100Singers's video: 100 Singers - BRYN TERFEL

Bryn Terfel, Bass-Baritone (*1965) Richard Wagner: TANNHÄUSER (1845) "O du, mein holder Abendstern" Conducted by James Levine / 1996 My personal opinion: Nowadays it's hard to imagine, but there really was a time when the most important criterion for an operasinger was the voice. Today, in multimedia marketing, a singer has to look good. And if he's not a model type, he must at least be a good actor - or better an extroverted entertainer. Such a type of modern opera singer is the Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, a giant of 7 feet. Early on he attracted attention due to his striking appearance, which conveys the aura of an untamed nature boy: When he sang DON GIOVANNI at the Met in 2000, he played the Spanish nobleman in agreement with director Franco Zeffirelli as a coarse libertine with long greasy hair: Brutal, sweating, uncouth. On another occasion in honor of actress Glenn Close, he entered the stage imitating Michael Jackson's moonwalk. In Chicago, he has cut the throats of his customers as Stephen Sondheim's demon barber SWEENEY TODD. And a presentation of "If I were a rich man" from Bock's FIDDLER ON THE ROOF he turned into a comedy act. In his book about "Neue Sängerstimmen", author Manuel Brug wrote: "Bryn Terfel has that certain something, that magic that an audience falls for. He is a singer, whose performance is still remembered years later down to the smallest detail ..." Whether Terfel's undisguised directness is seen as a pleasant exception is something everyone must decide for himself. Well, you can call me conservative, but as already indicated in the opening of this essay, for me the most important thing of a singer is his voice - especially since on records other talents have no meaning. Bryn Terfel's discography is huge and ranges from Baroque to Mozart to Wagner and beyond to musicals and songs of every kind. It seems there is nothing he hasn't sung. The voice itself is as enormous as the body from which it comes: A quite pleasant bass-baritone with a slightly rough texture. Terfel was able to make this "grainy surface" inaudible in only a few recordings. Some examples: The Handel recital, conducted by Charles Mackerras (1997) became an ambivalent pleasure. Indeed, Terfel strives for pointed expression (admittedly one of his strenghts), but those who know Janet Baker's singing of "Va tacito e nascosto" from GIULIO CESARE will surely find little to like in Terfel's lacklustre performance. Handel wrote the role of Caesar in 1724 for Senesino, a castrato. Bryn Terfel's voice simply does not fit to the French horn accompaniment, which symbolizes Caesar's suspicion towards Tolomeo. In "Ombra mai fu" I miss the elegiac mood that SERSE feels, enjoying the shade of a plane tree. Even with a strong voice you can sing with restraint: The magnificent Dmitri Hvorostovsky (1962-2017), Terfel's friendly rival in the 1989 BBC Cardiff Singer World Competition, proved this several times with his superb renditions of this enchanting Larghetto. Praised as an "operatic marriage in heaven", Bryn Terfel recorded in 1998 with Cecilia Bartoli duets by Mozart, Rossini and Donizetti under Myung-Whun Chung. Acceptable the scenes from LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, in which Terfel's valet strikes a masculine and already rebellious tone ("Se vuol ballare"), although not with the tonal diligence of Cesare Siepi, Walter Berry or Sesto Bruscantini. In "Dunque io son?" from IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA, Bartoli's coloratura skills uncovers the limits of Terfel's technique: He is hopelessly overstrained with the embellishments of the 'canto fiorito'. More recommendable is an aria anthology, spanning from Mozart to Wagner, recorded under Levine (1996). Wonderfully performed Papageno's aria from DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE, which shows that Terfel not only renders the German language almost without accent, but also documents by the emphasis of his accentuation that he knows the meaning of the words. Offenbach's "Scintille" from LES CONTES D'HOFFMANN he sings too hard in my opinion, but crowns it with a radiant E. Also too harsh Méphistophélès' "Vous qui faites l'endormie" from Gounod's FAUST. Both performances lack suppleness. "Ehi! paggio ... L'onore!" from FALSTAFF turns into excessive theatricality. It would have been better, to hear more Verdi and less of Terfel's eccentricity here. That he could do otherwise, shows the warm and almost sensual singing of Wolfram's "O du, mein holder Abendstern" from TANNHÄUSER, for me clearly the highlight of the broad recital. Bryn Terfel's deluxe-voice is not an everyday phenomenon. Sometimes it would have done him good, if he had pulled his vocal reins a little tighter ...