Lemper, Ute

UTE LEMPER

Born: Munster, Germany, 4 July 1963

Genre: Vocal

Best-selling album since 1990: Punishing Kiss (2000)

Ute Lemper is a Bavarian-voiced cabaret stylist whose work, despite an edgy defiance of the mainstream, has somehow trickled into the pop music scene. Never one to follow the pack, the statuesque singer evolved from a theater background, is proficient in a variety of art forms, and renowned for her bold one-person shows. Lemper is the foremost living performer of German composer Kurt Weill's music.

While growing up in Munster, Germany, Ute (pronounced Oo'-tah) Lemper's parents sent her to classical singing, ballet, and piano training at an early age and she worked professionally in jazz bars and nightclubs by age fifteen. Shortly after, she joined a punk rock band but left to study classical and musical theater at the Max Reinhardt Seminary in Vienna. Andrew Lloyd Webber placed Lemper in his 1983 Viennese production of Cats and she played the characters Grizabella and Bombalurina over the course of that year. In 1986, her career quickly picked up momentum as the European theater world took notice of her portrayal of Sally Bowles in the European tour of Cabaret. She won the Moliere Award for best actress in a musical during the Paris leg of the tour. New York City audiences were introduced to Lemper in 1987 when she performed a musical repertoire of Weill in a one-person show. A subsequent world tour and an album, Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill (1989), were widely acclaimed. Lemper also began working extensively as a film actress and portrayed Lola in the German film, Blue Angel. Continually at odds with her German heritage, she left her native country in the early 1990s and began living in Paris, London, and New York where she centered her eclectic interest in a variety of art forms. Lemper wrote political articles for European publications, published two books, displayed her paintings in Paris exhibits and danced as a principal in the ballet, La Mort Subite.

Often compared to Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich from her already extensive recording career, Lemper made a first foray into popular music with Crimes of the Heart (1991). The album contains songs in English, French, and German and only hints at mainstream pop, as Lemper's flexible soprano possesses a rich, timeless quality that recurrently conjures up smoky German nightclubs. The album's title song is a ballad laced with Lemper's trademark irony. In 1995, she recorded City of Strangers (1995) and lent her breathy interpretations to the works of Stephen Sondheim and popular French poet/songwriter, Jacques Prevert. One of the highlights from City of Strangers is the silky, aching "Losing My Mind."

Lemper stepped into the world of Bob Fosse in 1998 when she joined the Broadway cast of the already-running hit show, Chicago, to play one of the leads, Velma Kelly. More accustomed to the flexibility of one-person shows and other self-created projects, Lemper found performing in Chicago somewhat stifling. Her stylized performance confounded critics, but the notoriety gained from the show in addition to a recording, All That Jazz: The Best of Ute Lemper, whose title song came from Chicago, expanded her cult following. She built on that by releasing Punishing Kiss (2000), a collection of songs written by notable artists such as Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Philip Glass, and many others. Songs from Punishing Kiss began to overcome reluctant radio airplay and its sales increased.

Never one to stray far from the music of despair, Lemper's But One Day (2002) revisits the work of Weill and other cabaret/art songs, including Jacques Brel's musically gorgeous but forlorn tale, "Amsterdam." It also features five songs written by Lemper. A concert tour of But One Day kicked off in Germany following the album's release and she continues to perform concerts and one-woman shows all around the world. Lemper is married to American comedian/actor David Tabatsky and they reside in New York City.

Lemper is a maverick who possesses diverse talents, a fearless heart, and a true artist's soul. Strikingly beautiful, her astonishing insistence to pursue only projects that stir her passion has kept her from becoming a more mainstream star.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Life Is a Cabaret (CBS, 1987); Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill (Decca, 1988); I Dreamed a Dream (CBS, 1988); Crimes of the Heart (Polygram, 1991); Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill, Vol. 2 (Decca, 1993); Espace Indecent (Polydor, 1993); City of Strangers (Decca, 1995); Berlin Cabaret Songs (Decca, 1997); All That Jazz: The Best of Ute Lemper (Decca, 1998); Punishing Kiss (Decca, 2000); But One Day (Decca, 2003).

donald lowe