Terfel, Bryn

▪ 1998

      The recording Something Wonderful, an album of the music of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II as sung by the Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, won accolades from both critics and listeners in 1997. The success of the recording, which included such favourites as "There Is Nothin' like a Dame" and "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top," no doubt won the singer an even wider audience, but it was not news to aficionados of opera and the art song that Terfel was one of the best young singers of the 1990s. With a rich, warm, vibrant voice that was capable of expressive pianissimos as well as roaring fortissimos, he continued to stand out in the world of classical singing.

      Bryn Terfel Jones was born on Nov. 9, 1965, near Pant Glas in North Wales. His parents were cattle and sheep farmers, and his family was a musical one. In school the boy excelled in athletics and sang in choirs. He was trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and by the early 1990s he was already established in a professional career. In 1992 Gramophone magazine named him Young Singer of the Year, and in 1993 Terfel was proclaimed Newcomer of the Year in the International Classical Music Awards.

      Among Terfel's most prominent operatic roles were the title characters in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, both of which he recorded. When he sang Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1994, the New York Times put him on the front page, a rare tribute in the United States for an opera singer. Terfel also became especially identified with the role of Jokanaan in Richard Strauss's Salome, which he performed in productions with a number of companies and recorded twice. He took on roles in Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten and in works by Richard Wagner and others. He was perhaps as well known for lieder and songs and for choral works, however, as for opera. He performed and recorded lieder by Franz Schubert, in addition to Kindertotenlieder by Gustav Mahler. Terfel became especially known for recordings of songs by British compatriots such as Frederick Delius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi, and George Butterworth. He also recorded choral works by George Frideric Handel, Edward Elgar, and John Ireland, among others.

      Standing 1.92 m (6 ft 3 in) tall, Terfel created an imposing and virile presence on both operatic and the concert stages. His ability as a dramatic actor, coupled with a virtuosic command over his dark, resonant voice, made him one of the most highly sought-after of modern singers.

ROBERT RAUCH

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