As someone who constantly weaves between the sacred and the profane, Rufus Wainwright is the perfect artist to give musical life to some of Shakespeare's best known sonnets. It's an ambitious project full of guest vocalists and speakers, that manages to honour the insight, humour, and beauty of the Bard.
"It’s hard to imagine how someone whose last album was an opera could out-do themselves, but Rufus Wainwright has achieved just that with Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets, to be released via Deutsche Gramophon on April 22, 400 years after William Shakespeare’s death.
Wainwright has a history with the Bard’s sonnets: The San Francisco Symphony commissioned Wainwright to orchestrate five sonnets, and the singer-songwriter also composed music for playwright and director Robert Wilson’s Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Wainwright’s 2010 album, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, included three of these, including “A Woman’s Face”. Rather than stick exclusively to his symphonic and theatrical sonnet ties, Wainwright returned to other old collaborators. Marius De Vries, the producer of Wainwright’s Want One and Want Two albums over a decade ago, collaborates on this new album, which largely pairs gilded orchestral pieces with readings by guests including Helena Bonham Carter, Carrie Fisher, and William Shatner.
Two interpretations of “A Woman’s Face” demarcate the album’s 16 tracks — a “pop” version done by Wainwright and an operatic version by Austrian coloratura sopranoAnna Prohaska, who sings four other tracks on the album. Both are gorgeous, but the source material suggests interesting interpretations. Sonnet 20, lyrically written in the voice of a man, essentially translates to, “You’ve got the good looks of a handsome man, but you attract both women and men. But since nature gave you a dick, I’ll keep your love and women will enjoy your body.” Four hundred years later, this sort of complex feeling remains relevant, demonstrating how beauty is a fine, genderless line, and that grappling with sexuality is futile." - Consequence of Sound