“I imagine that in a performance of Falstaff I lose something similar.”

As Terfel talked, he was stood with his arms outstretched, being undressed by two wardrobe assistants in his dressing room backstage at Wales Millennium Centre.

Fifteen minutes previous, when dress rehearsals had broken for lunch, the costumed cast of Falstaff burst babbling from the sides of the stage, catching me like a rabbit in the lamplight of a Shakespearean carnival.

Eventually the huge cartoonish figure of Sir John Falstaff lumbered through the doors with Terfel just about recognisable under the scaffold of disguise.

Once inside the dressing room the costume came off; first the oversized clothes, then the fake belly, followed by a concealed harness used to safely throw him across the stage.

He peeled off the putty that distorts his facial features before finally removing a bald cap to reveal his usual head of brown hair.

Although shrunken, he remains a big man who exudes presence as he sits down in a baggy white T-shirt and loose grey shorts.

“It takes me six hours just to get into costume,” he winks. It actually takes one.

Terfel sponged the last remnants of make-up from his face, sweat heavy on his brow from the weight of the costume and intensity of his performance.

For a man supposedly on a year’s sabbatical from opera, he was hard at work.

“I did this,” he explained, “because it’s singing with WNO in a piece I adore.”

Tomorrow Terfel will reprise the role of Sir John Falstaff, who offers Mistress Ford and Mistress Page his unwanted romantic attentions.

As punishment, the ladies teach him lesson by tormenting him in a dark wood in a story Verdi based on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives Of Windsor.

Though Terfel is a seasoned Falstaff, this will be his first opportunity to perform the role in Wales, although he did appear in this revival’s original 1988 production in the supporting role of Ford.

“I remember walking into that first rehearsal, I have never been so nervous,” he exhaled in musically-measured words.

“I’ve performed it many times since but I am still learning things about it because it’s not in our mother tongue and I don’t fully grasp the triple meanings of some phrases.”

Helping him grasp those finer points is Peter Stein, “an intense and wonderful director who crosses every ‘t’ and dots every ‘i’ six times,” according to his leading man.

“He lives and breathes theatre.

“Last week he had a choice of Wales v Italy and going to Stratford to see Henry IV – there’s no guessing which one he chose.

“I chose the stadium.”

Terfel’s year away from opera is motivated by choice.

At 42, and as one of the world’s greatest operatic voices, the bass baritone in now in full control of his career but it hasn’t always been so.

“Part of being a young singer is not knowing how to say ‘no’ because you worry your last job was your only one,” he offers wearily.

But spending so much time away from his Caernarfon home, away from his wife Lesley and three sons Tomos, Morgan and Deio Sion, was not ideal.

“First I stopped going to America so often because I was there four times a year, which meant six months away, and that wasn’t conducive to anybody being happy.”

Since then Terfel has continued to reclaim his career and his command was illustrated last September when, at short notice, he cancelled his appearance in The Ring Cycle at Covent Garden.

His son Deio Sion needed yet another operation on a troublesome broken finger and Lesley could only be in one place at a time, hospital or home.

Terfel was widely criticised for cancelling but he is no longer a slave to fear for his career.

He is full of plans for his time away from opera, including a concert tour of his favourite venues in Europe, Canada and America.

Further on he will perform Wagner’s Meistersinger with WNO and star in a new production of The Ring Cycle in New York for Cirque De Soleil alumnus Robert Lepage.

But he also has plans away from the stage, for TV and radio, and he speaks admiringly of Aled Jones’ versatility.

Terfel recently recorded a series of radio programmes with the BBC, delving into the stories behind “quintessentially Welsh” hymns such as Calon Lan and Cwm Rhondda, and later this year has plans for four TV programmes in the spirit of another famous Welshman.

“I’ve always marvelled at the glorious ambassador we had in Sir Harry Secombe with his programme Highway,” says Terfel, who was born into a Methodist family on a Pantglas farm.

“I’m thinking of doing something along those lines.”

Put simply, Terfel is looking to expand himself, to enjoy his work more.

“Anthony Hopkins said in his Bafta acceptance speech, ‘It beats working’,” he grins.

“I’ll also be on the golf course, playing snooker, collecting wine ...” and hopefully watching Wales claim the Six Nations crown?

“Shane Williams is a gazelle isn’t he,” sighs Terfel almost dreamily.

“We seem to be working out a team’s strategy in the first half and then ripping them apart in the second.

“But it’s as Warren Gatland says, you have to earn the right to play like that.

“So it’s a little like a production of Falstaff,” he says, expertly flicking the last remnants of face putty into a bin across the room.

“You have to do all the hard graft first, get it as correct as is humanly possible, so one can then enjoy himself later.”

Falstaff receives its gala performance at WMC tomorrow night and has further performances on March 3, 5, 7 and 9. All dates are sold out. Call 08700 40 2000 for more information.

Source: South Wales Echo