The loneliest opera singer

Bryn Terfel is paying a steep price for becoming the world’s most in-demand baritone, said Helena de Bertodano in The Sunday Telegraph (U.K.). The 47-year-old Welshman’s schedule is booked solid for the next five years, and he spends most of his life on the road. As a result of his impossible schedule, his marriage crumbled. He doesn’t blame his ex, Lesley—the mother of his three children. “She can do nothing wrong in my eyes, my beautiful ex-wife,” says the singer. “We were together for over 30 years. I would never be where I am if it wasn’t for her.” He knows he wasn’t the best of husbands. “There were times I was away for birthdays, marriages, funerals.” Terfel even missed the births of two of his sons. “You can’t have that back.” The problem, he says, is that the job offers are just too tempting. Only the other day, the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev asked Terfel to sing in his production of the Puccini opera Tosca. “I’m thinking, ‘Okay, Gergiev is ringing me and he’s asking me to go to Russia.’ It was at a time when I was meant to be at home with my boys, so I had to ask them, and of course they will never say, ‘We don’t want you to do that.’ So they said, ‘Yes.’”

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