Review: Bryn Terfel at Auckland Town Hall

Bryn Terfel. Photo / Supplied

Bryn Terfel has mastered the art of the casual, strolling on stage, camera in hand, videoing us as part of a supposed documentary about the town halls of New Zealand and then going on to punctuate the evening with progress updates from Westpac Stadium right through to the All Blacks' 14-10 victory.

The Welsh baritone told us how his teacher stressed the importance of words and colour for a singer, and that was the key to the success of Terfel's first set of John Masefield songs.

We could almost visualise that grey dawn breaking in John Ireland's Sea Fever and cringed at the "squeaking fiddle" in Frederick Keel's Trade Winds. This singer is a master of the hearty, as in the pattering hornpipe of Warlock's Captain Stratton's Fancy, but Terfel can also float an almost whispered line to the back of the auditorium - he did just this, pondering "I wish as I was there" in the first of Keel's settings.

Four songs by Roger Quilter revealed Terfel's artistry at its most refined, above all in the emotional restraint of Weep You No More, Sad Fountains.

Terfel may be self-effacing about his abilities as a Lieder singer but no apologies were needed for the shrewd characterisation of Schumann's battle-weary two grenadiers or the leisurely river cruise of Schubert's Auf dem Wasser zu Singen, in melodious duet with Terence Dennis's piano.

The final third of the concert was frankly populist, including the predictable rove-and-flirt with the Serenade from Don Giovanni.

Audience participation was demanded for some of the Celtic favourites and we responded with quite remarkable fervour.

A casual coup de concert had revealed New Zealanders genuinely starved for the experience of lifting their voices together in communal song.