Word: terfel
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Lascivious, preposterous, acutely human: that's Shakespeare's fat knight, set to music by Verdi. Now Bryn Terfel, Wales' contribution to the gaiety of nations, has put the best of all possible comic operas on record, igniting every line with his sly wit and redwood-sized bass-baritone voice. Don't throw away your old Toscanini album--Claudio Abbado's conducting is sometimes a bit fussy--but Terfel is as fine a Falstaff as has ever lived, and Thomas Hampson is splendid as Ford, the hypersuspicious husband whom Sir John longs to cuckold. If current events are weighing you down...
...those who prefer their music sans message needn't feel left out. Michael Tilson Thomas, the Great American Conductor, celebrates the centenary of the Great American Composer by leading the San Francisco Symphony in Aaron Copland's electrifying Symphony No. 3 (Sept. 27-28). Cecilia Bartoli and Bryn Terfel, the hottest tickets of the post-Pavarotti era, join forces for a gala concert at New York City's Metropolitan Opera House (Oct. 29). Ace countertenor David Daniels, opera's freshest star, makes his triumphant return to the New York City Opera in a new production of Handel's Rinaldo...
...really big male opera singer may not be a tenor. Ask Joseph Volpe, the Met's general manager, what he is planning to do when Pavarotti and Domingo are no longer available to open the season, and the first name he mentions is that of Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel. "At some point," he confides, "we're going to open with a Don Giovanni starring Bryn." No, Terfel can't sing a high C, but Volpe is betting that won't matter. "Bryn's the one who has all of the goods," he says. "He's the natural successor...
Whatever the alchemy that makes a star of a fine singer, Terfel has it. All his Metropolitan Opera performances this fall in the title role of The Marriage of Figaro and as Leporello in Don Giovanni "went clean" -- theatrical slang for sold out -- before the first curtain went up, and there were scuffles in the line for tickets to his New York City lieder recital last month. Onstage his presence is riveting. Both Figaro and Leporello are servants, but there is no trace of the oaf or the buffoon in Terfel's portrayals. In both parts he can be physically...
Directors love working with Terfel. Luc Bondy, who directed him as Jochanaan in an acclaimed Salome in Salzburg two years ago, recalls, "Our first meeting was funny. He was so young and so big. I thought, 'This big, big baby could be my son."' Bondy learned that Terfel "is not a guy who is pretentious and insists on his own way." On Terfel's wish list are parts like Falstaff, Nick Shadow in The Rake's Progress and Escamillo in Carmen. His first Wagner, probably at the Met, will be the comparatively light role of Wolfram in Tannhauser, with...