'We're surrounded by mountains," says Bryn Terfel, from his rural home in North Wales. "It's a wonderful environment to bring up children. Right now we're in the middle of lambing season - the kids love looking after the lambs."

Like most famous opera singers, Terfel regularly travels all over the world. (This week, he's in Canada for recitals at Vancouver's Chan Centre tonight and at Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall on Tuesday evening.) But his heart is firmly attached to the land of his birth. After all, his full name is Bryn Terfel Jones - and Welsh is his native language.

In many ways, the 42-year-old singer is a product of his nation's strong musical traditions: As a boy, he learned Welsh folk songs and he won his first singing competition at the age of 12. Yet it wasn't easy for this farmer's son to enter the cosmopolitan world of opera.

"There were lots of things that could have stopped me from being a singer," he notes. "I was nervous - breath control was right out the window. But I didn't want to be a farmer and I didn't have many other turnings. Going to London to study for five years was really important for unlocking the trepidation, fear and stigma. People who mocked me in school when I was 18 are now joining male choirs!"

Now that he's a star, he enjoys a high profile in his native country. He runs the annual Faenol Festival - also known as the "Brynfest" - a four-day concert series near the city of Bangor in North Wales. And he currently supports several Welsh charities, including homeless shelters and a fund to provide air ambulances in remote areas. "We have collections every night at my festival," he notes. "If my efforts help someone to put a pound in a bucket, that's good. I feel I'm making a difference."

Ten years ago, he got behind an initiative to build an opera house in Cardiff. And five years ago, he opened the new theatre with a gala concert. However, there's something he cares about more than his homeland: his family. This husband and father of three made that point crystal clear last September, when he suddenly withdrew from a Covent Garden production of Wagner's Siegfried a month before opening night.

"Our youngest son had an accident with his hand," he explains, "which entailed two operations. It's not just the fact that he had a horrific injury, but there are two other boys in this house that have to be looked after. I went to London and rehearsed for a couple of days, but I felt uncomfortable. I think it would have been detrimental to my performances." (Terfel was replaced by John Tomlinson.)

Covent Garden's management was publicly unsympathetic and privately furious about the decision. And London's critics - not to mention adoring fans who paid up to £200 (roughly $400) months in advance to hear him - were downright apoplectic.

"Terfel has severely damaged his professional standing," opined London's Daily Telegraph. "Next time he comes knocking, he may find someone else has stolen his glory."

Eight months after the incident, Terfel is still shocked by the intensity of some reactions. "One person wrote that there wasn't a death in my family [so he should not have withdrawn]," he recalls. "That wasn't very nice."

But he laughs at the idea that his action might have done his career any permanent harm. And he stands behind the choice he made. "Of course I was disappointed. And I understand that Covent Garden wasn't very happy about this. But if something happens to my family again, they come first - undoubtedly."

Terfel has since returned to the operatic stage - last month he sang 11 sold-out performances of Verdi's Falstaff at the Welsh National Opera. But he's decided to take a break from opera performances for the rest of 2008.

"I think I needed to take a step backward," he muses, "purely to re-evaluate what opera is all about. The productions that live in our opera houses these days are sometimes very exciting - but sometimes disappointing. I was getting a little bit disconsolate. Opening the stage door to an opera house isn't the experience that it once was."

These are sobering words, coming from one of the world's leading opera artists. And he continues: "The singer is never involved in the concept of any production - it's always very cloak and dagger with the directors and designers. Sometimes they don't think of simple things, like a steeply raked staged, where singers are asked to stand in a very unnatural position."

Terfel is concerned about this issue, as he's had back problems. He says his back is fine these days - and he wants it to stay that way.

Opera fans, however, needn't panic just yet: Terfel has every intention of returning to the theatre. Last month, Antonio Pappano, music director of the Royal Opera, dismissed last September' crisis as a "blip" in Terfel's career and announced the bass-baritone would appear next year in the title role of Wagner's Flying Dutchman. He'll also sing at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 2009, in the role of Dr. Dulcamara in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore.

In the meantime, the concert halls of the world are benefiting from Terfel's decision. "What I wanted to do this year was to concentrate on song repertoire...," he explains. "I love singing recitals."

And despite his frustrations with the opera world, Terfel found encouragement in his recent appearance in Cardiff. "I've just had an experience with the Welsh National Opera that was a dangling carrot to bring me back. It's like a game of golf: If you play really badly for 17 holes and then you birdie the last hole, it will bring you back onto the course."

Source: The Globe and Mail