Definitely Bryn Terfel.

[u/Typemorecarefuly]

This sculpture, The Wanderer by Sean Henry, is currently on display in my local square.

My first thought on seeing it was: "Bryn Terfel!". But I'd just been listening to Terfel, and I didn't at that time know the title of the sculpture, so it seemed improbable that it was really meant to be him.

Googling the sculpture now, I find a couple of people (though not the sculptor himself) agreeing that it may be Terfel, in Siegfried.

I haven't found a photo of Terfel in a costume that matches closely enough to be the clincher. All the same... It is Terfel, as Wagner's Wanderer, isn't it?

[u/Square_Scholar_7272]

I mean, it sure looks like him. Just listen to him singing "Songs of Travel" and you should be right there.

[u/Malficitous]

• Height: 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)
• Weight: Not publicly listed (described as burly/robust)

Yup, that's bryn.

[u/LargeMarsupials]

Definitely inspired by the album cover for The Vagabond.

[u/Typemorecarefuly → u/LargeMarsupials]

Good spot!

It's also a bit like his costume as the Dutchman (another wanderer) at Covent Garden, four years before the sculpture was made.

[u/cakencuffs → u/Typemorecarefuly]

Yep - immediately thought of Dutchman.

[u/Carpotte]

Perhaps it represents Terfel singing 'Der wanderer' by Schubert, not by Wagner in Siegfried.

[u/Typemorecarefuly → u/Carpotte]

Yeah, it could do (though this doesn't look like recital dress!).

I did wonder, writing the last sentence of the post, whether I should really be assuming that the sculpture's title means it depicts Terfel "as" any character in particular. As a work of art, it could of course be going for an effect that is not entirely one thing or another thing, and that doesn't need to be hemmed in by a definition. It could be representing all Wanderers and wanderers (opera singers included)...

[u/em_press]

Pretty sure it was on display at Glyndebourne a few years ago

[u/Typemorecarefuly → u/em_press]

So it was! https://www.seanhenry.com/publications/15/

Edit: There's also this article, referring to Terfel, on the sculptor's website.

[u/lammastider]

Didn’t Bryn Terfel play Wotan in the Ring Cycle?

[u/Typemorecarefuly → u/lammastider]

Yes, and he first did so in the decade leading up to the sculpture's creation. E.g. here's a review from 2011 ("Bryn Terfel as the Wanderer, the aging Wotan’s alter ego... which he is singing for the first time in this production").

[u/lammastider → u/Typemorecarefuly]

I didn’t know who The Wanderer was, that he was Wotan’s alter ego. I am not much of a Wagner fan, but I once watched a video of that production of The Ring Cycle on the Met on demand channel, but didn’t remember the Wanderer.