Vanity project? You bet – but if there’s one musician who can pull off an album of Shakespeare’s sonnets set to music, it’s Rufus Wainwright.
Having previously dabbled in the Bard's material on his All Days Are Nights album, Wainwright here enlists everyone from William Shatner to Florence Welch to voice his compositions, only occasionally taking the lead vocal himself.
Austrian soprano Anna Prohaska features most prominently on these largely classical and orchestral pieces, best heard on the theatrical romp of For Shame, although the Helena Bonham Carter-featuring Unperfect Actor is a dashing, rock-oriented affair.
It’s all bit stuffy and long-winded, even for ardent fans of Wainwright’s, but, if nothing else, it proves his uncanny versatility as a musician.
