On the Road: Bryn Terfel
Louise Flind
Is there anything you can’t leave home without? For the first 15 years of my career, my golf clubs. Then I lost three sets.
Is there something you really miss? The three sets of golf clubs because I felt I was playing the best golf ever.
Do you travel light? With the family there’s absolutely no way, but by myself I’m a very light traveller.
What’s your favourite destination? Australia, which I associate with golf, wine and culinary experiences.
And your earliest childhood holiday memories? I was born on a farm in North Wales, and holidays were rare within agriculture. My first recollection of going abroad with my parents is of a trip to Menorca in late October and the weather was terrible.
What has been the effect of coronavirus on your schedule? The virus puts everything into perspective and I don’t see myself singing now until after Christmas. So I’m in the same boat as everybody, worrying about the next tax bill that’s coming, and I can’t see my next pay cheque. I might have to start singing on the street…
You spend a lot of time in America. Where? Chicago – and the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, especially, for my kind of warbling…
Do you normally travel as a family? Whenever I’m travelling the world, the boys do come and visit. I did a recital in Bordeaux and we had lunch in the Mouton Rothschild winery which was absolutely amazing.
How do you look after your voice when travelling? Usually when you arrive, opera houses think you’re ready to work the next day.
So I tend not to sleep on aeroplanes. I keep off the champagne and wine. I’m not one who worries about the voice, or getting a cold.
What’s your favourite opera house? I have to be very careful here. The Welsh National Opera would undoubtedly be my favourite place to perform at home – and I can read my daughter a story before she goes to bed. But my favourite of all is the Royal Opera House, and I do constantly ask my agent what I’m next singing there.
Your favourite concert hall? The Seiji Ozawa Hall in Tanglewood.
Your favourite composer? That’s a very cheeky question. In the lockdown, I started looking at Schubert’s Winterreise – listening to Hans Hotter while doing my 50 minutes of walking. I hope that by the end of this period I’ll have learnt it.
Your favourite part of Wales? The Llŷn Peninsula has a special connection because I’m from that area.
Why does Wales produce so many singers? Most probably because of the language – we have seven vowels, tremendous history in hymn-writing, congregational singing, brass bands, male voice choirs, female choirs. It’s one of the reasons I started singing; my parents loved to sing.
Where did you go on your honeymoon? We went to this beautiful hotel in Canyamel, Mallorca.
Are you brave with different food abroad? Not as brave as Hannah, my wife – in Japan, she was eating fishes’ eyes. But I do like the food of different countries.
The strangest thing you’ve ever eaten? In Vancouver, in a Chinese restaurant – chicken feet.
Your best experience in a restaurant when abroad? In Chicago in the late ’90s, Renée Fleming and I were singing in The Marriage of Figaro and we were invited to Charlie Trotter’s restaurant – the most amazing culinary experience.
Do you have a go at the local language? We speak Welsh and English, and I speak operatic German and Italian, which tends to lead one into rather useless conversations.
Biggest headache? Smoking – even though I enjoy a cigar now and then. Some of the best operatic singers in the world have smoked, such as Luciano Pavarotti and Dietrich
Fischer-dieskau.
What is the strangest place you’ve ever slept in – while being away? I did a Schubert song cycle on Bardsey Island and we stayed in an old Victorian house with toilets at the end of the garden. I was once asked to be King of Bardsey Island. It was between me, Prince Charles and Tom Jones.
Do you like coming home? When I see ‘Welcome to Wales’, I miss a beat.
Top travelling tips? I’ve lost my passport a couple of times when it was in my luggage, so I’d say: have your passport on your person.
Is there anything you’d like to plug? Absolutely nothing – except, because we’re all in the coronavirus at the moment, the people in the front line. I have huge admiration for them.