Rodney Gilfry

* The baritone plays the title character in Los Angeles Opera’s “Billy Budd” Friday, Sunday and Wednesday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Goooooal!: My son is a soccer player on a really good club team. They’re ranked sixth in the state. So on an ideal weekend we’d go to a good soccer match on Saturday. Usually we go to San Bernardino, but they can be as far away as Bakersfield or Ventura. They’re amazingly good, and the level of play is astounding.

The Hills Are Alive: Another thing I love to do, since we live just at the base of the foothills in Rancho Cucamonga, is hike up in the hills. We’ll hike up to Mt. Baldy on the south side and go to Bear Flat. It’s kind of remarkable. It’s a totally natural formation, like a meadow, completely filled with ferns four to five feet tall. You can lie down, and it’s really soft and there are no bugs around. You’re completely isolated. It’s an easy hike for my three kids--15, 13 and 11.

Q.T.: Then I would love to go with my wife to the Surf and Sands hotel in Laguna Beach, right on the Coast Highway. It’s a fantastic hotel, right next to the water and right in downtown Laguna. For just one night, it’s a mini vacation. There’s a good restaurant in the hotel. We love to go around to shops. My wife’s passion is collecting antiques, so her favorite weekend would require one day of strolling around in antique stores.

Settling Down: I travel so much that when I do have the time, I want to be with my family. We have a huge extended family nearby--there’s a total of about 25 people when we all get together--and I love to have them over to my house. It’s designed for entertaining. I like to cook up something special, like German potato salad and maybe asparagus with hollandaise sauce. And if I’m not singing the next day, wine figures prominently.