Berlin Ball

Rufus Wainwright can't help but sparkle.

by A.D. Amorosi

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All Rufus Wainwright wanted to do after his grand, tender, song-by-song re-creation of Judy at Carnegie Hall (La Garland's smashing 1961 triumph) was something small and dark. Something where the eloquent lyricist could sneak off to some dingy apartment in Berlin and do something compact and quiet. Instead, he came up with the sprawling strings, massive melodies and character-driven tumult of Release the Stars (Geffen). While making the rounds on his current tour, he's also writing an opera and preparing to release Judy as a film lensed by director Sam Mendes. If you hear him promise these latest projects will be small, don't believe him.

City Paper: How did you go from what promised to be this intimate electronic affair in Berlin to something as epic as Stars?

Rufus Wainwright: Oh. That was a foolish notion anyway. Being involved with so many big projects at once and going to the opera and being rambunctious in my tastes — when I finally got in the studio with all that power, I let loose with all that I learned.

CP: So you're going in some cases for the artful obviousness of, say, Ira Gershwin.

RW: I think I'm meeting him halfway. They were writing for a certain hit-making market back then. I, for many years, had no concern for my audience because I was still figuring out my shit.

CP: The title track of Release the Stars feels focused on one certain person. Spitefully, too.

RW: It's about my friend Lorca Cohen, Leonard's daughter. OK, not just her. She's someone who was supposed to come and be part of my Judy Garland show in New York, and she missed it. And now we're even. [Laughs] It is about the idea of being generous and making sacrifices to make the world a better place. Look, I'm 33. You really have to put your money where your mouth is and be true to your emotions.

CP: Am I wrong, or does "Going to a Town" speak to those exact concerns? It feels as if you're talking about New Orleans after the flood or New York after its plague.

RW: Funnily enough, it's about Berlin. But it's about leaving the New York I adore and the States that I love. What was getting on my tits is how the media kept talking about how we'd never recover from September 11. And while that's heartbreaking, all over Europe — Berlin included — whole towns have been destroyed over and over throughout history. I needed to be somewhere that had experienced that horror before and doesn't let it dictate their lives.

CP: "Nobody's Off the Hook" seems to note that you're OK with whatever you've gone through in the past. But then "Slideshow" and "Do I Disappoint You" seem frail.

RW: I think they're actually focused more on being OK without any measuring stick. And even though I'm successful and healthy now, I still have that dark side. But they're all just about my life, my own sort of struggles and relationships with the present; what I need and what I don't need. I don't mince words.

Rufus Wainwright

Fri., Aug. 17, 8 p.m., $35-$42.50, The Mann Center for the Performing Arts, 52nd and Parkside, 215-893-1999, www.manncenter.org