Ute Lemper
Encyclopedia
Ute Lemper is a German chanteuse and actress renowned for her interpretation of the work of Kurt Weill
.
, Germany
, Ute Lemper was raised in a Roman Catholic family. She joined the punk music group known as the Panama Drive Band at the age of 16. Later, she graduated from the Dance Academy in Cologne
and the Max Reinhardt Seminar
y Drama School in Vienna
.
Her diverse credits include musicals, such as her breakthrough role in the original Viennese cast of Cats
, the title role in Peter Pan
, a recreation of the Marlene Dietrich
-created Lola in The Blue Angel, the original European Sally Bowles in a Paris production of Cabaret
, and Velma Kelly in Chicago
(Lemper has played the role of Velma Kelly in Chicago
in both London and New York. She won the Laurence Olivier Award for her performance in London). She also dubbed the singing voice of Ariel in Disney's The Little Mermaid
for German-speaking audiences. The movie has since been redubbed for a second run in theaters in 1998, and was never released on DVD in its original German dub.
A painter in the neoclassical
style, Lemper's paintings have been showcased in numerous galleries.
Lemper, a mother of four, resides on the Upper West Side
section of Manhattan
in New York City
. She performs worldwide, recently even in the war-torn Middle East. Her autobiography was published in Berlin in 1995. She has also authored several journal articles.
for L'Autrichienne (1989, directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre
), and subsequently appeared in films such as Prorva, Bogus
, Jean Galmot, aventurier, Prospero's Books
, Appetite and Prêt-à-Porter
(in the latter appearing in a well-publicised nude scene filmed while she was pregnant, and she received National Board of Review for Ensemble Cast award). She has contributed to the soundtracks of numerous films, including The Voyager
, Kissing Jessica Stein
and Appetite.
In 2007, Lemper was a juror in Let's Dance
, the German version of Dancing with the Stars
.
's Crossover Artist of the Year for 1993/1994, is a prolific recording artist, appearing on numerous cast recording
s and compilation concert
s, including Roger Waters
' "The Wall" concert in 1990. As a solo artist, her extensive discography includes ubiquitously well-reviewed interpretations of Kurt Weill
's compositions from the late 1980s, in addition to German cabaret songs, which were very political songs sung in underground locations in 1930s Berlin and elsewhere. She recorded Illusions in 1992, devoted to the songs of Marlene Dietrich and Édith Piaf
. She has numerous pop albums, variously in English, French
, and German, and 2000s lauded modern Punishing Kiss
. Punishing Kiss featured songs written especially for her by the likes of Scott Walker
, Nick Cave
, Tom Waits
, Elvis Costello
, Philip Glass
, and Neil Hannon
, the latter of whom performed with her on two of the album's tracks. Lemper is known for wild interpretations on discs like the Sondheim tribute City of Strangers, containing a particularly mannered version of the Elaine Stritch
-popularized song "The Ladies Who Lunch". In 1998, a Lemper compilation, All That Jazz: The Best of Ute Lemper
, was released. In 2003 and 2006 Lemper's songwriting talents were shown on her discs from those years as she moved from being an interpretive singer to a singer/songwriter.
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
.
Biography
Born in MünsterMünster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Ute Lemper was raised in a Roman Catholic family. She joined the punk music group known as the Panama Drive Band at the age of 16. Later, she graduated from the Dance Academy in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
and the Max Reinhardt Seminar
Max Reinhardt Seminar
The Max Reinhardt Seminar is the School of Drama at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria. It is located in the Palais Cumberland, Penzingerstraße 9, in Vienna's 14th district - History :...
y Drama School in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
.
Her diverse credits include musicals, such as her breakthrough role in the original Viennese cast of Cats
Cats (musical)
Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot...
, the title role in Peter Pan
Peter Pan
Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...
, a recreation of the Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
-created Lola in The Blue Angel, the original European Sally Bowles in a Paris production of Cabaret
Cabaret (musical)
Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....
, and Velma Kelly in Chicago
Chicago (musical)
Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...
(Lemper has played the role of Velma Kelly in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in both London and New York. She won the Laurence Olivier Award for her performance in London). She also dubbed the singing voice of Ariel in Disney's The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid (1989 film)
The Little Mermaid is a 1989 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, the film was originally released to theaters on November 14, 1989 and is the twenty-eighth film in...
for German-speaking audiences. The movie has since been redubbed for a second run in theaters in 1998, and was never released on DVD in its original German dub.
A painter in the neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
style, Lemper's paintings have been showcased in numerous galleries.
Lemper, a mother of four, resides on the Upper West Side
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...
section of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. She performs worldwide, recently even in the war-torn Middle East. Her autobiography was published in Berlin in 1995. She has also authored several journal articles.
Film and television work
She starred as Marie AntoinetteMarie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
for L'Autrichienne (1989, directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre
Pierre Granier-Deferre
Pierre Granier-Deferre was a French film director. His 1971 film Le Chat won the Best Actor and Best Actress awards at the 21st Berlin International Film Festival....
), and subsequently appeared in films such as Prorva, Bogus
Bogus (film)
Bogus is a 1996 American fantasy film directed by Norman Jewison, written by Alvin Sargent, and starring Whoopi Goldberg, Gerard Depardieu, and Haley Joel Osment. It features magic tricks with magician Whit Haydn as consultant. It did poorly at the box office and Goldberg was nominated for a Razzie...
, Jean Galmot, aventurier, Prospero's Books
Prospero's Books
Prospero's Books , written and directed by Peter Greenaway, is a cinematic adaptation of The Tempest, by William Shakespeare. John Gielgud is Prospero, the protagonist who provides the off-screen narration and the voices to the other story characters...
, Appetite and Prêt-à-Porter
Prêt-à-Porter (film)
Prêt-à-Porter is a 1994 American satirical black comedy film co-written, directed, and produced by Robert Altman and shot during the Paris, France, Fashion Week with a host of international stars, models and designers...
(in the latter appearing in a well-publicised nude scene filmed while she was pregnant, and she received National Board of Review for Ensemble Cast award). She has contributed to the soundtracks of numerous films, including The Voyager
The Voyager
Voyager is a 1991 English language drama film directed by Volker Schlöndorff, and starring Sam Shepard, Julie Delpy, and Barbara Sukowa. Adapted from the 1957 novel Homo Faber by Max Frisch, the film is about an engineer who survives a plane crash, meets an enchanting young woman with whom he has...
, Kissing Jessica Stein
Kissing Jessica Stein
Kissing Jessica Stein is a 2001 independent romantic comedy film, written and co-produced by the film's stars, Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen. The film also stars Tovah Feldshuh and is directed by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld...
and Appetite.
In 2007, Lemper was a juror in Let's Dance
Let's Dance (German TV series)
Let's Dance is the German version of Dancing with the Stars. Season 1 aired in April 2006 on RTL. Season 2 aired in May 2007. The first two seasons were hosted by Hape Kerkeling & Nazan Eckes. Season 3 aired in April 2010 and was hosted by Daniel Hartwich & Nazan Eckes...
, the German version of Dancing with the Stars
Dancing with the Stars
Dancing with the Stars is the name of several international television series based on the format of the British TV series Strictly Come Dancing, which is distributed by BBC Worldwide – the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the format has been licensed to over 35 countries...
.
Recording
Lemper, named BillboardBillboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
's Crossover Artist of the Year for 1993/1994, is a prolific recording artist, appearing on numerous cast recording
Cast recording
A cast recording is a recording of a musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. An original cast recording, as the name implies, features the voices of the show's original cast...
s and compilation concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
s, including Roger Waters
Roger Waters
George Roger Waters is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. He was a founding member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd, serving as bassist and co-lead vocalist. Following the departure of bandmate Syd Barrett in 1968, Waters became the band's lyricist, principal songwriter...
' "The Wall" concert in 1990. As a solo artist, her extensive discography includes ubiquitously well-reviewed interpretations of Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
's compositions from the late 1980s, in addition to German cabaret songs, which were very political songs sung in underground locations in 1930s Berlin and elsewhere. She recorded Illusions in 1992, devoted to the songs of Marlene Dietrich and Édith Piaf
Édith Piaf
Édith Piaf , born Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer and cultural icon who became widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer. Her singing reflected her life, with her specialty being ballads...
. She has numerous pop albums, variously in English, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, and German, and 2000s lauded modern Punishing Kiss
Punishing Kiss
-Chart positions:-External Links:* http://www.ashortsite.com/discs/?page=collab_ute* http://www.discogs.com/Ute-Lemper-Punishing-Kiss/release/1101544...
. Punishing Kiss featured songs written especially for her by the likes of Scott Walker
Scott Walker (singer)
Scott Walker, born Noel Scott Engel on January 9, 1943 is an American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, and the former lead singer of The Walker Brothers. Despite being American born, Walker's chart success has largely come in the United Kingdom, where his first four solo albums...
, Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, and Neil Hannon
Neil Hannon
Neil Hannon is a Northern Irish singer and songwriter, best known as the creator and frontman of the chamber pop group The Divine Comedy. The band's official website even goes so far as to say, "The Divine Comedy is Neil Hannon," and Hannon is quoted in an interview as saying, "The Divine Comedy...
, the latter of whom performed with her on two of the album's tracks. Lemper is known for wild interpretations on discs like the Sondheim tribute City of Strangers, containing a particularly mannered version of the Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
-popularized song "The Ladies Who Lunch". In 1998, a Lemper compilation, All That Jazz: The Best of Ute Lemper
All That Jazz: The Best of Ute Lemper
All that Jazz: The Best of Ute Lemper is a CD from the German singer Ute Lemper released September 1, 1998. The CD consists of 20 tracks that are considered the best of Ute Lemper.-Track listing:...
, was released. In 2003 and 2006 Lemper's songwriting talents were shown on her discs from those years as she moved from being an interpretive singer to a singer/songwriter.
Discography
- Cats (original German cast recording, 1983)
- Ute Lemper Singt Kurt Weill (1987)
- Life is a Cabaret (1987)
- Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill (1988)
- Starlight Express (original German cast recording, 1988)
- I Dreamed a Dream (1988)
- Crimes of the Heart (1989)
- Die Dreigroschenoper (1990)
- The Seven Deadly Sins (1990)
- The Wall - Live in Berlin (1990)
- Arielle, die Meerjungfrau (1990)
- Andrew Lloyd Webber Welterfolge (1990)
- Prospero's BooksProspero's BooksProspero's Books , written and directed by Peter Greenaway, is a cinematic adaptation of The Tempest, by William Shakespeare. John Gielgud is Prospero, the protagonist who provides the off-screen narration and the voices to the other story characters...
(1991) - Ute Lemper Live: Ihre Grossen Tournee-Erfolge (1991)
- The Michael Nyman SongbookThe Michael Nyman SongbookThe Michael Nyman Songbook is a collection of art songs by Michael Nyman based on texts by Paul Celan, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, William Shakespeare and Arthur Rimbaud. It was recorded as an album with Ute Lemper in 1991, and again as a concert film in 1992, under the direction of Volker...
(1991) - Homo Faber (1991)
- Guarda La Fotografia (1991)
- Illusions (1992)
- Komisch' Wetter (1992)
- Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill - Volume 2 (1993)
- Espace Indécent (1993)
- Portrait of Ute Lemper (1995)
- City of Strangers: Songs by Sondheim, Prévert... (1995)
- Die Eisprinzessin (1995)
- Birds in Cages (1995)
- Der Glöckner von Notre-Dame (1996)
- BogusBogus (film)Bogus is a 1996 American fantasy film directed by Norman Jewison, written by Alvin Sargent, and starring Whoopi Goldberg, Gerard Depardieu, and Haley Joel Osment. It features magic tricks with magician Whit Haydn as consultant. It did poorly at the box office and Goldberg was nominated for a Razzie...
(1996) - Berlin Cabaret Songs (versions in English and German, 1996/1997)
- Nuits Étranges (1997)
- All That Jazz: The Best of Ute LemperAll That Jazz: The Best of Ute LemperAll that Jazz: The Best of Ute Lemper is a CD from the German singer Ute Lemper released September 1, 1998. The CD consists of 20 tracks that are considered the best of Ute Lemper.-Track listing:...
(1998) - Chicago (London cast recording, 1998)
- Kurt Gerrons Karussell (1999)
- Punishing KissPunishing Kiss-Chart positions:-External Links:* http://www.ashortsite.com/discs/?page=collab_ute* http://www.discogs.com/Ute-Lemper-Punishing-Kiss/release/1101544...
(2000) - Little Water Song (2000)
- But One Day... (2002, Decca/Universal Classics)
- Blood & Feathers: Live from the Café Carlyle(2005)
- Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (2009)
External links
- The World of Ute Lemper - the official Ute Lemper website
- Video including Lemper's performance as Ariel
- Ute Lemper performs "The Saga of JennyThe Saga of Jenny"The Saga of Jenny" is a popular song written for the 1941 Broadway musical Lady in the Dark, with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Ira Gershwin.The music is marked "Allegretto quasi andantino"; Gershwin describes it as "a sort of blues bordello"....
" by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin (public domain) - Ute Lemper German Interview with Pictures