As she’s always had a touch of ‘old school’ glamour about her, it came as no surprise to learn that German entertainer Ute Lemper once met legendary Hollywood icon and fellow German-born star, Marlene Dietrich – albeit over the telephone.
That life-changing three-hour phone call and exchange between Ute and Dietrich in 1988 inspired Ute’s theatrical show Rendezvous with Marlene, which is her homage to Marlene Dietrich, who died in 1992 at the age of 90, telling the true story of the 1930s and 1940s leading lady in words and music.
Ute Lemper. Picture: Jim Rakete
Although when she comes to Cambridge next month, as part of the Cambridge Music Festival, Ute, an acclaimed cabaret artist, singer, actress and storyteller, will be presenting her Berlin Cabaret show – an event not to be missed.
Joined by an eight-piece band directed by Robert Ziegler, with whom she first worked 30 years ago, the star will be bringing to life the songs, satire and politically-charged performances of Weimar Germany (the period from the end of the First World War to the rise of Hitler) and the Berlin cabaret scene.
Ute Lemper. Picture: Lucas Allen
Ute Lemper. Picture: Steffen Thalemann
“I had a hip replacement last September,” reveals the lady herself, speaking to the Cambridge Independent from her New York apartment, “and took three months off. I’m definitely back on track now.”
Known to many as the star of Cabaret on Broadway and in the West End, with a vast and varied career spanning 40 years and 30 albums, Ute has enjoyed a remarkable career reviving the banned songs of Weimar Berlin and the political cabaret tradition that flourished in the 1930s – a repertoire that was silenced by the Nazis but remains relevant today.
The music of Kurt Weill will provide the focus for the show, from songs such as Mack the Knife and J’Attends un Navire – later the unofficial anthem of the French Resistance – to the Broadway hit The Saga of Jenny.
Ute Lemper. Picture: Lucas Allen
Ute Lemper. Picture: Steffen Thalemann
Alongside Weill’s compositions are songs by Mischa Spoliansky, Friedrich Hollaender and Vikctor Ullmann – all composers in Weimar Germany who were either forced into exile or deported in the 1930s and 40s.
“Kurt Weill celebrated last year his 125th birthday, and the 75th anniversary of passing away,” says Ute, “so it was a big Kurt Weill year for me last year, remembering his music and my relationship to his music, being a very young German at the time
“It was also 40 years ago that I recorded my first album, in 1985 [Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill], in Berlin and London.
“So it’s a repertoire that’s obviously also classic now and always needs to be revisited.”
Reflecting on the period of German history that she celebrates in the show, Ute says: “Weimar Berlin was definitely… they called it ‘dancing on a volcano’.
“It was just a wild time, breaking every possible law of physics, of music, of tonality, of harmony, of customs, of conventions.
“It was like a ‘break free’ period, and it was short-lived because after 1933 the Nazis shattered the Weimar culture and dictated the rest of it, and that was the end of the Weimar time.”
Ute Lemper. Picture: Russ Rowland
Ute Lemper. Picture: Jim Rakete
Ute, who lives in New York with her four children, was born in Munster, Germany in 1963 and completed her studies at The Dance Academy in Cologne and the Max Reinhardt Seminary Drama School in Vienna.
As well as numerous albums, concert tours and film appearances (her credits include L’Autrichienne, Prospero’s Books, Moscow Parade and Prêt-à-Porter), every year at the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Ute performs multiple concerts of her programme Songs for Eternity that focuses on the songs written by Jewish prisoners during the Holocaust.
She published an autobiography, Die Zeitreisende: Zwischen Gestern und Morgen (The Time Traveller), in June 2023.
See her Berlin Cabaret show at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, as part of the Cambridge Music Festival, on Thursday, 5 March.
Tickets, priced £18-£58, are available from cornex.co.uk. For more on Ute, go to utelemper.com.