This opera has an interesting background. According to Wikipedia the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center asked several artists to develop an opera to attract a younger audience and Wainwright ended up getting the farthest with his project. He split from the Met and Lincoln Center however as he wanted it to be in French, not English. It debuted in 2009 at the Manchester International Festival in the UK with subsequent performances in London and Toronto in 2010. And now the Brooklyn Academy of Music is doing a limited run the 19th-25th.
I don’t know if spoiling an opera is quite the same as spoiling a book or a movie, but don’t read the following paragraphs if you don’t want to know what happens. For all the other operas I’ve seen Playbill** provides a plot summary, but for some reason this one didn’t have one so I actually went into it only vaguely knowing what it was about. I also have made it this far on the 'Dope without knowing how to do spoiler tags.
The gist of it is an aging opera star from Paris, Regine Saint Laurent, is planning a return the stage after losing her voice in the middle of the second performance of Eleanor of Aquitaine, an opera written specifically for her. It takes place the night before Bastille Day in 1970 and her failed performance was 6 years prior. It’s explained throughout the opera that the premier of that was the best of her life. She used to be one of the most popular women in Paris, but lost her money and her social life and now spends most of her time being lonely in her apartment with her new maid and crazy, domineering butler. For some reason the butler is really obsessed with her fame and is really hoping for her to go back on stage so he can, I don’t know, be a really cool butler again? The maid is sympathetic to Regine as a person though and tells a story about how her husband is abusive, thus is able to see that the butler is being abusive to Regine.
Regine is interviewed by a journalist who turns out to be a former opera student who’s super obsessed with her and Eleanor**, so they sing it together and she becomes overwhelmed with sorrow and grief because she’s beginning to realize that she’s just not able to sing like she used to anymore. So she faints and the journalist is escorted out, but not before a) being invited back for dinner by the butler and b) sneaking back in and making out with Regine.
Before the journalist comes back for dinner, Regine goes into her back story which implies she has some sort of anxiety/depression problem which makes it difficult to sing because she feels her music is gone (throughout the opera she’s shown taking pills). She listens to a recording of the premier of Eleanor** and has a fantasy about singing it onstage then has another breakdown and decides she just can’t do it. The butler freaks out, calls her a bitch, a hag, etc. and the maid comes to the rescue, calling him out for being such an abusive asshole, and the butler quits. The journalist shows up but says he can’t stay because he forgot he was going out with his fiancee. He then asks Regine to autograph copies of her Eleanor** recording for them. Regine sings about how fame helped everyone but her, men are jerks, blah blah blah, and says she’s quitting as an artist. She decides that the journalist and his fiancee aren’t worthy of her final autograph though, so she gives one to her maid.
In the end the maid goes home after a big hug from Regine, Regine burns all of her opera memorabilia, then the fireworks for Bastille Day begin and she sings a final song about how young women should enjoy their lives while they can. In this scene she steps out of her window onto the stage, so I’m not entirely sure if we’re supposed to assume she jumped out the window or not.
Overall I was impressed. Not many pop artists can write an opera. Rufus Wainwright is a very talented man. There were some boring/melodramatic parts, but there was also a bit of humor thrown in. The crazy butler got laughs from the audience, especially during his rant about how he wanted Regine to be famous, so I hope Wainwright intended for that to be funny. The set and costumes were beautiful- the entire thing took place her her apartment which was supposed to be the decaying remains of a gorgeous, neo-classical home.
Regarding the English vs. French thing, a woman next to me commented during intermission that she wasn’t expecting it to be in French. First off, even though Wainwright sings in English, this is an opera that just happens to be written by him, so it’s going to be different than his own music (not to mention the fact that he’s French-Canadian anyway). Plus it’s set in Paris. And operas are subtitled, so what difference does it make? I’ve only seen one opera in English (Nixon In China**) and due to the nature of how opera is sung I still needed subtitles to understand.
Wainwright came out and took a bow after everyone else which was pretty cool. Not sure if he’s going to be in attendance for the whole run, or if he just came out for the premier. I wonder if he has worries that his own career will turn out like this, although I suppose it’s normal to have those fears in that line of business. There also seemed to be a lot of bitterness toward men held by the women. Again, not sure if that’s partially inspired by his own personal life, or if it was just a good dramatic/tragic plot element (my suspicion is a bit of both).