Theater News

Christmas With Rufus

Rufus Wainwright looks forward to gathering with family and friends for a special holiday concert at Carnegie Hall.

Rufus Wainwright
Rufus Wainwright

Rufus Wainwright is everywhere lately, but he keeps coming back to Carnegie Hall. The awesomely talented singer-songwriter has performed there many times, most recently in June, when he electrified the world-famous venue with a recreation of Judy Garland’s legendary 1961 Carnegie concert.

Last year, he and his sister Martha joined with their mom, Kate McGarrigle, and other family members and friends at the hallowed hall for The McGarrigle Christmas Hour — which, according to a review in The New York Times, had moments “verging on the artistically holy.” Now the siblings are preparing to bring The Wainwright Family & Friends Christmas to Carnegie on December 13, with some very special guests along for the sleigh ride. I spoke with Rufus about the concert and several other irons he has in the fire, including a new album and a commission from the Metropolitan Opera.

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THEATERMANIA: I’m sorry I missed last year’s Christmas show. How did it go?

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT: It was great. We did a few gigs in Montreal, New York, and other places. But the new show is completely different; we have guests like Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, and David Byrne. I pulled in a lot of favors. You know, I find what works best in Carnegie Hall is an intimate arrangement between the audience and performers, and between the performers themselves. I really want it to feel like we’re all in somebody’s living room.

TM: What kind of instrumentation will you have?

RUFUS: Just a piano, maybe a guitar and bass. No drums. We’re not going electric for this concert; if we ever do go electric for Christmas songs, I’m sure it’ll make world headlines. We’ll be doing some traditional stuff, also a Christmas song that I wrote and one that Martha wrote. There’ll be a lot of songs from the McGarrigle Christmas album. And we’re going to let David Byrne and the other people come on and do whatever they want to do.

TM: Why is the title of the show different from last year’s?

RUFUS: My mom has been a bit sick recently. Everything’s okay, but she had to have a procedure done and it fell right in the middle of when all the rehearsals would be happening, so we basically had to cancel the tour we were going to do. But Martha and I still wanted to do Carnegie Hall.

Rufus and Martha Wainwright (center) and familyin happy, golden days of yore
Rufus and Martha Wainwright (center) and family
in happy, golden days of yore

TM: Do you love Christmas music?

RUFUS: I’m not necessarily a huge fan of it, but in compiling Christmas songs for this show, I was amazed to see how many there are in so many different genres — whether classical or jazz or blues. It’s pretty impressive how much there is to choose from.

TM: Your Garland concert was fabulous. Is it going to be made available on CD or DVD?

RUFUS: It was recorded, and it sounds amazing. The CD will probably be released next fall in conjunction with a performance at the Hollywood Bowl.

TM: Have you performed there before?

RUFUS: Yes. I opened for k.d. lang, and I got booed because I said something negative about Bush. They had a subscription audience that night, and some of them didn’t like what I had to say. I got booed at the Bowl!

TM: You’re also going to do the Judy concert in Europe.

RUFUS: Yeah, in February at the Palladium in London and the Olympia in Paris. We might film one of those shows. We had planned to do a video of the Carnegie Hall concert but we didn’t manage to get the footage we wanted, mostly because that’s the most expensive hall in the world to film in.

TM: You have another album in the works, yes?

RUFUS: It’s called Release the Stars. I’m going to be mixing it in January, and I think it will be coming out in April.

TM: On top of everything else, you have the Metropolitan Opera commission. What’s the status of that?

RUFUS: I’ve already started writing it. I had to take the commission because I don’t want to die frustrated; I’d rather die a failure than frustrated. After this upcoming wave of Christmas madness, Rufus/Garland brilliance, and personal material is over, I plan to retreat to my little schloss in the Alps and really focus on the opera. It’s called Prima Donna, and it’s about a day in the life of an opera singer. I’m influenced by Callas, of course, but also by other singers: Régine Crespin, Beverly Sills. I feel opera is one of the few remaining subjects that it’s relevant to write an opera about.

TM: Would you ever be interested in writing a musical?

RUFUS: I’d love to. I’m very good friends with Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. When I told them about the opera commission, they said, “Write a musical. That’s where the money is!”

TM: I just recently heard you singing “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” over the closing credits of The History Boys. You’ve got your hands in so many different projects.

RUFUS: Yeah, I’m sort of turning into an octopus. I make an average of about $10 on each project, so I’m doing about five different things at once. I definitely feel that I’m in my prime right now. I’ve had the blessed experience of being able to evaluate my entire life for a couple of years, then re-arm myself and go back out. And it happened at a good time, when I hit 30. So I’m doing all right.