…Terfel is a consummate singing actor. …what other artist could find such different voices for singing Il Commendatore, Don Giovanni and Leporello in the closing scene of Mozart's opera.

Terfel, of course, brings the smell of the theatre into everything he does. His powerful vocal presence is born of physical presence and he harnesses words, in any language, like few others. Brecht's words for "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" casually slip off Terfel's cords like the threats of a slickly attired bouncer... Sweeney Todd's "Epiphany" (with a flash of Anne Sofie von Otter's cockney Mrs Lovett - not 'arf bad) is scary to behold...