The Welsh baritone on playing Wagner’s ‘complicated’ god and teaming up with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for his new CD.

I remember vividly in 1992 when you sang Jochanaan in Salzburg, people were already asking: “when is he going to sing Wotan?” How long was it before you knew you were ready?

It wasn’t my own choice really. You’re waiting for the previous Wotans to step out of the limelight and waiting for an opera house that you’re comfortable with. So when Covent Garden decided to do a new Ring cycle in 2007, and at the same time Sir John Tomlinson decided he wasn’t interested in singing Wotan any more, it fitted like a glove. I loved the conductor and I loved the director and, of course, if there’s an opera house that I want to sing in it’s certainly the Royal Opera House.

Had you started studying the role before that, knowing it was a role you wanted to tackle?

Definitely, and I’d even chosen not to do Siegfried in the first cycle. I thought maybe it would’ve been too much. I think that was the way John Tomlinson had done it as well. If I’d sung it in Bayreuth...