THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW
Bryn Terfel As he prepares to embark on a month-long tour of the UK, the great bass-baritone reflects with Tom Service on his distinguished career to date, and on his Welsh heritage
As for every musician, it’s been a rollercoaster last couple of years for Sir Bryn Terfel. I’m speaking to him during a run of performances as Balstrode in Britten’s Peter Grimes at Covent Garden, in which he was a standout star turn; and it’s just a few weeks after he received one of the awards that means the most to him even in his glittering career, after singing the same role at the Vienna Staatsoper. He was made an Austrian Kammersänger, effectively a Mastersinger of Austria, and he’s still glowing with pride.
After three decades walking the corridors of Vienna’s opera house, looking at photographs of previous winners, he knew there was only one person he could call first: Gwyneth Jones, another Welsh Kammersängerin. ‘She said to me, “Wie geht’s?, Bore da!” – all the languages come out in her greeting. I said, “Hopefully I’ll be rubbing shoulders with you on the walls in Vienna”. She congratulated me and then said, “But have you been given the one in Munich?” – Gwyneth Jones is also a Kammersängerin of Bavaria – “No I haven’t,” I said. “Sorry. Fail!”’
It’s a revealing story, because Terfel is so aware of his lineage in the traditions of Welsh singing and his proud status as a Welshman on international stages. He didn’t get to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff for the Six Nations this spring, but has an answer as to why his boys lost to Italy in the last match of the competition: ‘They gave the plaudits to Alun Wyn Jones and Dan Biggar before the game’ – they received their 150th and 100th caps for the team – ‘which to me didn’t make any sense at all. Give them their applause after the game: I received the Kammersänger on stage in Vienna after the performance.’ Photos show his unalloyed joy, still in his make-up; a joy not shared by Wyn Jones or Biggar after losing the Italy game.
But the connection between Bryn Terfel and the Welsh Rugby Union goes deeper even than potentially match-winning advice. In January 2020, singing in Bilbao as the first mutterings of strange flu-like symptoms began to emerge, Terfel was on his way to the chiropractor. Instead, he slipped in the rain, breaking his leg in three places. ‘I rang Gareth Davies with the Welsh rugby team and asked who they use for the boys when they break their bones.’ An operation wi
