From Rufus Wainwright's first album, which featured the dirgey "Damned Ladies" wherein he sings to Desdemona and "brown-eyed Tosca", his operatic musical tendencies - indeed, his whole operatic self-conception - have never been latent. He has always been a diva trapped in mortal form.
So imagine the joy when a mailshot from the Royal Opera House arrived in inboxes across the world on Monday morning telling us that from Tuesday at 9am, we could book tickets to see Rufus doing a five-night stand - "velvet, glamour and guilt" - at Covent Garden next July. Two nights will be recreating his recreation of Judy Garland's comeback concerts, two nights will be gigs (one with sis Martha, one with pa Loudon), and one will be a concert staging of his opera Prima Donna. Now, July may be the house's dog days but it's not like Covent Garden lets just anyone onto its stage. (I'm having a nightmare vision of Phil Collins singing Don Giovanni.)It feels like a natural part of his career trajectory, not least because his sister and competitor Martha has already appeared there, in an actual Covent Garden production. More germanely, Rufus premiered Prima Donna last year at the Manchester International Festival, then brought it to Sadler's Wells, and thus is a bona fide opera composer. The score, though heavily influenced by Massenet, was welcomed as a modern-traditional contribution to opera, and Janis Kelly was praised for her portrait of the Callas-like self-secluded diva.
The tickets sold quickly - I was the 368th person in the electronic queue at 9.03am on Tuesday - but when I finally got my chance to buy, I hesitated. This is a wonderful chance for plenty of people to see Rufus doing gold material, but at Covent Garden prices - £55 for a seat where you need an oxygen mask and altitude-sickness pills, £110 to be in his line of sight. His concerts have never been this much before - even his Judy at the Palladium was £75, and Judy had actually trodden those boards.
Covent Garden is appropriately Baroque for Rufus, but there is a slight cash-till feeling to this series (and it pains me to say that). The concerts he gave on tour earlier this year, where he sat alone at the piano, in the dark, and played his entire new album through, banning the audience from applauding, hammering his heartbreak with the keys - that was the Rufus his fans adore. When his next opera is scheduled at the Royal Opera House during the main season, then it will be worth it.
- Book tickets for Rufus Wainwright at the Royal Opera House - if there are any left
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