Rufus Wainwright has said that his next album will be a lot less grandiose than his previous material.

The Montréal-raised singer-songwriter is currently finishing his first opera, Prima Donna, which will premiere in Manchester next July. After that, he claims he'll return to the studio to record a 'intimate' album, which will be the follow-up to last year's 'Release the Stars'.

"I'm planning at the moment -- and I really want to stick to this - that the album will just be a solo piano/voice, just sitting in the studio alone and making it about the music," he told Billboard.com.