Fashion
Bryn Terfel, Suave and Thundering, Is Back at the Met After 13 Years
The booming bass-baritone stars in Puccini’s “Tosca” after ill-timed injuries kept him away from the Metropolitan Opera, where he was a perennial favorite.
Few operatic cat-and-mouse games are as dramatic as the confrontation in Puccini’s “Tosca” between the innocent title character and Scarpia, the brutal chief of the Roman police.
A pair of Metropolitan Opera stars, the soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and the bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, were rehearsing the work at the Met last week, sharpening the charged interactions that culminate in murder. At one point, Terfel knelt down to retrieve Tosca’s shawl, involuntarily letting out the moan of a man whose knees are not as limber as they once were.
“You’re a couple of years older,” Radvanovsky said with a laugh.
While his voice is still capacious and he still moves with feisty authority, stiff knees notwithstanding, time has indeed marched on for Terfel, who turns 60 in November and has gradually been retiring his signature roles.
These four “Tosca” performances, starting on Thursday, will be his final staged Scarpias. They are also a return to the Met, where he was once a perennial favorite, after injuries and inopportune events kept him away for the past 13 years.
“I’ve been unfortunate, haven’t I?” Terfel said, recalling this series of forced cancellations in an interview at the theater that was a home base for nearly two decades. “I loved this opera house from the day I walked into my audition.”
