Rufus Wainwright

First published on 3 Dec 2009. Updated on 5 Apr 2011.

Rufus Wainwright has been known for excess. The 37-year-old's lush pop albums document the highs and lows of decadent bacchanals. The piano prodigy and partyer once lost his vision from overuse of crystal meth. In 2009, clean and reformed, the son of aw-shucks songsmith Loudon Wainwright III and Canadian folkie Kate McGarrigle premiered his first opera, Prima Donna. The titular diva is an amalgam of Rufus, his mother and his chanteuse sister, Martha.

In January, Wainwright's mom died of cancer. All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, his subsequent sixth solo album, is stark and heart-wrenching, built from just voice and grand piano. Speaking from New York, Wainwright is jovial, giggling at his somberness and propensity for powdered wigs.

I saw a documentary on the making of your opera. The film has charming footage of you and Martha, as tweens, acting out Tosca. Did you catch the Met's notorious staging of Tosca last season, when the audience booed?
I missed it. I was aware of the kerfuffle. I have a double-edged-sword relationship with the Met. I go there all the time. I have a very good relationship with [general manager] Peter Gelb.

The Met commissioned Prima Donna. Then came a falling out: You wanted the libretto in French; they insisted on English.
They, uh... We went our separate ways at a certain point. So I don't... When people are booing their stuff, I don&'t feel terrible about it. [Laughs]

Are the powers that be in classical too stuffy?
In terms of my opera, yes, I've had all sorts of criticisms, but certain people adored it. Then there were other people who were vitriolically opposed to it. And then everything in between. People want me to write another one, and other opera houses are interested in Prima Donna. It's about as great a reaction you can get in this profession.

You sing Shakespeare sonnets on your new album. Much has been made of the inclusion of Sonnet 20. Some feel that poem is evidence of the Bard's homosexuality. Yet right after that you sing Sonnet 10, which admonishes a young man for not procreating. What are you getting at?
I find Sonnet 10 to be even more queeny than Sonnet 20. Sonnet 10 is a guy who has had a couple too many drinks. He's giving a young man some sound advice and puts his hand a little too close to the other guy's crotch and gets embarrassed. I find 10 more homoerotic than 20. But I don't think Shakespeare is gay. He had these homoerotic feelings. Sonnets directed towards the lady, the dark lady, they ring much more true for me sexually. But he did really have strong feelings for this boy.

While the sonnets inspired the album, it evolved into a response to your mother's death. Did you consider starting over, or was it a provocative challenge to merge the two themes?
I very much faced my mother's death with hard, arduous and time-consuming labor. The more I would do, the less I would feel. All those feelings are in the material. One of the most vivid memories of the last year was after writing my opera. I was sitting in rehearsal, listening to people sing my music. I broke down into tears. I turned to my friend and said, "My God, I am such a sad guy." [Laughs] I am so sad.

Why do you request no applause between songs on this tour?
I wanted to share the experience that I've enjoyed over the years of seeing a song cycle, a Schubert or Schumann song cycle, where you wait for the arc of the piece to develop. I also wanted to challenge myself. I can't rely on any of the old tricks and armor of wit or cuteness to paint over the technical mountains that I am climbing.

Are you a lover of the past?
I'm very much a romantic. I'm highly attuned to an older sensibility, which I believe is alive and well. We're not that far ahead of the Romantic Age in society. There's great modern stuff-I love atonal music. But when you look at the general public, we're still back in the 19th century in a lot of ways. I don't think we have to revel in that or go back to that. I just think a lot of that language still means something.

Do you ever lament being of the modern world?
Not at all. If I had been in that or another era, I would have been probably hated and would have hated what that era was all about. I probably would have worn a big white wig. Brent DiCrescenzo