Ravinia 2023 Issue 4

In addition to giving concerts of his much-acclaimed original songs in 2004, ’05, ’07, and ’14, Rufus Wainwright appeared at Ravinia in 2011 to make his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut performing five orchestrations of his song settings of Shakespeare sonnets, which were originally conceived as a “warm-up” for writing his first opera, Prima Donna , which had its US premiere the following spring. The conductor, coincidentally, was Jeffrey Kahane, whose son Gabriel cites Wainwright as a major influence upon his career as a singer-songwriter and has found similar success crossing between genres of composition. “ I attended a music conservatory, but was never a great student. But I always cared. I think you have to care. ” PATRICK GIPSON/RAVINIA Wainwright, who turned 50 in July, was born in New York state but lived his early years in Canada. His parents, two respected folk music stalwarts, Loudon Wainwright III and the late Kate McGarrigle (later divorced), raised him and his younger sister, Martha (also a noted singer-songwrit- er), in a household where music was in the blood and filled the family coffers. His self-named 1998 debut album garnered positive critical reaction and promising industry buzz, due to the enthusiastic support of his record la- bel’s legendary exec, Lenny Waronker. He followed it up in 2001 with the al- bum Poses , which won Canada’s Juno Award for Best Alternative Album. But it was 2003’s Want One that thrust Wainwright’s career into high gear. The wildly ambitious, musi- cally boundless collection found Wainwright combining various and seemingly conflicting musical styles into a smorgasbord that challenged and charmed. Wainwright effortlessly and unabashedly blended strokes of sound that included pop, rock, opera, classical, cabaret, baroque, burlesque, Broadway, Bacharach, chamber music, and Gene Kelly musicals. It established Wainwright’s deserved reputation as a genius, genre-bending chameleon. With expressively eccentric, charging songs including “Oh What a World,” “I Don’t Know What It Is,” “Movies Of Myself,” “14th Street,” and “Beautiful Child,” Wainwright created adven- turous, opulent, excessive, lofty, and layered confessional compositions that harmonically soared. Equally impressive were the album’s honest, reflective, and raw ballads, which all meditatively mean- dered in mood in meaning, including the desperately droning “Vibrate,” plus “Pretty Things,” “Go Or Go Ahead,” “Natasha,” and the emotionally laced and stinging ode to his father, “Din- ner at Eight” (which David Bowie described as the best father/son song ever written). With the similarly oblique and searching sequel, 2004’s Want Two , Wainwright again explored and experimented, beginning with the six-minute, string-laden, soaring hymn “Agnus Dei.” It continues with a more plaintive tone than its predeces- sor, and though still musically extrav- agant in its aim, stirs the soul lyrically in songs like the school crush of “The Art Teacher,” the Jeff Buckley tribute “Memphis Skyline,” the revealing “Gay Messiah,” “Peach Trees,” and “Little Sister.” An outspoken social and gay activ- ist, Wainwright married his longtime partner, Jorn Weisbrodt, in 2012 and is a father. He struggled with drugs and alcohol for years but has embraced his sobriety for more than a decade. Speaking from Los Angeles by phone, Wainwright proved that in his music and in his life, he always has some- thing to say. Is the Want One album’s anniversary the main reason you’re revisiting it and its 2004 sequel in a live setting? I’m in a period of musical contempla- tion. I’ve made a few albums now that have returned to several sources in my life. I moved back to Los Angeles where I started my career—my latest release [ Folkocracy ] goes back to the music of my childhood, and now these Want records are 20 years old. Those were such impactful albums—they broke me big in Europe and in the UK and it ricocheted back to the US. I still listen when they come on my iPod. Many artists don’t listen to their older music. I will listen to it, partially. I’ve always been into creating art in my career. I do like to hear the progression that has occurred. My first album was easy to present—I had been writing songs for 10 years and I had a lot of material. [ Laughs .] The sophomore effort [ Pos- es ] thankfully was well received, and it accomplished what I set out to do. The third one, yes, I do feel I blasted it out of the park. A lot of pent up emotion and frustration went into it—and many years in a haze of drugs, alcohol, and rock and roll—which I loved but I had to pay a price for. The Want records were a template to slay those dragons in my life and become a man. They are important records for me personally. RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 31 – AUGUST 14, 2023 8