terfel's return to work after a two-month lay-off and an operation for a recurring back problem, an injury that dates from a dress rehearsal for Don Giovanni six years ago at the New York Metropolitan Opera. "When I was taking my socks off something happened," he says in a mellifluous Welsh-accented voice that hints at the majesty of his bass-baritone. "I couldn't walk for the rest of the day."

Oddly, the present injury stems from another appearance at the Met. The curse of the Metropolitan. "Yes, I do feel that," he laughs. "I'll approach the Met with trepidation next time. I'd always been told after the first operation that it could
happen again. One of the biggest stresses on the body in opera is when you perform on raked stages. So I made sure there wasn't a raked stage in San Francisco for The Rake's Progress."

Still, back problems aside, New York has been kind to Terfel. His 1994 Metropolitan debut in the title role of Le Nozze di Figaro was a triumph. He even made the front page of the New York Times, the first artist to be honoured this way since Vladimir Horowitz made his comeback 20 years previously. Yet, whereas Horowitz seemed destined to play piano from infancy, Terfel heard his first opera, a recording of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, at school in his sixth-form year. "I didn't really enjoy it. I was more interested in people like this," he laughs, pointing to his T-shirt Elvis.

He grew up on a farm near Pant Glas, a hamlet in North Wales, and says regular visits home with his wife Lesley and two young boys keep him grounded. "If I was la-de-da and showed off the locals would slap me down straight away."

In a nation where singing is a birthright — 72,000 Welsh rugby fans roared along with Terfel at Cardiff — and in a home that embraced music [his parents sang in choirs; his brother played guitar] he began competing at festivals as a boy, singing Welsh folk songs.

The Cerdd Dant tradition — singing songs to a harp accompaniment — and the seven vowels used in Welsh stress clear enunciation, a quality Terfel is justly famous for. "Definitely, from a very young age, I had specific rules in my head from Cerdd Dant," he says. "I had to sing in a certain way, that emphasised how words were coloured. It also taught me that poetry comes before the song, before the melody and the performance."

In 1984 Terfel started a five-year course at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Coached by Arthur Reckless, the grand old man of English song, he learnt three to five songs a week — gems that garnish his vast recital repertoire. Reckless had taught Sir Geraint Evans, the notable Welsh baritone. "I think they saw that connection," says Terfel. "My bass-baritone hadn't developed then. And I wasn't sure where I was going."

Three years of English songs left Terfel with itchy feet. "I knew my voice was developing and that I had to move on. And that I was good. Arthur always sang with me. He would say, 'I have to put cotton wool around your voice. It's like an egg. I need to look after you. So don't sing in opera."'

Finally, Terfel made the break. "I know it sounds cruel, but I took in a French song and sang it in gobbledegook. Arthur wasn't interested in French or German songs. He
didn't pick up my mistakes. I left in tears."

Under the tuition of Rudolf Piernay, one of the Guildhall's most sought after teachers, Terfel discovered lieder and honed his technique. When he won the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Scholarship in 1988, Terfel sank his £5000 prize into an opera course. A year later he won the Lieder Prize at the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition and was invited to join the Welsh National Opera, making his debut as Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte.

He never looked back. During the 1990s Terfel was recognised as a superb bass-baritone, praised for his power, range and diction. Audiences and critics were deligh-ted by his magnetism on stage. He is one of those nimble giants — Gerard Depardieu comes to mind — whose bulk is tempered by sensi-tivity. Terfel signed a contract with Deutsche Grammophon — a label which makes careers — sang at the world's premier opera houses, recorded Mozart, Verdi, Rossini, Strauss, Puccini, Mahler, Wagner, Prokofiev and Schubert and made roles like Don Giovanni, Figaro and Falstaff his own.

Like Pavarotti, Terfel — dubbed Taffyrotti by American fans — has become a popular star, whose repertoire includes Rodgers and Hammerstein. "Aficionados might think opera singers shouldn't do this," he says when I raise the issue of cross-over albums. "But if popular and opera singers discuss a piece of music, I think they would come to exactly the same conclusions about problems like phrasing and breathing that are difficult."

He segues into Sweeney Todd, which he is scheduled to perform in Chicago in 2002, singing snatches of song. "I think Sweeney Todd is definitely operatic. It needs a dark voice that has a huge range from a bottom F up to a top C. Come on ... that's one hell of a range. It's there for us to perform. Why make a difference between who should sing it?"

Does he think he's reached some kind of professional plateau after a decade of triumphs? "Definitely. I've done good work and created interest in opera houses. Now they call and ask what I'd like to do."

So when will he tackle the great Wagnerian roles many think he's destined to sing? "Well, I'm talking with Australia now about Die Meistersinger [tentatively set for 2003 at the Sydney Opera House; it will be Terfel's first major Wagner production]. And over the next five years opera houses will be looking for new productions of The Ring. So I think that could be my time to step in."

He insists that until now he
hasn't been ready for Wagner. "When you start you're given roles in the Mozart repertoire. They fill the next 10 years, along with things like The Rake's Progress. But never Wagner."

Well, the 10 years are up. And it looks like the prospect of retirement, has receded. Meanwhile, he's looking forward to New Zealand, not least because he's a wine buff, who has performed in California's Napa Valley and at Western Australia's Leeuwin Estate Winery. He will also sing The World in Union, his Cardiff turn, with Brook McClymont at Sydney's Bledisloe Cup rugby match between New Zealand and Australia.

Our interview over, Terfel walks me to the stage door, pausing en route to show me David Hockney's sets for The Rake's Progress.

"I'll tell you a story," he says. "A few weeks after I first came up to Guildhall, Radio Wales asked me to attend the stage debut of Otello with Placido Domingo and Katia Ricciarelli at Covent Garden. They said, 'We want you to listen to this opera. Then phone us tomorrow and talk about it'."

It was Terfel's first visit to Covent Garden, the opera house he now regards as home. He was smitten. "It wasn't love, it was lust at first sight. I was sitting on the edge of my chair, nudging people. Of course, I gave it a glowing review. And I knew it was something I wanted to be part of." He pauses, smiling at the memory. "And, now, I am. I've sung with the people who sang that night. I was always grateful to Radio Wales. Wales looks after her singers."