Rufus Wainwright’s unexpected Opera success: Prima Donna on Operavision
Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright’s career path to opera composer is hardly conventional. Pop star, songwriter, crystal meth addict, party partner (2 days on the lam!) of Barbara Bush, George W.’s famously lefty daughter – and father of Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen (9) whose parents are Lorca Cohen (Leonard’s daughter), Rufus, and “deputy Dad”, Jörn Weisbrodt, Rufus’ husband.
You get the picture. It’s complicated. Rufus Wainwright is a graduate cum laude of the Juilliard School of Mayhem.
His debut opera Prima Donna, written in 2009 but revived by Royal Swedish Opera, is currently available on Operavision, the EU backed opera channel.
On screen, this master of chaotic life choices seemed surprised to discover he had written an opera at all. In an interview during the interval of Prima Donna he was made the point that few singers write opera. He also posited the corollary, that few opera composers sing. No self-congratulation here, though. Merely a quizzical observation, followed by the startling revelation that the singer with an avant-garde cult following and nine successful pop albums on the discography, credits his first musical inspiration to Giuseppe Verdi.
Macbeth, of all whimsical, populist works to which he was introduced in his teens by folk-singing mum and dad, Kate McGarrigle and Rufus Wainwright III, tickled his fancy. Since then, the urge to write a classic opera had been bubbling under the pop surface.
Really? It is tempting to poo-poo this as the sort of self-justifying mythology that made Tony Blair claim to have stowed away on a flight from Newcastle to the Bahamas at the age of 14, boosting his street cred, if not his airmiles. “Yah, I may have gone to Fettes, but deep down I was cool, a bit of a rebel”. But, as Prima Donna is clearly a crafted tribute to Verdi’s musical style, tragic subject choice – think La traviata – and eye for plot, I think Rufus can be taken at his word.
What must piss off contemporary composers who struggle for years in intellectual isolation, churning out the occasional discordant din, is that Rufus is rather good at this, throwing off the fluent score of Prima Donna with apparent ease. More annoyingly, the character interactions are complex, the action tightly focused and flecked with sly humour. This is an important 21st century work.
As Prima Donna is not widely known, here is a synopsis.
Act I
The prima donna at the centre of the plot – said to be based on Maria Callas – is Régine Saint Laurent, an aging singer in Paris. She is planning a comeback six years after drying up on-stage in a performance of Aliénor – Eleanor of Aquitaine – in which she played the lead. She wakes up after a troubled night’s sleep on the sofa, her formerly elegant apartment down at heel. Her new maid, Marie, a key figure in the action, becomes involved in Régine’s agonising over a return to the stage, after six years vegetating in the appartement.
She relates the great disaster. When, in the role of her life, as Aliénor, the strong and powerful Queen of France and England, in an opera written for her at the peak of her career – she froze on the High C. Every donna’s prima paura.
Régine’s butler, Philippe, enters with his assistant François. He is a manipulative swine, disloyal, keen only to cash in on Régine’s rekindled career. François, a factotum, follows, looks attentive, deftly fields coats, wraps and anything else thrown at him, but remains mute throughout. No idea why. Good decoration. Maybe he represents onlookers.
It upsets Philippe to see Régine and Marie together – does he sniff a rival in the making? Régine should be preparing for an interview with a journalist, which he has organised, and she’s forgotten about.
After Philippe has sent Régine off to get changed, François helps him to prepare for the meeting. Philippe becomes nostalgic for the old days of splendour and fame at the zenith of Régine’s career, now only a distant memory. Philippe is heavily invested in the relaunch – his retirement plan.
The sound of the doorbell announces the arrival of the young journalist, André Letourner. Régine makes a slow, flamboyant entrance. She is regal in grey silk and fascinator. Is her mojo back? M. Letourner is a slightly creepy, Nigel-Dempster-smooth gossip guy, who claims to have stood outside the apartment once, wondering about what was going on inside. “Salons, of course,” he quickly explains. No stalker, he.
André asks Régine about Aliénor d’Aquitaine, her very last performance. He has admired her ever since he studied to become a tenor at the conservatory and urges her to resume her singing career. She’s a sucker for compliments, sits at the piano and sings. André “happens” to have brought the complete score with him. Together they sing the iconic lovers’ duet from Aliénor d’Aquitaine. When they reach the passionate climax Régine’s voice breaks again. Interview over.
Act II
Bastille Day celebrations are underway in the street. Marie sings of the simple life at home in Picardy. She compares the naivety of youth with the hectic and materialistic life in Paris. She is growing up.
As Régine warms her voice, she tries to understand what went wrong during the interview. Here’s the dilemma: when she is on her own, she can hit the high note, but each time she tries to find a deeper meaning and attempts to express it publicly, she fails. To sing Aliénor, or any other role, ever again, she will need to listen to a recording of the premiere, her triumph she has never had the courage to confront. She grapples with crumbling self-confidence.
As she listens to the legendary recording, she is transported back in time, in a reverie, to when she performed the lovers’ duet for the first time.
King Henry II of England from Aliénor d’Aquitaine enters the garden in the rather unlikely shape of André, declaring his love for the queen. Régine becomes Aliénor and performs the magic scene to perfection. Then, Régine wakes up from her reveries, realising that she cannot repeat her earlier success. She will never again return to the stage.
Philippe’s world falls apart, and he decides to vanish from Régine’s life just as the doorbell announces the journalist’s return. Although she never admits it, Régine’s body language and facial expressions all reveal she has been smitten by the admiring journalist.
André delivers an unwelcome surprise: he is engaged to be married, and he has brought his fiancée along. André has the nerve to ask Régine for a final favour: could she please sign his copy of Aliénor d’Aquitaine? La Prima Donna signs her last autograph, then she steps out on the balcony alone as July 14th fireworks light up the sky.
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Is Wainwright’s music any good? Yes. It is much more than an easy cross-over film score or Broadway musical. The style is non-confrontational, but avoids descending to the banal, and uses the available colour of the orchestra well. The overture immediately immerses us in a lush, melodic world, courtesy of strings and harp.
The mood is nostalgic, semaphored by the 33 RPM vinyl record spinning aimlessly, needle-arm raised, on a period record player before curtain-up. No illusions.
German singspiel technique is adopted occasionally to emphasise Régine’s important, spoken, disclosures and the abrupt “stop” of the music on each occasion focuses any wandering minds in the audience.
The production, directed by Mårten Forslund, is stylish and atmospheric. The curtain rises, as the Parisian appartement turns to reveal its interior, a beau monde home of former grandeur, sparkling chandeliers and petit-point upholstery, now brought low by the banalities of a cheap, portable, black and white TV with flickering screen, a white plastic chair and a rail of extravagant dresses which shout, “better days”.
The libretto, in French, is a co-operation between Mr Wainwright and Bernadette Colomine, lyricist and linguist, upon whom Leonard Cohen (there’s that Cohen connection again) frequently relied. Interestingly, Wainwright’s insistence on a French libretto caused the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager, Peter Gelb, to throw a hissy fit in 2008. He wanted English for a modern work and plans to stage the opera in New York were dumped.
That Wainwright was sufficiently principled to abandon the prospect of a Met debut and stick to his guns is admirable. And he was right: English in this Parisian setting would be ridiculous.
The Wainwright/Colomine collaboration delivers a sharp narrative, punctuated with slick wit. For example, when Régine affects to set Marie, the new maid who insists on calling her “Madame Laurent,” at ease, she airily declaims; “Address me as Madame, tout simplement.” Only later, when confidence has been earned, is “Régine” offered.
The role of Marie, the maid, is played by Norwegian lyric coloratura soprano, Beate Mordal, who is a talent to watch. Supportive of Madame’s return to the stage, she has a backstory of an unhappy marriage and is vigorously protective of her prima donna.
Ms. Mordal presents a powerful, non-subservient character, and is given a pivotal role, not least in sussing out the motives of the freeloading butler, Phillipe. Her return to the stage is his pay-back day for sticking out the hard times and, when Madame’s failing voice threatens his plans, the respectful mask slips and his true feelings – contempt – for his employer are revealed.
Phillipe is Jeremy Carpenter, a British baritone, whose transformation from oleaginous servant to manipulative abuser turns on a dime. He would never pass muster as Jeeves but should audition for a Dracula role sometime soon. Refreshingly sinister.
Elin Rombo, the Swedish soprano is Régine. Appointed Hovkångerska (Court Singer) in Sweden in 2013, she has performed a wide range of roles internationally and played the difficult part of fading prima donna sensitively. The moment when, on her own, she rediscovers her voice was heart-stopping. Her all-consuming need to appear as heroine was directed at each of us in the audience. Are we all a bit like Régine?
Our dirt-digger from The Sun, journalist André Letourner, is Conny Thimander, Swedish lyric tenor. He came across as suitably dodgy but managing to maintain an ambivalence between stage struck adoration and professional cynicism. His set piece tenor’s aria from Aliénor was pitch perfect. Small wonder Régine fell for him. Alright, alright, The Sun has never had an opera correspondent, but Piers Morgan once ran its “Bizarre” pop column in the 80’s, so that will do.
I embarked on Prima Donna as a sceptic but was won over by Rufus Wainwright’s tribute to romantic opera. His second opera, Hadrian was premiered in Canada in 2018 amid press reports that Rufus was disillusioned about pop and fixated with opera. I’m not sure he is disillusioned about anything. He brings consummate skill and insight to every genre he addresses. Listen to his sensitive cover version of Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen’s (Cohen again) iconic, tragic lament, which knocks the original Lenny dirge into a cocked hat.
Verdi it isn’t, but as Mårten Forsland has said; “A work exploring the diva’s situation becomes a mirror to discover ourselves in, and a role model for shaping our own identity. To create a role that can be the hero in its own drama. Perhaps that explains why, for so many of us, she is a patron saint and an icon. She is both a victim and a hero, a human being and a goddess. And, like all of us, she is a little bit larger than life.” Don’t we all aspire to be a little larger than life?
This opera lays bare the human story, in all its contradictions, as well as many in the 19th century repertoire. It is to be hoped that Rufus Wainwright’s career pivot to opera is no passing whim. He has much to say and, in this excellent production of Prima Donna, says it compellingly.