PIFA MY HEART: A Review of Prima! Rufus! Judy!

Gay singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright all but summoned Judy last night at the Kimmel Center.

I’m still kicking myself for missing Rufus Wainwright’s Prima! Rufus! Judy! performance last night at the Kimmel Center. The much–anticipated PIFA show started with excerpts from the gay singer-songwriter’s opera, Prima Donna, then flowed into his re-creation of Judy Garland’s phenomenal Carnegie Hall show, which celebrates its 52nd anniversary tomorrow (April 23).

If you’re a schlub like me and missed the show, you can live vicariously through gossip columnist A.D. Amorosi’s review on Philadelphia City Paper’s A&E blog, Critical Mass:

To celebrate the April 23, 1961 date of Garland’s comeback as well as his ability to craft a rich opera that actually sounds like his music, Rufus Wainwright crunches two of his most daring and best loved programs into one satisfying whole. Two of Wainwright’s singers from Prima Donna boldly tackle that opera’s somber, twitchy-percussion filled selections before a brief intermission. After that it’s show time and Wainwright, in a sparkly tux jacket with tousled hair, goes about the business of vocal dexterity, subtlety and schmaltz in the name of Garland.

You can read that and more of City Paper’s capsule-sized PIFA reviews here.

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