Charles’s harpist,27 leaves husband for opera star Bryn,48
BRITAIN’S biggest opera star, Bryn Terfel, is dating a married blonde virtuoso 20 years his junior.
The Welsh bass-baritone is said to be on holiday in Spain with 27-yearold Hannah Stone, the Prince of Wales’s official harpist.
Friends have told The Mail on Sunday that the couple are ‘very happy’ and planning a future together after they were spotted attending each other’s concerts and the relationship became known in classical music circles.
Ms Stone is understood to have separated from her husband of two years, Gary Griffiths, a young Welsh singer, ironically dubbed ‘the next Bryn Terfel’.
A source close to the harpist said: ‘Yes, they are seeing each other. Hannah’s in Spain with him [Terfel] at the moment.’
The millionaire star, 48, who tours the world performing repertoire
‘It’s no great secret – they are a couple’
from Wagner to Rogers and Hammerstein, divorced his wife of 30 years in 2012 after she left him for a younger man.
But he is thought to have become close to Ms Stone after the pair performed together and she featured in a TV special hosted by Mr Terfel last Christmas. Last month he was seen with Ms Stone at the Fishguard Music Festival in South Wales, where she was performing.
Fan Trevor McCrory tweeted a picture of Mr Terfel helping her load her harp into the back of a car after the concert was over, and another of the couple saying goodbye to friends as they left the event together.
When The Mail on Sunday suggested to Ms Stone’s friend and booking agent Gillian Green that the couple were not making a secret of the affair, she said: ‘Yes, I have spent an afternoon with them. Bryn was not playing at the concert, but he came along to it.’
Fishguard Festival manager Geraint Hodges said: ‘It’s not any great secret in music circles that they are a couple.’
Ms Stones, from Mumbles, South Wales, was appointed by Prince Charles in 2011 and regularly performs for royalty and at other high-profile occasions.
She married Mr Griffiths in 2012, and until recently they seemed happy. Last October she tweeted: ‘Really enjoyed Mid Wales Opera’s Albert Herring!! Me and @GaryGriffiths chuckled all the way through it!’
Two months later she re-tweeted a message from her publicity agent, Harlequin – which also represents Mr Terfel – that she was to appear on a Christmas special with the star. Then just a few days before the show, Mr Terfel tweeted a picture showing Ms Stone gazing into her dressing room mirror, saying: ‘Hannah Stone, our beautiful royal harpist, getting ready for her solo.’
Mr Griffiths, a baritone who last week was performing in Cardiff at the UEFA Super Cup Final, has made no mention of the split from his wife on his Twitter account, but he has left the marital home, a luxury flat in the Cardiff bay area of the city.
When The Mail on Sunday approached Mr Griffith’s father, Trevor, at the family home near Llanelli, South Wales, he said: ‘It’s rather personal and I would prefer to make no comment whatsoever.’
Mr Terfel divorced his wife of 25 years, Lesley, 48, in 2012 after she left him for an unemployed father of one, Ian Pleming, 27. The settlement reportedly cost him £8million.
Terfel and Stone’s agent was unavailable for comment.