Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel makes Houston stop on six-city North America tour
With just a couple of sentences, opera star Bryn Terfel manages to combine his operatic career with his attachment to Wales — and also his love of golf.
“I’ve just bought a house in South Wales, in a sleepy town called Penarth,” he says, in his sonorous baritone voice. “It’s just a driver, a three-wood and a pitching wedge from the opera house in Cardiff.”
There’s a down-to-earth directness about Terfel, who grew up tending sheep, playing rugby and singing the folk songs of his native Wales. Welsh was his first language, and his English bears the lilt of his native tongue.
“My name is pronounced Ter-vel,” he politely points out. “In Welsh, an F is like a V.”
This farmer’s son from a remote village has since scaled the heights of the opera world. In the 1990s, he cut his teeth on Mozart’s operas, appearing in productions in London, Vienna, Paris and New York. In recent years, he’s been singing heavier roles, with his most recent success in the title role of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov,” at London’s Covent Garden opera last month.
It’s been more than a decade since Terfel has sung in Houston, his last appearance in Giuseppe Verdi’s “Falstaff” with the Houston Grand Opera in 2005.
Currently on a six-city tour of North America, Terfel will appear at the University of Houston Monday evening to give a public talk at Moores Opera House. The following evening he’ll sing a recital at Moores, with pianist Natalia Katyukova. The program includes classical songs and arias in English, French, German and Italian as well as folk songs from his homeland.
“I turned 50 last December,” Terfel says. “The goal I set for myself for the year was to do some interesting projects. My return to America, for this recital tour, is one of these projects.”
Other “interesting projects” this year have included a 50th birthday concert in Monaco, appearances in “Sweeney Todd” at the English National Opera, and a big concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall, where guest-artists included the rock star Sting.
“I sang at Sting’s 60th birthday in New York,” Terfel says, “and he returned the favor and sang a couple of songs for my birthday.”
Terfel is booked solid for the next three years. But he isn’t feeling overwhelmed by the demands of his busy career.
“I have many feathers in my cap,” he says. “It’s not just about opera, but also concerts and recitals, studio work and radio work. Whenever I meet with my manager, she always has a pile of work I could take on — and some things are irresistible. I think I could even take on more than I do.”
Yet Terfel acknowledges that he sometimes arranges his working schedule around sports events he wants to attend, such as the Wimbledon tennis championships.
He also likes to lend his time, his name and even his money to charities. Terfel has supported homeless shelters, dementia care and an air-ambulance service in Wales. There’s also the Bryn Terfel Foundation, which he maintains in support of Welsh arts and culture.
In the past few years, the singer’s personal life has grown complicated. In 2013, he separated from his wife of more than 30 years. (She is reported to have won a nearly $12 million settlement in the divorce.)
Now he’s dating the Welsh harpist Hannah Stone, formerly the royal harpist to Prince Charles.
So are there any plans for Stone to move into Terfel’s new house in Penarth? On this question, Terfel is coy.
“I wouldn’t want to see that in a newspaper, and then she says, ‘No.’ So I’d better not answer that one. But maybe — if I play my cards right.”