Dangerous territory

Henrietta Bredin talks to Janis Kelly about her role in Rufus Wainwright’s first opera, Prima Donna

Anyone less like the clichéd idea of a prima donna than Janis Kelly would be hard to find. She is known and loved as a singer and consummate actress with a conspicuous lack of airs and graces who will throw herself into anything, the more challenging and off the wall the better, imbuing performances with her own particular brand of intense musicality and grace. Lucky Rufus Wainwright, then, who has cast her to perform the title role in his first foray into writing opera, Prima Donna, which will be given its world première at the Manchester International Festival on 10 July.

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I ask her, tentatively, what it’s like to be playing a woman of approximately her own age when she can, and almost invariably does, play much younger women.