l’artifice vrai
Newly beardless Rufus Wainwright once more graced the annual “Last Song of Summer” concert to benefit Robert Wilson‘s Watermill Center last weekend. (Rufus’s boyfriend Jorn Weisbrodt is the Creative Director of the Center.)
Despite a “miraculous last minute change of venue to the Field House at The Ross School’s lower school campus on Butter Lane due to the threat of Tropical Storm Danny,” the girly Gesamtkunstwerker managed to regale the crowd with a morceau from that opera of his.
As hamptons.com describes the scene, Rufus opened with “Grey Gardens,”
then going into “Faux,” also sung in French from his opera “Prima Donna.” “This is the final aria,” he explained. “There is a part in it where it seems like it’s over, but it’s not,” he said, “I know everybody is going to want to clap, but please hold off until you’re sure,” he joked.
‘What exactly is a “girly” Gesamtkunstwerker…?’
Rufus, that’s what.
Well he’s the standout gay celeb of the lingering moment, and I wish he were easier on the eyes, I mean if we’re going to have to be looking at him so often (my rival candidates: Daniels? Kwiecien? Marcelo Gomes? and Angel Corella’s new facial hair is HOT – now WHO in his right mind wouldn’t rather look at them? even the McGarrigle sisters would think about it), and I for one have NO desire to hear his new opera until I’ve memorized and wearied of every single work by Saverio Mercadante, but we’re probably going to get it (in the neck or, worse, the ear) very soon, and it is going to maybe bring some new audiences to opera and raise money and hype for some good causes, and all our sneers mean nothing or less to Roofie, who is weeping (hysterically, in descending arpeggios) all the way to the bank. I mean, if he can trash Garland at Carnegie Hall, why should opera hold out, eh?
So let’s not all sound like weary old queens with nothing better to do with our time, ok? I know very civilized and charming people who have stopped reading this site because they find so much of the commentary unnecessarily vitriolic. I try never to descend to UNNECESSARY vitriol myself — which always makes me think of the swimming pool in The House on Haunted Hill. As maybe we should all do as well. Great idea for an opera.
Javier, I am appalled at you — La Cieca is strikingly goodlooking and Rufus is such a wallflower. I mean, I know what RW meant when he said, “Being famous makes it a hell of a lot easier to get laid.” And at his hormonal age, no doubt anything that works is a good thing and, indeed, necessary.