Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Wainwright: Prima Donna

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

I will call this my special Stonewall Sunday broadcast, since the date falls right around the time of the weekend in June, 1969 when the Stonewall gay riot took place in New York City's Greenwich village gay ghetto--a historic event that gave birth to the gay liberation movement in the United States, with so much gay history to follow.

Rufus Wainwright (b. 1971), the openly gay son of folksinger/songwriter Loudon Wainwright, had already made a name for himself as a rock vocalist and songwriter before he turned to writing opera. He had been crazy about opera, it seems, since the age of fourteen. (Indeed, it's been said many gay men are opera lovers.) Prima Donna (2009) is Wainwright's personal, loving contribution to the genre. Wainwright wrote the libretto himself in French language with Bernadette Colomine. He also composed and orchestrated the entire score himself.

Prima Donna sets forth the story of a legendary French soprano, Madame Regine St. Laurent, a former opera superstar, now retired, who would like to return to the stage. But her glorious voice has failed her. Prima Donna is suffused with nostalgia for a bygone Golden Age of opera singing. Wainwright wrote this, his first, opera on commission from the Manchester International Festival- Sadler's Wells, Luminato and the arts festivals of Toronto and Melbourne. It was first staged at the Palace Theatre, Manchester in the UK, then went on to London, Toronto and New York City.

Prima Donna was recorded in BBC studios in 2015. Jayce Ogren conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Soprano Janis Kelly stars as Madame St. Laurent. Rufus Wainwright dedicated the world premiere recording of Prima Donna to his husband Jorn Weisbrodt. It was issued on two Deutsche Grammophon compact discs.