After his opera took a mauling at the hands of a particularly merciless reviewer, Rufus Wainwright took a deep breath and composed himself … before writing a vicious, ritzy revenge ditty for his new record. Playful ire bleeds from every line, with his critics warned “I will eat you, your folks and your kids for breakfast”.

Has he never thought about giving the reviews a miss?

“I’ve considered it many times … fruitlessly,” he laughs.

“But I’m pretty helpless when it comes to anything written about me, whether it’s good or bad. My favourite character in the press is me and I’m just dying to find out what happens in the next instalment – it’s a bit of a psychotrip but I can’t be perfect.”

The very fact he’d written an opera at all speaks of the searing, widescreen ambition that propels this very singular songwriter along. Son of folk singers Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle – who lost her battle with cancer in January – Rufus has never been short of ideas, from the vaulting enterprise of his sumptuous records to his recreation of Judy Garland’s 1961 Carnegie Hall concert in its entirety in 2006. The bells, whistles, trolleys, strings and things are markedly absent on his new album, however.

All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu is a gorgeous, stark set of songs with nothing more than Wainwright’s rich treacle of a voice and his piano for company.

“I’d threatened to do something more toned down, but this time, everything conspired to enable it. In my personal life, there was my mother’s impending death [many of the songs were written during her illness] and the piano was one of the only places I could go and really process what was happening.

“But also, I think my fans were in need of something more bare bones, and the financial aspect is good – we are in a recession and I’m paring back like everybody else.”

After premiering his Prima Donna opera at the Manchester International Festival and working with an enormous cast, costumes and instruments (not to mention creative tension with original director Daniel Kramer), it’s tempting to think there’d be some relief in taking only himself and his piano on-stage.

“There was, but I have to say it was a much more daunting and challenging process, with me alone up there on the stage. I really put myself through the paces and made the show as much of a turbulent voyage for me as it is for the audience. In a good way!”

Wainwright and his mother were extremely close. He’s likened the relationship to Sonny and Cher in the way it was played out in front of a record-buying public, and made no secret of the fact he’s thrown himself into touring and recording in response to her death.

“Initially, when faced with tragedy, it’s good to remain as busy as possible and I figured a good way to handle it right away … I know you have to shut everything off at a certain point, and sit with it, but I do think there’s something to be said in forging forth.”

His Brighton date will be his last before he takes July off to “decompress” but, for now, he’ll be taking his show out on the road, with songs from across his career (and some from Judy’s as well).

It’ll be a very different affair from recent performances of All Day Are Nights, which saw him take to the stage in a 17ft feathered train. His website carried a polite notice to audience members asking that they refrain from clapping in the first half to enable Wainwright to play the songs in a cycle, prompting a stack of “Rufus bans applause” headlines.

“I’m not doing it out of any sort of megalomania or self-reverence,” he explains. “It’s really just to space out and for the audience to get lost in the songs in the same way I do when I’m playing them. I think that’s an element that’s very underplayed in pop culture. But I’ll be there for your applause in Brighton.”

The touring lifestyle can be hard on performers, poor lambs, but Wainwright seems unfazed by the ton of dates he has lined up. His voice is even more astonishing live than on record, and these dates will see it given its most direct expression. But how far does he go to look after it? Some singers go through rigorous warm-ups and avoid drink, dairy, coffee, dry ice machines, helicopter travel … Wainwright says he left drink and drugs behind a long time ago (he was a crystal meth addict before being treated in rehab), so there’s no hindrance there.

“I really don’t involve those two in any way so that’s never been a problem for me, just because I saw so many horror stories unfolding.

But on the other hand, I’m pretty prone to perform at the drop of hat – it’s in the genes.”

There are scarce few stories about any of the Wainwright dynasty that don’t allude to the fact they’re part of a … er, dynasty. One of the most poignant moments on the new album is Rufus’s song Martha – named for his sister, who’s also a songwriter of considerable talent – which sees him pleading for her to pick up the phone during their mother’s illness. It’s not the first time they’ve written about one another; Rufus wrote playfully about his younger sibling in Little Sister from his Want Two record, while his own arrival into the world was greeted by Loudon’s composition Rufus Is A Tit Man, an irony not lost on a man who came out as a teenager. What would your own sibling say if you told them over Sunday lunch you’d soon be sending an account of your grievances with them out into the world in song form? Does Rufus give Martha the heads-up when he’s recording a song about her?

“Yeah I do, but I’ve always been pretty cognisant of dulling the blade. Not in order to bludgeon, but to soften the blow. But at the end of the day I consider my songwriting to be very positive.

“I’ve never been a particularly nihilistic or bitter person and though I can be very truthful and cutting, in the end I always leave hope behind.”

Wainwright has a busy time ahead of him; his opera will soon open in his native Canada before it moves to Australia, and the autumn will see another ambitious project come to fruition.

“I’ll be premiering a song cycle of five of Shakespeare’s sonnets, which I’m orchestrating for the San Francisco Symphony, and then who knows? By then I’ll probably have the skyscraper under way, ha ha.”

Before construction begins on the Wainwright Tower, the songwriter has some summer dates to fulfil. Will he get some time off in Brighton?

“I don’t know – I’m with my friend Stephen Oremus [his artistic director for this tour and the Judy concerts] who is a great gay like myself, so who knows – I hear Brighton has some singular pleasures.”

* Rufus Wainwright will be at the Brighton Centre on Sunday, July 4. Call 0844 847 1515.