Iconic entertainer Ute Lemper is bringing her internationally-acclaimed one-woman show Rendez-vous avec Marlene to Montreal and Quebec City. Lemper’s decades-long career spans stage, film and music, with more than 30 recordings including her new album Pirate Jenny which honours revolutionary composer Kurt Weill’s 125thbirthday, nearly 40 years after her breakthrough album Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill.
Renowned for her interpretations of Berlin Cabaret, Kurt Weill, Brecht and chanson legends like Marlene Dietrich and Edith Piaf, the Grammy-nominated German superstar has also starred in major musicals on Broadway, the West End, Paris and Berlin.
When Lemper won the Molière Award for her 1987 performance as Cabaret’s Sally Bowles in Paris, ecstatic critics kept comparing her to Marlene Dietrich.
So Lemper sent Marlene a postcard apologizing for the media’s obsession. Then one day, out of the blue, Marlene phoned Lemper. The old-school showbiz icon and the up-and-coming legend spoke for more than three hours. That phone call became the basis of Rendez-vous avec Marlene.
Lemper will perform her one-woman show at Théâtre Outremont in Montreal on May 20, and at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec City on May 22.
New York City-based Lemper and I recently sat down for a candid Q&A about her legendary career.
Did your opera singer mom start you on piano, voice and ballet lessons at an early age?
Ute Lemper: My mom said, “You should learn some piano.” That was it. Then when I was six, I told my mom, “I need to learn ballet” and that’s what I did. I was very clear about what I wanted. As a teenager I also wanted to learn how to sing. I had a jazz and rock band at the time, and by the time I was 18, I knew after high school I wanted to study theatre and keep going with the music, the singing and the dancing.
I was a rebel intellectually, I needed to go my own way, far from the bourgeois world that I lived in. I wanted to be in the big city and see the reality of the Cold War. There was a lot to take in as a young German during those times. My wake-up call was when I moved to Berlin in 1984 and started singing the music of Kurt Weill. I felt a strong connection to the German Jewish composer who had been ostracized and persecuted by the Nazis. This was a story that was important to me, and I wanted to tell this story to the people of my generation, and to protect the musical legacy of the Weimar Republic. The Marlene Dietrich story is an elongation of this mission.
How did your lived experience in Berlin inform your work as Sally Bowles in the famed 1987 Paris production of Cabaret?
Ute Lemper: Cabaret was a show I really, really loved. When I was a young girl I would sing it out loud in my living room! Sally, who is not a political person, was somebody screaming for freedom and happiness inside a very haunted life. I loved the character. I was 22 turning 23 when I was asked by director Jérôme Savary to play Sally in Paris in French. It was an incredible challenge!
Liza Minelli attended your opening night at the Théâtre Mogador!
Ute Lemper: I was so moved and in awe to meet her. I was a fan of hers since my childhood!
Your show Rendez-vous avec Marlene is based on a three-hour phone conversation you had with Dietrich. What was your reaction when you picked up the phone and it was Marlene?
Ute Lemper: She had heard about me. Marlene hadn’t left her Paris apartment – surrounded by memories – in years. She didn’t want to show her aging face in public. But she was always on the telephone. It was her connection to the outside world. She was on the phone with Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev. She spoke with her favourite friends, such as Billy Wilder and Frank Sinatra.
When the newspapers said I was “la nouvelle Marlene” I guess the comparison was more that I was a young German making an international career. But I thought, my God, this legend, this Hollywood diva, this incredible woman! So I took the liberty to write her a letter to apologize for the comparisons and also express my admiration. Marlene found my hotel where the receptionist told me Marlene would call back in 10 minutes.
So I waited in my room. The phone rang after a couple of minutes. And Marlene shared advice and stories about her life. She had specific memories about people, lovers, collaborators, and was really hurt about being ostracized by Germany. I thought she was bitter and melancholic, and very emotional. Yet this lonely woman was strikingly charismatic.
You were 24 and Marlene was 87. But you both had much in common, including little affection for your homeland.
Ute Lemper: Well, yes, but it was a different time. The conversation would likely be very different today because Germany obviously has grown into a very responsible country. We were speaking about the Germany that I grew up in.
You also starred with another pop icon, Chita Rivera, in the Las Vegas premiere of Chicago in March 1999. What was that like?
Ute Lemper: She was incredible! She was already in her 60s. She was incredibly charismatic, charming, and had so much flair onstage. It was a great honour to meet and perform with her.
Performers like Chita Rivera, Marlene Dietrich and yourself have very loyal gay followings. What is it about Ute Lemper that gay audiences have fallen in love with? Is it the big voice? The big heart?
Ute Lemper: I hope it’s a little bit of everything. You know, in the 1980s, when I was being impersonated by a transvestite, I learned that drag performers love women who are glamorous, timeless and strong. I also think my connection to the gay audience was deepened by the Berlin Cabaret songs that celebrate freedom of expression and freedom of sexuality.
In Quebec City and Montreal, your show Rendez-vous with Marlene is called Rendez-vous avec Marlene.
Ute Lemper: In France I did the show in French but these shows I think will be multilingual. There’s a little bit of English in there.
How do you feel when people call you a living legend?
Ute Lemper: I’m not aware of it, but more and more I do hear from young artists thanking me for my recordings of Berlin cabaret songs that have inspired a whole new wave of artists honouring the Weimar Republic and the revolutionary culture of 1920s Berlin. I am happy that these songs have found a new young audience.
INFO | Ute Lemper stars in Rendez-vous avec Marlene at Théâtre Outremont in Montreal on May 20 and at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec City on May 22.
Visit www.utelemper.com.
