CONSIDERED one of the great male vocalists and one of the most powerful singer songwriters of his generation, Rufus Wainwright has now turned his hand to Shakespeare.

The American-Canadian’s latest record is Take All My Loves, which features nine adaptations of the Bard’s sonnets featuring guests such as Carrie Fisher, William Shatner, Florence Welsh and Helena Bonham Carter.

The project sees Wainwright’s string of classical productions continue which has seen him compose an opera, Prima Donna, and write classical scores.

Henry Holloway talks to the enigmatic singer about Shakespeare, pop music, his mother folk singer Kate McGarrigle, and Donald Trump.

The Guide: Why did you decide to record a new album based around Shakespeare?

Rufus Wainwright: It really kind of happened of its own volition in a lot of ways. I have been working for many years with the sonnets. I did a production for the Berlin ensemble about seven years ago and then before I composed music for one of the sonnets for a benefit album put together by Michael Kamen back in the day, and then the San Francisco symphony. So I have just been floating around in the sonnets for the while and then low and behold my label came to me and brought to me the concept of doing something around the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and it just made total sense right away. It felt like a natural step to take so we just went for it. At the time also it was an obvious idea of doing half of them classical, then half of them pop, but now it has actually happened we realised it has never occurred before there is no other album which is fifty-fifty equally both genres.

Shakespeare is obviously best known as a playwright and for his stage productions, do you think the musical side to him is often neglected?

I was not aware of how little his sonnets are studied in the mainstream here in England. Some people having been telling me they read Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? And that is about it. My mother was always a big fan of the sonnets so they were pretty prominent in our household. In reading them, and talking to scholars and lay people in general, I have realised they are if not right up there in plays, they are possibly more profound. They do not relate to characters, they are just this pure expression of humanity, love and the passage of time and death. They have certainly lasted and they will last a lot longer.

The new record features a large ensemble cast of guests, was that a conscious decision to give it an almost theatrical feel or was it just something you wanted to try out?

I think what it was was we had the material, we had the arrangements and we obviously had the sonnets. I had written most of these pieces for theatrical productions so I used to other people singing the material. I did not necessarily want to bare the brunt of this concept myself vocally, I wanted it to be a more open affair otherwise it would just look this image of me dressed up as Shakespeare. I did not want it to be a gimmick so it was nice to open it up to other people.

Any particular collaborators you enjoyed working with?

It was certainly great all round but I do have to thank Florence Welch constantly for her involvement. Musically it came out so great and I am so happy with it and secondly she was so gracious and down to earth about the project. Then thirdly she is just such a huge star which gives this album a very potent ingredient which only mainstream success can provide. But then Helena Bonham-Carter is no slouch either. Everyone just got together and raise this roof, or raise this Rufus, and I am very grateful for that.

You said you were first introduced to the sonnets by your mother, what sort of impact did they leave on you then?

My mother first introduced me to them we she thought I was masturbating too much in room. She said to me ‘You know Shakespeare writes about what you are doing’. And that is how I came into contact with Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame. Whatever that was about I am not sure, I think she was just trying to let me know within high culture you can find low value. And then later on when she was sick and then died I was immersed in the sonnets as I was working on the Berlin production and the orchestrations for San Francisco. I was beyond words in how to express my grief and the sonnets perfectly filled that gap, I was very much comforted by them.

In your latest video for the album’s single A Woman’s Face there are a lot of questions raised about gender and sexuality, what was the thought behind that?

I do think that Shakespeare was bisexual, I do not buy he was gay or straight pretending to gay. I think he was a bona fide bisexual that is where I would put my money. The video has that as its centrepiece. In a lot of ways the bisexual card is one of the final frontiers in this little argument. With transgender issues and gay and lesbian rights and stuff, the bis are definitely on the horizon.

This year has been all about the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, why do you think he has this longevity?

I do feel Shakespeare is essentially to this the writer who has best dealt with the complexities of the human condition on pretty much every level.

All of his characters are three dimensional and have this kind of explanation to why they are acting so perverted. There is never any stock situations. He managed to do that and I do not think any other writer has as well as him and for me that is the bottom line.

Coming off the Shakespeare record and your work with orchestras and operas, would you consider doing another pop record?

I want to make more pop records, in fact I am really itching to at the moment. But the way I have built my career at the moment is a little bit like a ping pong game. For a while I am in the pop world I get sick of that, feeling under impressed and missing depth, then I pop over to the classical world and get tired of the formality, then I pop back to pop.

The American Presidential race is just around the corner, what are your thoughts on it?

In terms of the whole Trump merry-go-round, at this point I am very scared about it. On one hand you want tot see it as a big joke, but jokes have come through in the States before with Bush and the world cannot afford that to happen again.