Rufus Wainwright

Rufus Wainwright

New York singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright -- son of famous folkies Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, and brother of Martha Wainwright -- is more renowned in Europe than in his homeland, where his most successful album peaked at No.23 on the Billboard 200. Across the Atlantic, Release The Stars (2007) hit No.2 in the UK, and outperformed its US chart position in four more countries. So it's no surprise that his newly written opera, Prima Donna, is being premiered in Manchester, England, and isn't due to appear in North America until Toronto next year. Wainwright wrote both the music and the story of Prima Donna, which is entirely in French and debuts this weekend. "As early-morning light floods into a Paris apartment," the synopsis says, "a woman struggles to rouse herself from a fitful night's sleep. Once a soprano with a powerhouse voice and a reputation to match, she's now a forlorn figure, disdained by critics and forgotten by audiences. But the diva is determined to prove her doubters wrong: all she asks is a chance to reprise the role that made her reputation all those years ago." Wainwright told the BBC that writing the opera wasn't easy: "No matter how trained or how knowledgeable or fit you are, it's always gonna take every little ounce of your being to do. And there's no easy way around it. But that's the point of opera - it's a full body experience."