Rufus Wainwright, subdued and lilting

When last performing in Philly two years ago, Rufus Wainwright hoofed across the Mann Center stage in drag, paying tribute to Judy Garland with the help of a large band. Compared to that over-the-top encore to an extravagant, extroverted show, Thursday's solo performance at the idyllic Longwood Gardens amphitheater was intimate and subdued, with the spotlight on Wainwright's crooning voice and complex songcraft.

The voluble Canadian opened his 85-minute set by dedicating "Going to a Town" and its provocative "I'm so tired of America" chorus to "the health-care debate in the United States of America."

But he kept the between-songs patter to a minimum, unlike his sister Lucy Wainwright Roche, who chatted as much as she sang during her 45-minute opening slot.

Wainwright praised the gardens and included several site-inspired songs, such as "Grey Gardens" and "Sanssouci" (about the German palace). "I realized about 75 percent of my work involves gardens, fireworks, a ballroom," he said. "It started to dawn on me that I need a huge estate."

Although it's been two years since his last album, Wainwright's been busy, and the show included a few glimpses of what he's been up to. From his collaboration with theater director Robert Wilson on a piece based on Shakespeare's sonnets, he recited and then sang Sonnet 20, "the androgynous sonnet," as he called it. Shakespeare's words fit easily into the cadences of the somber piano ballad he had crafted for them. He then segued neatly into his own song "Zebulon."

From Prima Donna, his opera that recently opened in England, Wainwright sang the closing aria, "Les Feux D'Artifices" ("The Fireworks"). Set to complicated piano trills, the piece fit in with the other romantic ballads of longing and conflicted love that dominated the evening, from the lustful "Art Teacher" to "Dinner at Eight," the tormented love song to his father, the great singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III.

All was not somber, however, and some of the highlights came from the pop end of the spectrum: the jaunty, technically impressive "Beauty Mark," the hopeful "April Fools," and the lilting "Gay Messiah" that closed the show.