proms in the open air

Bryn Terfel and Ruthie Henshall lead this year's Proms In The Park the hugely successful innovation that allows 40,000 people to join in with the Last night Prommers in the Albert Hall.

Michael Church reports When Bryn Terfel launches into 'Home, Sweet Home' in Hyde Park on Saturday, 40,000 people weather permitting will be picknicking and humming quietly along as well. Proms In The Park is part of the biggest musical success story of our times, and it's all down to the power of the giant screen. Look at the popularity of the Royal Opera relays to Covent Garden's Piazza. Look at Kenwood, where picnickers cover the undulating fields as far as the eye can see, while the stars are projected across the lake. Remember the scenes outside Buckingham Palace when the jubilee concerts were given there last year? While a privileged few enjoyed the show inside the walls, around 100,000 enjoyed it on the big screen beyond. Thanks to improved amplification, these events reflect a real democratisation of music.

But it was pure chance that when the Proms acquired a new director in 1996, he should steer them in this direction. 'When I took over,' says Nicholas Kenyon, 'there was much discussion about extending the last night, which always sold out the moment tickets went on sale, and is one of the most famous international brands. My view was that we should not change its character, or lop bits off. We should keep its Radio 2 feel, but make it available to more people.' His first thought was to relay it to the park free of charge, but the BBC would have had to foot the bill for safety regulations.

Then he hit on the unique idea we have instead a ticketed combination of live music plus a big-screen relay, where the live soloists are complementary to those inside the Royal Albert Hall. For the first time this year, parallel concerts are taking place in all four UK countries Belfast, Swansea and Glasgow have their own shows. Then, after their respective intervals, BBC1 will bring them all together, so that by the time the traditional finale is reached in the Albert Hall, everyone can join in singing 'Rule Britannia' and 'Jerusalem'.

But, while Angela Gheorghiu wows the indoor Prommers with opera and Romanian folk songs, those outdoors will get a glittering line- up of their own and in the case of the French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, glitter is the word.

For when he's delivering his Grieg, Satie and jazz by Duke Ellington and Bill Evans, the cameras will be focusing on all the sparkling reflections of light at his neck, ears, fingers, and wrists because this man may be serious about his music, but he's ultra- serious about his jewellery. In his view, bracelets and cuff links are an art-form like any other.

We shall also be getting Ruthie Henshall, who regards her invitation to sing here a very big honour. 'I've never been to the Last Night Of The Proms, yet here I am singing in it.

They've asked me to do "On My Own" from Les Miserables, and "As Long As He Needs Me" from Oliver! I also chose to do "Someone To Watch Over Me" from Crazy For You.' There's still some debate over whether she will sing as the BBC has requested 'All That Jazz'. 'I think there are better things,' she explains. 'Such as "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Mis.

There's not an awful lot you can do with "All That Jazz" from Chicago, and I want to use the best material I can. I want to do things the audience may not be so familiar with, but that may hook them.' And she will be duetting with Bryn Terfel in "Anything You Can Do" from Annie Get Your Gun. 'It's great fun and we can mess around with it.

We're also doing "Not While I'm Around" from Sweeney Todd they invited us to choose and we both went for that because it's such a beautiful song, and it will suit our voices. What I'm doing in Chicago at present is belting a lot, so my soprano voice isn't in the kind of nick that I would need if I were going to sing opera. I'm playing safe, which will be kinder on everyone's ears. My operatic debut will have to wait.' Has she sung with Bryn before? 'No his world is not mine. But every time I tell somebody I'm singing with him, they say, "But do you know who he is?"

Of course I do he's the god of opera!' This operatic god may be best known for the spells he casts with Mozart and Wagner, but Terfel regards this event as being of no less importance. After all, this is the man who won his CBE for the sheer range of his activities he sang at the opening of the last Rugby World Cup tournament 1999 at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, had his own song festival in Wales, and television spectaculars galore. But he's got absolutely no patience with those who regard show songs as inferior.

'The rudiments are the same whether it's for Lieder, Wagner, or Rodgers and Hammerstein or Welsh folk songs,' he growls. 'The homework I did in my six years at college, where I learned to sing in countless styles, applies to everything.' Nor does he accept the term 'crossover'. 'How can you define it?

I count singing as singing, whatever style it's in. Whether it's a Tom Jones song or an Elvis Presley song, I sing it in the same way that I sing opera.'

But then, after a pause, he makes a qualification.

'But I wouldn't sing blues. I do have some rules there are some lines I'd never cross, and that's one of them. I have too high a regard for the performers who really can do that.' On the other hand, he might not take kindly and neither would we to blues singers who imagined they could deliver such perfect Welsh melodies as 'David Of The White Rock' without a lifetime's immersion in the culture that gave rise to them. So hold your breath on Saturday as he puts his inimitable stamp on 'My Little Welsh Home'.

Proms In The Park, Sat 13 Sep, 5.30pm, Hyde Park (0870 899 8100), 18, under-threes free.

DG/ SIMON FOWLER/ PA

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