Auswahl: Übersetzer

Zur Entstehung des Werks

As an adolescent Rufus Wainwright was encouraged by his mother to read the sonnets, but it was later, when Robert Wilson and the Berliner Ensemble asked him to write music for an evening of the sonnets, that he became enamoured of them. While studying the poems for the Wilson show, Rufus says, “My mother, Kate McGarrigle, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I was falling in love with my partner, Jörn, and I was in the process of conceiving the conception of my daughter Viva. What a blessing to have the sonnets to hold onto during that time. Love, death, birth, happiness, regret, etc. … It was all there.
Perhaps there is a hidden narrative in the sonnets Rufus has chosen. In the first one the poet confesses to the absent lover that in dreams he sees the beloved, clearer and more potent in sleep than with his eyes open in daylight. In the last one it seems the love has come to an end, as if it had all been a beautiful dream from which he has now waked:
"Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter."
However, it is not a subliminal narrative which is vital, it is the dexterity of the verse, the brilliance of the language, and the tantalizing ambiguity of the “story” each poem tells which hold us in thrall.
As Rufus says, "These magical poems seem to jump into your life at the most intense of times and can perfectly illustrate, hundreds of years later, what you are going through in the present."
(Peter Eyre, Booklet, o. S.)

Vgl. Robert Wilson und Rufus Wainwright (=R145); Christa Schuenke (=1140).

Besprechungen:

Kerstin Poppendieck, "Rufus Wainwright vertont Shakespeares Sonette", deutschlandfunk.de, 26.04.2016; online verfügbar.

Ally Carnwath, "Rufus Wainwright: Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets review – engaging and sumptuous", The Guardian, 24.04.2016; online verfügbar.