Donning a huge red rose on his breast, Rufus Wainwright looked quite regal standing with the San Francisco Symphony this past weekend, performing musical renditions of five Shakespeare sonnets.
Wainwright was commissioned by the Symphony to create the pieces. Always ambitious, he wrote an entire orchestral score to accompany his magical voice. Singing in iambic pentameter is no simple feat, but to also make it sound incredibly beautiful, with hints of melancholy and pure joy, made the performance a total coup. It was also great to see such a mix of people in the audience, from classy bourgeois peeps in elegant silk dresses, to young hipsters in mix-matched plaids — but all of them giddy to see Rufus with orchestra.
Here’s a Youtube vid of part of the performance: