Bryn Terfel’s Christmas and New Year Tour
Swansea Arena

BASS BARITONE Bryn Terfel made a triumphant return to Swansea’s Arena covering Christmas and operatic favourites.

Welsh-speaking Terfel was joined by show-stealing soprano Pumeza Matshikiza from South Africa. Musical accompaniment was provided by what Terfel called his early Christmas present, the renowned Welsh National Opera orchestra.

In one of the biggest cheers of the night the audience was invited to support the orchestra’s fight to continue in existence and have its funding restored by the vandals at the arts councils of England and Wales.

Terfel is not often seen on stage in Wales and this was a performance to savour as he sang Strauss and most memorably Cavatina from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s opera Aleko.

But in her first performance in Wales, Matshikiza was sublime as she sang Puccini’s beautiful aria O Mio Babbino Caro from his opera, Gianni Schicchi.

Terfel switched effortlessly from Welsh to English while singing Christmas favourites like Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

But it is his love of German-language operas that shone through as Terfel sung an impressive Bruderlein from Strauss’s Die Fledermaus.

With a smattering of show tunes such as Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Edelweiss from the Sound of Music and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas from Meet me In St Louis interspersed with seasonal carols, there is something for everyone here.

Recitations are not usually my thing but the two operatic stars are superb and the mighty WNO orchestra is a thing of beauty.

The show moves onto Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall on December 19 and Bristol Beacon on December 20 — wno.org.uk for details.