By Hannah Nepilova

Published: Thursday, 08 February 2024 at 11:10 AM


For all that Wales is often called ‘The Land of Song’, the proof is really in the pudding, ie the sheer number of talented Welsh opera singers to have trodden the boards and carved out a space for themselves in the operatic hall of fame.

Here are 11 Welsh opera singers – both past and present – who top the list.

Best Welsh singers

Bryn Terfel

Born in Caernarfonshire, the son of a farmer, Bryn Terfel (main picture) was taught how to sing by a family friend, beginning with traditional Welsh songs.

After moving to London aged 19, he studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, winning both the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Prize and the Gold Medal upon graduation. But his big international breakthrough came in 1992, when he sang Jochanaan in Strauss’s Salome at the Salzburg Festival. Now he is a superstar – unquestionably the most famous living Welsh operatic bass-baritone – whose vocal heft has made him a particularly good fit for beefy Wagnerian roles such as Wotan, as well as one of opera’s greatest baddies: Scarpia from Tosca. And he has embraced a good deal of non-classical music too, not least Stephen Sondheim‘s Sweeney Todd, in which he and Emma Thompson made a devilish double-act as the killer barber and his pie-baking accomplice. So, while he’s undoubtedly one of the best Welsh opera singers performing on the stages of the Royal Opera House and the like, he’s also known and loved far beyond the classical music scene.