Rufus Wainwright’s ‘Nights’ are filled of emotion

Over the last couple of years, Rufus Wainwright staged his first opera while also penning a batch of emotionally charged tunes that appear on his latest album, “All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu.”

It was a lot to accomplish. But it was made even more difficult with the illness of his mother, folk singer Kate McGarrigle, who died earlier this year at 63.

Wainwright said his mother’s bout with cancer is reflected in the themes of his new CD, which was released last month.

“‘All Days Are Nights’ is a way of explaining the upside down nature of time, really — when you’re under a lot of stress and how that’s the first thing to go. You could be in a hospital room, it doesn’t matter what time it is outside. It’s just you’re there at that moment and that’s all that matters,” he said. “It’s the same way with theater too; you’re in a darkened theater where the outside world is obliterated in a positive way.”

Wainwright spoke to The Associated Press this month about the other inspirations behind the album, his longing for a pop hit and his fascination with Lady Gaga.

AP: You put some Shakespearean sonnets to music. What was the reasoning behind that?

Wainwright: One of them is my favorite. Sonnet 20, the first line is “a woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,” and it’s one of the really seminal creations dealing with homoeroticism and androgyny, and sexual politics in a lot of ways, from 400 years ago. So that one I adore. And the other two, they’re quite good too, those poems.

AP: What made you want to write your own opera, “Prima Donna”?

Wainwright: It really is a kind of homage to my love of the art form, and to my first foray into that universe, which is a pretty big step to take. Anyway, the establishment, meaning the critics … love it, but there’s another pretty solid group that are very, very upset that I’m writing something musical. They find it sacrilegious to try and make something that people can hum, so I’m just running into a lot of realities when you really go into the classical world. It’s a very demanding, very difficult, very rigid place and I am certainly not like that myself. I mean, look at my hair! So yes, it’s a journey.

AP: You’ve worked across a lot of different genres and mediums. Have you ever just wanted to stop and focus on one?

Wainwright: At this point I have laid out the field and I have a choice. I can go down the opera road, I can go down the pop road. I’d also like to try writing a musical at some point. I think that with opera, the next time I write one I will have to do that. I will have to put everything on the back burner and give myself a good five years to just slog through it, because it is a lot of work and you just want to get better. I think with pop, I’m dying to have a big pop hit now too after all this tuning. I have a new found respect for the creative juice that the pop world offers and how much fun it is.

AP: What do you think of the state of the music industry at the moment?

Wainwright: I talk a lot about Lady Gaga, like everybody is these days; in fact I dubbed myself Sir Gugu the other day. I’m certainly fascinated by her meteoric rise and impressed by … her musical ability; she knows what she’s doing. I do miss a kind of vulnerability though I think she has that she’s just really afraid to show it. But perhaps, I’m always more of a fan of somewhat more wretched, uncontrolled performers who are who they have to be without trying to be that. You don’t see that as much as you used to. So I guess that’s what I’m trying to be.

AP: What do you do to kick back and relax?

Wainwright: Well, I don’t get to see my boyfriend very much, Bjorn, so whenever I can I like to see him. We just bought a house out by the sea in America, in Montauk, N.Y. So we basically try not to eat fried food, out there, out by the seaside. And romantic walks on the beach, and shopping for antiques. We’re so gay.

AP: You’ve recently become an uncle; do you have any plans to start your own family?

Wainwright: I’m definitely at the age. I’m 37 and I have a lot of girlfriends out there who are really starting to climb the walls a little bit. And I’m cute, so there’s talk occasionally. I have to be honest too: Everyone in my family’s a musician and is very good. My sister’s amazing (Martha Wainwright), my father (Loudon Wainwright III) and my mother was amazing, and I have another sister, Lucy Wainwright Roach, who’s incredible. So there’s definitely a good gene pool here and I’ve gotten some offers.

Mission impossible: Escape from Europe

Stranded travelers are piling into buses, trains and high-priced taxis in a frantic scramble to accomplish an increasingly tricky mission: Escape from Europe.

Spain was becoming a dream destination not for its beaches and monuments but simply by virtue of the fact it’s one of the few European countries unaffected by the ash cloud drifting across the continent from an Icelandic volcano.

Monstrous lines filled the departure terminals at Madrid’s Bajaras Airport as people sought a chance to flee — and tempers were fraying.

“I am on the standby list and I am homeless right now,” said Roberta Marder, 73, from Tulsa, Oklahoma. “I am here fighting in the line and trying to get a ticket.”

Many people arrived with stories of grueling road trips to get to Madrid.

Doug Hahn, 36, from Portland, Oregon, was settling into his seat Thursday on a New York-bound plane in Amsterdam when the flight was canceled. He and three other stranded travelers rented a car and drove to Madrid — a 16 hour road journey.

The price? Six hundred euros ($808), split three ways — a “good deal” for Hahn, who said the car company initially wanted 1,600 euros ($2,155) for the one-way rental. He managed to get a ticket for a Miami flight later in the day.

On Monday, Spain offered to let Britain and other European countries use its airports as stopovers to get tens of thousands of passengers stranded by the volcanic ash traveling again.

With flying conditions uncertain, only a fraction of the continent’s airports were operating. Eurocontrol, the continental air authority said airlines in Europe were expected to fly only between 8,000 and 9,000 of their 28,000 scheduled flights on Monday — mostly from southern Europe.

A German rental agency on Sunday was asking more than 1,000 euros — close to $1,400 — for a car one-way from Belgrade, Serbia, to Munich, while another firm demanded 1,850 euros ($2,500) for a Madrid to Brussels rental. In Stockholm, Magnus Klintback, a spokesman for the Swedish firm Taxi Kurir, said about 50 clients had willingly paid prices of up to 34,000 kronor — nearly $5,000 — to different European destinations from which they had a chance to fly home.

Legions of other travelers were simply stranded.

At Frankfurt Airport, one of continental Europe’s biggest hubs, airport spokesman Uwe Witzel said that almost 500 passengers — most of them from Africa or Asia with no visas for the EU — were spending their fourth day in the transit area.

Witzel said the stranded were being provided with three meals a day, showers and fresh clothing as needed.

“We’ve set up an Internet lounge, we’ve hired people to entertain the kids and we’ve also arranged a spot outside the terminal building where people can go to get a breath of fresh air and some sun,” he said.

In Austria, authorities lifted flight bans early Monday, buoying travelers’ spirits. Officials said that approximately 65 flights had left by noon.

But most were within Europe. Austrian Airline officials said the only two transcontinental flights possible later in the day were to Beijing and Bangkok.

Attinchat Apirukkunwong won’t be on either.

“I am still patient now, but probably not for much longer,” said the Bangkok native, his face strained by the fatigues of a European vacation gone awry. He said he was hoping for a flight back home via a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul.

For Greg Moncada, flying was a professional imperative — he had scheduled job interviews on the U.S. West Coast.

“I’m trying to get to Seattle,” said Moncada, high school principal at Vienna’s American International School. “I have to be there tomorrow.”

In Italy, many travelers to Milan’s Furniture Show, which ended Monday, were also stuck — and trying to make the best of it.

“I think the plan is to play while New York is asleep. We give them three hours of work, then we eat and drink into the evening,” said Jonathan Friedlander, marketing manager for B&B Italia USA, referring to the time difference between the two continents. Friedlander was supposed to leave Sunday, but now is booked out with his colleagues on Friday.

Tongue firmly in cheek, Friedlander said there are so many design industry types from the United States stranded in Milan that they are toying with developing an iPhone ap called “Stuck in Milan.”

“It would tell everyone where everyone is. It can help with escape routes, say if people are renting cars to go to another city.”

The ash also caused diplomatic headaches.

President Barack Obama was forced to miss the Polish president’s weekend funeral, while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called off a scheduled trip to Finland.

The no-fly zone that was most of Europe also forced the postponement of a visit to Russia by a team of U.S. officials who were to discuss Russian concerns about adoptions. U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the team had made it as far as Toronto before its flight to Moscow was canceled.

At the same time, senior European officials were unable to make it to a Sunday and Monday conference in Washington of major economies on climate change, Crowley said. Those who could not attend either participated by video link or were represented by lower-level officials.

Crowley said the U.S. State Department had instructed diplomats from U.S. embassies and consulates in Europe to check on “key airports” to see if there are any stranded American citizens who might need assistance. He could not say yet which airports were visited or if any Americans had requested help.

Iceland’s volcanic ash cloud also delayed bailout talks in Athens on Monday regarding Greece’s economy, leaving the country to watch its borrowing costs hit another record high. The crisis negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union will now start Wednesday and could be held by teleconference if planes remain grounded after that.

Stranded Europeans trying to get home were also affected.

At Incheon International Airport in South Korea, about 30 frustrated passengers blocked a Korean Air ticketing counter and demanded a meeting with company officials to arrange travel to anywhere in Europe after they heard an Air France jet flew from the airport to the French city of Bordeaux.

They held up a makeshift sign saying, “We want to come back home,” each word written on a separate piece of paper and held by an individual traveler.

“We need a flight, we need a time,” Thierry Loison, who has been stuck since Friday at Incheon on the way back to France after a vacation in Bali, told Korean Air officials. “We were like animals this morning.”

Passengers resting on blankets spread on the floor of a business center complained about the lack of hotel accommodations. They said they were only receiving a voucher for one meal a day at McDonald’s and that they were running out of money.

Chloe Paull, a teaching assistant at a secondary school in England on her way home after a trip to Japan during school break, was supposed to be back at work Monday. She has been stuck in South Korea since Saturday and said Air France is sending her back to Japan, where she’s booked into a Wednesday flight back home.

“The problem is it might not be open so I can just be stuck in Japan, same as here” she said with a laugh.

Being stranded is becoming a financial burden, she said.

“My job isn’t highly paid and I spent a lot of money in Japan,” she said. “It’s an expensive place.”

Jennifer Aniston sees movie directing in future

After years of starring in romantic comedies, actress Jennifer Aniston is hoping to step behind the camera and direct her first feature film.

The former “Friends” star told reporters in London that she was thinking about branching out after making more than six movies since the end of the popular TV comedy in 2004.

“I have a project in development I’m going to direct. After you get enough movies under your belt you sit back and go, ‘What’s next?’,” Aniston, 41, was quoted as saying by Britain’s The Sun newspaper on Monday.

“It’s getting to a time where creatively I want to turn in a different direction,” she added.

Aniston’s directorial feature debut however could still be some years away. The “Bounty Hunter” and “Marley and Me” star has acting role movies in three other movies scheduled for release in 2010 and 2011.

Aniston’s publicist in Los Angeles said nothing concrete had been decided and that possible projects Aniston might direct are still in the writing stage of development.

Aniston has already co-directed the 2006 short drama “Room 10″ with Andrea Buchanan that won a prize at the CineVegas film festival.

If she moves into feature film directing, she would follow the likes of Hollywood actresses Drew Barrymore and Helen Hunt.

Aniston last week unveiled plans for a new perfume called Lovalie that will be launched in London this summer. She also revealed an ad campaign for the fragrance that shows her sitting on a rock at a beach wrapped only in a large towel.

Chris Brown to host Haiti benefit concert in Virginia

Chris Brown will headline and host a benefit concert in Virginia next month.

“Virginia Stand Up! A Call to Action” will be held May 15 at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Performers will include Trey Songz, Keri Hilson, T-Pain, Mario and Ryan Leslie.

The 20-year-old R&B singer said in a statement Monday he wanted to personally contribute to the Haitian relief effort and support an organization that helps people in his home state. Proceeds will benefit the American Red Cross and the Central Virginia Foodbank.

Brown was sentenced last year to five years’ probation and six months of community labor after pleading guilty to felony assault. He was charged in an attack on his then-girlfriend Rihanna hours before the 2009 Grammys.

Hollywood vs. The Volcano: Ash disrupts celebs

A volcanic cloud of ash hovering over Europe is causing quite a scene in Hollywood and beyond.

The ash spat out by an Icelandic volcano that has left thousands of air travelers stranded is also affecting celebrities, filmmakers, musicians and even pro-wrestlers.

With almost two-thirds of Europe’s flights grounded, cancelations and postponements were popping up across the entertainment landscape on Saturday as Icelandic scientists warned that volcanic activity had increased and showed no sign of abating.

Organizers of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., tweeted that some acts were forced to pull out of the weekend event, including British rockers The Cribs and Bad Lieutenant, Scottish rockers Frightened Rabbit, and British dance trio Delphic. It also appears unlikely that British synth singer Gary Numan will make it to Coachella for his Sunday slot.

“The last thing I expected this morning when I woke up was to hear that volcanic ash might be preventing us from flying to America,” Numan posted on his Web site Friday.

Bad Lieutenant announced Saturday it was also canceling concert dates through Wednesday in San Francisco, Chicago and New York because of flight disruptions.

“We’re stuck in Manchester,” said band member Bernard Sumner in a statement. “We were hoping that conditions might change at the last minute and we’d be able to come and play for our fans. Obviously, this is a situation out of everyone’s control, and we are crushed that we won’t be coming to America for these dates.”

Whitney Houston was forced to ditch a plane for a ferry across the Irish Sea to perform in Dublin. The R&B diva, currently in the middle of her “Nothing But Love” world tour, opted for the not-so-glamourous boat ride after no-fly orders shut down airports across Europe. Houston is scheduled to perform the first of three shows Saturday at the O2 arena in London.

The ash cloud also grounded several other musicians in Europe. Welsh indie pop band Los Campesinos! canceled their Friday appearance at the Culture Shock Festival in Purchase, N.Y., as well as their Saturday concert in Hoboken, N.J. Pop singer Mika postponed his Friday concert in Lisbon, Portugal, after unexpectedly finding himself stranded in Paris.

“Volcano freak out,” he tweeted. “This is bad.”

Scientists were indicating that travel chaos could extend into the new week, increasing the threat to New York’s Tribeca Film Festival, which begins Wednesday. Festival organizers said that some early arrivals — those scheduled to fly in Monday to help promote their films — had already been grounded. Tribeca is to feature films from nearly 40 countries, with many filmmakers from Europe expected to attend.

The cloud situation was also causing havoc for World Wrestling Entertainment, the professional wrestling organization nearing the end of a two-week European tour. Several wrestlers and crew members traveled for nearly 17 hours in buses and ferries to make it from Lieven, France, to Belfast, Ireland. The trip normally takes about an hour and a half in a plane.

WWE spokesman Kevin Hennessy said it was unclear if everyone would arrive in time for Monday night’s scheduled “WWE Raw” event at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J. He said the WWE wrestlers and crew normally “fly commercial, but we are booking a charter just to be safe.” Hennessy added that “Sunday is normally a simple travel day — very easy.”

Worldwide press junkets for two of the summer season’s most anticipated films — “Iron Man 2,” starring Robert Downey Jr., and “Robin Hood,” starring Russell Crowe — also were still scheduled as planned next weekend in London, according to studio officials.

Some U.S. book publishing executives were forced to cancel plans to attend next week’s London Book Fair because of the disrupted air travel. But organizers said Friday the three-day gathering will proceed as scheduled.

Back in Hollywood, Saturday’s blue-carpet world premiere of Disneynature’s “Oceans,” at the El Capitan Theatre was already prepared to hit bumpy waters. The film’s French director, Jacques Cluzaud, and producers won’t be attending the debut of their Disney documentary narrated by Pierce Brosnan and starring underwater critters. They’re stuck overseas.

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