VERSATILE SINGER STRETCHES WITH GRACE

Author(s):    Richard Dyer, Globe Staff Date: July 21, 2004 Page: C10 Section: Living

LENOX - There is nothing wrong with the musical world that more artists like Bryn Terfel couldn't cure. He is a singer of universal appeal; his work can touch people who have no knowledge of classical music, yet it can also satisfy the most demanding connoisseur.

The Welsh bass-baritone was a dominant figure at Tanglewood last week, offering both a recital and a glimpse of an operatic role he was born to perform, but hasn't yet: Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet in Wagner's "Die Meistersinger." And he managed to squeeze in some golf, too. Terfel is 39 and has been in no hurry to sing the big Wagner roles. They are dangerous for a young voice, and Sachs presents interpretive challenges to even the most experienced artist. On Saturday night, Terfel offered Sachs's two big monologues (which he has recorded live with Claudio Abbado) and the paean to German art from the opera's end. He has a voice wholly equal to the music, and the right temperament - bluff, warm-hearted, sturdy, sensitive. He also delivers the words as if they mean something to him. There isn't a full range of nuance and detail yet, but the beauty, breadth, power, and security of his voice and his basic instincts were completely compelling.

Conductor Rafael Fruehbeck de Burgos, a "Meistersinger" veteran, conducted Terfel with infinite skill and led a magnificent performance of the overture, sonorous and striding, and an unbearably poignant account of the prelude to the third act. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus unleashed a flood tide in the chorales and contributed high spirits to the festivities at the end.

For his recital earlier in the week, Terfel chose a program mostly in English and (as a smart businessman) mostly music he has recorded - Vaughan Williams's "Songs of Travel," Welsh songs (a couple of them in Welsh), "Danny Boy," some English and American art songs, folk-song settings by Britten and Copland, and three luscious Italian songs by Tosti.

Terfel, generous, turned to sing "All Through the Night" and "The Salley Gardens" to the people seated behind him in Seiji Ozawa Hall; he was vocally present to all. He also insisted that his pianist Malcolm Martineau take a solo bow, which he deserved - his accompaniments were elegant and imaginative, though he made more faces than the singer did.

Terfel delivered everything with absolute honesty and conviction, art songs and sentimental ballads alike, and it was as thrilling to hear him explore a full range of quieter nuances as it was to hear him let fly with his full voice, as he did at encore time in a Cyrano-like tribute to a majestic nose written in the style of Bach by Charles Villiers Stanford. After intermission, some people in the back of the auditorium unfurled a Welsh flag, which obviously pleased Terfel mightily - but he is so rooted and real that he's an artist for all.

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