May 19, 1996

By Verena Dobnik, Associated Press writer

A Welshman who calls singing his "hobby," Bryn Terfel proves pleasure is a potent fuel -- with an album showcasing his voice as one of today's best. "But singing isn't everything to me. I have other priorities, like my family, my wife, my son, my friends," said the bass-baritone after rehearsing for a televised spring gala marking conductor James Levine's 25 years at the Metropolitan Opera. For Mr. Terfel's new solo album, "Opera Arias," Mr. Levine conducts the Met orchestra, which many critics consider opera's top ensemble.

It's a winning team: the 52-year-old Cincinnati-born maestro and the 30-year-old singer from a Welsh village he describes as "five houses and a church." In just the past few years, Mr. Terfel's voice has reached the world. And he's quickly becoming a superstar who will take classical singing into the next century. His repertoire ranges from Mozart and Rossini to Wagner and Verdi, all sang superbly well. It's a rare feat in a field whose cliche is that a "Mozartean" voice is too light to sing Wagner, and the latter so heavy that it can "ruin" the vocal chords for Mozart. Thanks to a virtuoso technique, Mr. Terfel switches from a featherlight, silky tone that caresses Mozart's lacework to a muscular, warm sound he pours into Wagner's massive roles. And even when hitting a Wagnerian climax, it's clear he still has reserves of power, if needed. He shrugs off his repertoire range as normal, saying that "it's nice to see a broad selection, you know, to go from Donizetti to Rossini to Wagner to Verdi..." -- and rolling off the Italian and German names as if he were born to the languages. "Perhaps I'm a freak! I don't know!" he added, but "it's perfect -- it's like going from building houses to building a watch."

The source of this versatility is surprising. When asked what the centuries-old tradition of Welsh singing had taught him for his career, he said, "Oh, all of it comes from that." To appreciate the artistic finesse, it's enough to hear just one note of a Verdi aria -- sung with a mellifluous tone that starts almost inaudibly and passes through a palette of vocal colors before reaching its dynamic peak. And that's just one note. Then there's the boisterous laughter that punctuates Mephistopheles' aria from Gounod's Faust. Imagine a hearty Welshman telling off-color jokes in a pub -- which the tall bear of a singer has no trouble doing in real life.

"I was given this gift of a voice by somebody, and of course, I do not take it for granted. But it's not the be-all and end-all of my life," he said. "Singing is something that I enjoy, it's a hobby, and I make a living out of it." The easy manner belies Mr. Terfel's meteoric rise: His second solo album was nominated for a Grammy this year as best classical vocal performance, his latest recording is on the Billboard chart of top-selling albums and his 1994 Met debut was heralded on the front page of The New York Times. It's a career in high gear, but Mr. Terfel dismisses the pressures. "There's nothing difficult in it," he said. "If you feel OK, if you feel 100 percent, vocally, mentally, healthwise -- there's nothing to stop you." He did have to stop singing for several months last year when a bad back forced him off the stage. But after treatment and shedding some pounds off his big frame, he was back, prancing around the stage with a dramatic grace that matches the vocal one. The only other bass-baritone today who may be equally impressive is the American James Morris. There are few flaws on Mr. Terfel's new recording, the most obvious being a too wide vibrato on some very high notes sung full-force. And the agile Met orchestra under Mr. Levine plays with a gung-ho energy that at moments overpowers Mozart's gentler 18th century music -- perhaps a sign of our more aggressive time. But these are small weaknesses in what can honestly be called, in this case, grand opera.