{"id":101328,"date":"2024-01-17T16:29:42","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T21:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=101328"},"modified":"2024-01-17T16:29:42","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T21:29:42","slug":"interview-stage-and-music-icon-ute-lemper-talks-career-music-and-her-upcoming-toronto-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2024\/01\/17\/interview-stage-and-music-icon-ute-lemper-talks-career-music-and-her-upcoming-toronto-show\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW | Stage And Music Icon Ute Lemper Talks Career, Music, And Her Upcoming Toronto Show"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ute
Ute Lemper (Photos: Lucas Allen)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Iconic stage performer Ute Lemper will make a return to Toronto on January 26 after nearly two decades. The show, Ute Lemper: From Berlin to Broadway presented by GFN Productions, will see Ute perform with the FILMharmonic Orchestra, led by conductor Francis Choini\u00e8re.<\/p>\n

We caught up with the German-born singer, actress and performer to talk about her storied career and the music she\u2019ll bring to Toronto\u2019s Massey Hall.<\/p>\n

Ute Lemper: The Interview<\/h2>\n

Early Years<\/h3>\n

Ute was drawn to the performing arts in various ways from childhood, tied together with the thread of music \u2014 a passion she explored without a clear plan at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I think it was a slow evolution,\u201d she says of the enviable career she\u2019s crafted. \u201cAs a child, I knew that I really loved music, and it seemed to be the only friend I had.\u201d She describes music as a world of escape and dreams.<\/p>\n

Ute\u2019s mother was an opera singer, and through her, Ute got children\u2019s parts in operas and operetta productions. She began to study ballet and other dance forms as a child, later discovering her singing voice as a teen. Classical voice lessons, however, didn\u2019t click, and Ute was drawn to the freedom of jazz.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a trio, I had a big band,\u201d she recalls. Ute played piano too. \u201cSlowly, I began to commit myself to the arts,\u201d she says. \u201cObviously I was addicted to it. It doesn’t work without that OCD factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the age of 16, she joined a rock band. Later, she\u2019d attend and graduate from the Dance Academy in Cologne and the Max Reinhardt Drama School in Vienna. She attended summer music seminars in Salzburg, Austria, and was accepted into the Max Reinhardt Academy. Once she\u2019d graduated, her path was clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then I went straight into my professional life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The triple threat of acting\/dancing\/singing may seem like an ambitious but fairly typical choice nowadays, but at the time, she was unique. \u201cNobody in the 80s in Germany was trained in both music and dance,\u201d she says. It meant she was able to take role after role, working with a range of different companies.<\/p>\n

The combination of skills, naturally, made her a perfect candidate for musical theatre, and she was soon gracing Europe\u2019s prominent productions. She won the 1987\u00a0Moli\u00e8re Award\u00a0for Best Newcomer for her portrayal of Sally Bowles in the original Paris production of Cabaret. She played Velma Kelly in the London and New York revivals of Chicago, and collected the 1998\u00a0Olivier Award\u00a0for\u00a0Best Actress in a Musical.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s worked in TV and film, including playing Marie Antoinette I a French production, and a notorious nude scene filmed while Ute was pregnant in Robert Altman\u2019s 1994 flick Pr\u00eat-\u00e0-Porter.<\/p>\n

\"Ute
Ute Lemper (Photo: Lucas Allen)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ute & Weimar\u2019s Music<\/h3>\n

Born in\u00a0M\u00fcnster, Germany, in 1963, despite her successes Ute experienced the anti-German backlash of the post-War generation through much of her early career. She was part of Berlin\u2019s arts community during its years as a divided city, and lived the political reality of the situation. Like most of her generation, she felt a heated outrage against the Nazi regime and the tainted legacy it had left them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was difficult to even be a German artist working internationally,\u201d Ute admits. \u201cI was surprised by this,\u201d she says of her reaction as a young artist. By the 1980s, however, she understood the lingering anger \u2014 an anger she says she shared to a great extent.<\/p>\n

Officially, the Weimar Republic refers to the period from November 9, 1918 (or the end of WWI) and March 23, 1933, when Hitler\u2019s Enabling Act would usher in his reign of oppression, genocide, and war mongering. It was a period when Germany was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in its history.<\/p>\n

She was part of a project to re-record the music of that period in 1987, which resulted in Ute Lemper singt Kurt Weill, a German release, and 1988\u2019s Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill. The English recording hit No. 1 on Billboard\u2019s Crossover chart. She\u2019d discovered a true passion for the period, and has become known as one of the foremost interpreters of German music of the 1920s and 1930s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a very important part for me, and formed my artistic identity,\u201d she says. \u201cFirst of all, when I first interpreted this music, it was a time that it was suppressed somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The horrors of the too-recent Second World War had squelched any desire to delve into 20th century German history for some time. \u201cThe Nazis had destroyed the Weimar culture,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Ute describes that culture as one of daring and intense artistic experimentation, a society where genders were fluid, politics were liberal, and emancipation was everyone\u2019s goal. \u201cThe gender question was basically asked 100 years ago by the women of the Bauhaus,\u201d she laughs. It was a bright light that was extinguished by Nazi fascism. \u201cThe 60s would have happened in the 40s in Berlin, but for the Nazis,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The music became part of the way she processed it. \u201cIt was a platform myself to deal with it,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

It was a society fuelled by the devastation of WWI, but also by the hope of a better society. It was a time to break the rules and throw away the old traditions. Art and culture played a key role. \u201cTo catapult art into a completely new space,\u201d she says of the buzz that surrounded the art world of the day. She describes Berlin as something of a mecca of culture. \u201cAnd then, everything got shattered.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the late 1980s, the world had moved on enough to be able to revive the period. Yet, as she points out, the topics and themes are as relevant today as they were to that rarefied between-the-wars period.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany matters of our era, contemporary issues, election issues, […] the game of religion \u2014 it’s so contemporary.\u201d She points out that the atmosphere of war weighs heavily on the world still.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s ridiculous to see how much history wanted to be a teacher, and nobody was listening.\u201d<\/p>\n