bryn terfel wins over the Philharmonic Hall crowd with his sense of humour

By Catherine Jones on Oct 23, 09 09:31 AM

My week of classical music (Wagner's Siegfried at the Hamburg State Opera on Sunday, La Traviata at the Empire) came to a close last night in the company of one Welshman, a piano and a crowd of 1,600 at the Phil.
Bryn Terfel was back in Liverpool - and in effortlessly fine form as he entertained with a recital evening at Hope Street.

Bryn's father, who retired from farming last week, was in the audience and the singer alternated songs by Ireland, Schubert, Schumann and others with merry banter and anecdotes.
He seemed in such a good mood that when a woman's mobile phone went off (for a long, long time, what on earth are people thinking when they are in a concert hall?) during the middle of one piece, rather than wade into the audience and stamp on it as I would have probably like to have done, he joked instead that at least it was in D minor - the key of the piece it had interrupted.
Anyway, he seemed so delighted with the audience response he asked what we were all doing next month and suggested we should come and see him in his Bad Boys tour in Manchester.
As someone said (well, actually it was me!) under their breath, "why don't you bring it here?".
Still, he's such a genial chap you can't be annoyed at him.
"I want to be artist in residence in this hall," he declared in between his second and third encores.
See my review on the Echo website today:
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-entertainment/echo-entertainment/2009/10/23/review-bryn-terfel-at-the-philharmonic-hall-100252-24995970/