Interview: Bryn Terfel - That's baritonement

Published on Wednesday 19 August 2009 14:47

Trailing in the wake of Bryn Terfel as we wind our way through the bowels of the Royal Opera House is like walking behind a consummate politician. He has a word for everyone. "When are we getting to see your wife again?" asks the doorman. "How are the kids?" asks a woman in the wig room as we pass. There's chat about the news, the weather, and other small talk. By the time we get to his dressing room, a large, oddly clinical space, empty except for a piano and his costume han

Terfel is the opera singer who revels in duets with pop stars, the Wagnerian who'd rather talk about golf, the international star who loves nowhere more than home. As it turns out, he's a 6ft 4in walking contradiction. On the one hand there's the comfortable, cosy image, like the knitted jumper he's wearing on the cover of his latest CD, Songs from the British Isles. He's just Bryn. A gentle giant with a Desperate Dan chin and a glorious bass baritone voice that's as warming as a hot-toddy. If the world of crossover needed a mascot, a cuddly, over-sized emblem, that would be Bryn.

But on the other hand he's an acclaimed opera star with a back catalogue of respected operatic recordings, not to mention a couple of Grammys, to his name. In his early career, the farmer's son from Pantglas in North Wales made Mozart his own, before singing his way through Donizetti and Verdi (by way of a little Sondheim and Rodgers & Hammerstein) to find himself, at 43, ripe and ready for the mighty Wagner.

We're meeting at the Royal Opera House where in a couple of hours Terfel will take to the stage as Puccini's dastardly Scarpia, a man he describes as "a connoisseur of wine, pain and one woman", the opera's doomed heroine, Tosca. When he arrives at the stage door out of the crush of Covent Garden he looks more like a tourist who's escaped from a reluctant shopping trip, wearing an All Blacks rugby top and jeans, his book (The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale if you want to know) in his hand.

Terfel's already delivered two performances, with two different Toscas, and he's enjoying himself. He's done the production before, so it came back quickly he says, but the singing is still demanding.

"You really have to put it back into your voice," he says in a soft, surprisingly high, speaking voice. "I've been working hard on this return to Scarpia. It's a role I'm a little bit suspect of (sic]. It's difficult vocally. You have to really buckle down, be regimental in a way, and get it back into the voice. You have to work again on the Italian. It's the kind of language that you forget endings and the little things."

Terfel's sing-song speaking voice sounds lackadaisical, or maybe that's just the noise you get when you have to control the flow of air from an enormous barrel chest. It's at odds with the bulk of the man, somehow. He's ponderous too, as though he's really thinking about his answers and although that's usually a good thing in an interview sometimes with Terfel it's as though he's a little bored. I expected bombast and exuberance – the traits that go with that wonderful booming voice – and instead there's a trace of something much more subdued. And then he'll say something out of the blue.

"I was in Cardiff yesterday getting an Honorary Fellowship from the University," he says unprompted. I congratulate him.

"Yeah, yeah," he says, his voice getting higher and higher. "I'm not sure what it means, picking up these accolades. At the moment I've got A, Aberystwyth, B, Bangor, C, Cardiff so D, E, Durham, Edinburgh maybe...."

The university asked Terfel to address the graduation ceremony so he used a quote attributed to Oscar Wilde, telling them: "I'm very easily pleased – only the best will do". The quote is actually "I have but the simplest taste – I am always satisfied with the best." Either way, the message is clear.

"My singing teacher (Rudolph Piernay at Guildhall] gave that to me. He said being the best is something that you should achieve. From day one for me that was about turning up on time, looking presentable, knowing my work, being a good colleague and trying to be my best on stage. I've tried to keep those five rules and they still seem to be working for me because I'm getting work, I'm getting asked back to opera houses. I think my singing teacher was spot on."

Terfel is asked to sing all over the world, but he's no longer saying yes to all of those invitations. He's cut down – he'll no longer be singing in Salzburg or Chicago – to spend more time at home in North Wales with his wife, Lesley and his three sons, Tomos, 14, Morgan, ten, and Deio Sion, eight. The catalyst for this decision to slow the pace came in 2007. It was as painful as it was decisive and it's most likely the reason that journalists are treated with courtesy rather than anything more.

When Terfel pulled out of his first appearance as Wotan in the complete Ring Cycle at Covent Garden citing family reasons – the youngest of his three sons, Deio Sion, had badly broken his finger – he received a vicious mauling at the hands of a number of opera critics. There was also a tersely worded letter from the Royal Opera House, but it was the critics who got hysterical. There was talk of reputations damaged and professional trust broken, perhaps irrevocably. The fact that Terfel and I are sitting in the same opera house that issued the statement shows that it was all a bit of a storm in a teacup. But the impact has been lasting.

Until 2007, Terfel had lived the life of a top-flight opera singer since he made his debut, at 24, in Cosi Fan Tutti under Sir Charles Mackerras. He travelled all over the world, staying away for months at a time or crossed the Atlantic easily three or four times a year. It sounds glamorous, but there was a downside. Terfel was away from his wife and young family – he missed the births of two of his sons because he was committed to productions abroad. He's talked in the past about not having had the courage to say no to demands he felt were unreasonable, the experience of 2007 gave him that.

It's no secret that Terfel's wife, Lesley, isn't keen about the opera business ("No, she's not," he says simply when I ask him for confirmation) but I wonder after 2007 how Terfel feels about it?

"I absolutely adore what I do," he says. "It's given me my lifestyle, the pleasure of working with some fantastic people. But my wife has got the other side of the coin – she looks after our three boys which is much harder than what I do. And my business takes me away from them which she doesn't like.

"It got to a kind of denouement in 2007 that enough was enough and perhaps someone else should get the benefits of me being at home. It was not just the fact that Deio Sion was having three operations (to reset his finger] but that there were two other boys to look after. Their lives don't stop and they've got a monumental task every week from swimming to choir to karate, football, you name it."

It's a reasonable answer, so I start to ask another question but he's not finished. I'm half way through when he interrupts, looping back as though he's just remembered the sting of the criticism.

"So yes, that's the end of the question. She does hate what I do but she does see the benefits of it as well."

His decision may not have enamoured the opera world but it's no surprise that asked to choose between work and family, Terfel chose the latter. His sons obviously mean the world to him, he's at his most animated when he's talking about them. His eldest son is in a choir that appeared in Last Choir Standing and the others sing too. I wonder how he'd feel about them following in his footsteps?

"Great. Fantastic. Brilliant," he says. "Tomos is enjoying the choir. It's not just about the singing, it's about the socialising, the friends. That programme (Last Choir Standing] has brought back so many interesting facets of choral music. Only Men Aloud are selling out shows in the West End."

And with that we get to the other bone of contention between Terfel and his critics – populism. It seems to irk more than a few opera buffs that Terfel can turn his hand to the best that the operatic repertoire can throw at him while remaining determinedly, decidedly, mainstream. One critic went so far as to describe the singer's penchant for what is popular as his "Achilles heel". I tell him this and it's met with a wry laugh which betrays no sign of amusement. Finally he says, very quietly, "No, it's not."

"You have to put your entrepreneurial hat on. Celtic songs are going to sell more than Schubert songs so which one are you going to repeat? It's a one-horse race really."

You can see his point, but with Terfel it's not just a business decision, it's an aesthetic one too.

"Look at Rhydian (from X Factor]," he says. "He's the real deal: he's got a good voice, his feet are planted well on the floor, he looks after himself. Obviously he'll still be in the grasp of the Cowell engine but you've got to live with that.

"I was in Munich doing The Flying Dutchman recently. There I was in an opera house selling what, 3,000 or 4,000 tickets and Paul Potts was in the city's Olympic Stadium selling maybe 15,000 tickets because the Nessun Dorma that he did was used in an advert for the mobile phone network in Germany."

How does that make him feel, I ask, imagining that it might be just a little bit irritating to be outsold by a former manager of Carphone Warehouse.

"I think it's fine," he says. "It's like me recording a Rodgers and Hammerstein disc. Paul really got into the imagination and hearts of people so he's on a lovely bandwagon at the moment and he's going to enjoy the fruits of that."

But isn't it dumbing down? The diminution of high art into commercial crud? Terfel is defiantly optimistic.

"I think we're in a great operatic world at the moment, I don't know why people don't mention this. We've had our three tenors, Domingo, Carreras, Pavarotti. Now we've got Juan Diego Flres, Jonas Kaufmann, Marcello Alvarez. It's an exciting period now. All the voices: (Angela] Gheorghiu, (Rene] Fleming, (Elina] Garanca..."

You could easily add Terfel's name. He can happily stand shoulder to shoulder with these singers, even if he does like Rhydian. He's already signed up to do a highly anticipated Robert Lepage production of the Ring Cycle at the Met in New York beginning in 2010. He must be excited.

"It means I'll miss the Ryder Cup in Wales, sadly," he says and I laugh, thinking it's a joke. He doesn't even flicker a smile. It's a fittingly awkward moment for me to leave Terfel to get ready for the evening's performance. He's not sure which Tosca he'll be terrorising because Angela Gheorghiu has been feeling a little unwell but he seems completely unperturbed by it. Outside, Covent Garden is thronged with tourists and street performers – a riotous mishmash completely at odds with the cool, quiet dressing room.

When did you hear your first opera I ask as I pack my bag under the watchful eye of the woman from the press office who will escort me from the building.

"I was asked by BBC Wales to be a crit for a radio programme on Otello that came here to the Royal Opera House. That was my first experience. It was like big match striking, not a Eureka moment but the lighting of a fire. Woah, is this really what it could be like on that stage? I gave them a glowing review."

Bryn Terfel, accompanied by Malcolm Martineau on piano, at the Usher Hall, tomorrow at 8pm is sold out. The concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Lunchtime Concerts programme at 1pm, 2 September.