Here are some fabulous photos of Ute from her January 23, 2018 performance in Hamburg, of ‘Stadtkind’ (a collection of songs of big cities) with the Russische Kammerphilharmonie St. Petersburg. The concert took place in Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, one of the most beautiful and modern theaters in Germany. Click here to see more about this dramatic venue, and click on the images to view the gallery.
Photos by Peter Hundert Photography (www.PeterHundert.com)
For Immediate Release
January 8, 2018
Ute Lemper returns to Café Carlyle with an all-new show, Rendezvous With Marlene, February 27 – March 3. Rendezvous With Marlene is based on a 3-hour phone call and exchange between Marlene Dietrich and Ute in 1988. After receiving the French Molière Award for her performance in Cabaret in Paris, Ute had sent a postcard to Marlene, who had lived at 12 Avenue de Montaigne since 1979, essentially apologizing for all the media attention comparing her to Marlene Dietrich. Ute was just at the beginning of her career in theatre and music, whereas Marlene looked back on a long, fulfilled life of movies, music, incredible collaborations, love stories and stardom. Ute considers it a secret gift to have heard Marlene talk about her life, her work and style, her love for the poet Rilke, her complicated relationship with Germany, her sorrow and her fascinations.
Six days before Ute’s opening night playing the part of Lola in the 1992 Blue Angel production in Berlin – the role that had made Marlene a star in 1928 – Marlene Dietrich passed away in Paris. After her glamorous funeral in La Madeleine, Marlene finally came back to Berlin to be put to rest. Ute tells us Marlene’s story along with singing songs from all chapters of her life — from the Berlin Cabaret Years to her fabulous Burt Bacharach collaborations.
Now 30 years later, after her own extensive international career and also complicated relationship with her home country Germany that she only returns to for concerts, and living the last 30 years between New York, London and Paris, Ute reflects with humor and depth on that unique moment with Marlene.
Performances will take place Tuesday – Saturday at 8:45pm. Weekday pricing begins at $65 per person / Bar Seating: $40 / Premium Seating: $115. Weekend pricing begins at $80 per person / Bar Seating: $50 / Premium Seating: $130. Reservations can be made by phone at 212.744.1600 or online via Ticketweb. Café Carlyle is located in The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel (35 East 76th Street, at Madison Avenue).
Ute Lemper’s career is vast and varied. She has made her mark on the stage, in films, in concert and as a unique recording artist on more than 30 albums over an esteemed 30-year career. She has been universally praised for her interpretations of Berlin cabaret songs, the works of Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht and the Chansons of Marlene Dietrich, Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Léo Ferré, Jacques Prévert, Nino Rota, Astor Piazzolla, her own compositions, as well as her portrays in musicals and plays on Broadway, in Paris, Berlin and in London’s West End.
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About Café Carlyle at The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel
Originally opened in 1955, Café Carlyle is New York City’s bastion of classic cabaret entertainment, a place where audiences experience exceptional performers at close range in an exceedingly elegant setting. Since composer Richard Rodgers moved in as The Carlyle’s first tenant, music has been an essential part of The Carlyle experience. No place is that more evident than in the Café Carlyle.
Café Carlyle is known for talents including Woody Allen, who regularly appears on Monday evenings to play with the Eddy Davis New Orleans jazz band. For three decades, Café Carlyle was synonymous with the legendary Bobby Short, who thrilled sell-out crowds for 36 years. His spirit lives on through the music at Café Carlyle.
Continuing the tradition of the 1930s supper club, Café Carlyle features original murals created by French artist Marcel Vertès, the Oscar-winning art director of the 1952 Moulin Rouge.
American Airlines in-flight magazine, American Way, recently included Café Carlyle within their 2017 Platinum List as one of the Top 3 Music Venues in the World.
For more information, please contact Matt Gross at Blake Zidell & Associates, 718.643.9052, matt@blakezidell.com.
Click here to download this Press Release
Click here for more information about this fascinating program, and visit the calendar page to select a performance and purchase tickets.
Tune in again on Tuesdays on VOX TV in Germany to see Ute’s participation in “6 Mutter mit Kind und Karriere”.
Click here for more details.
Southside Advertiser, Edinburgh
October 21, 2017
Ute Lemper Last Tango in Berlin – The Best of Ute tour sees the return of one of the world’s most iconic singers and performance artists to the Queen’s Hall stage in Edinburgh after a far too long gap of over five years.
Last Tango in Berlin is a walk back through the elusive waters of time that we all pass through but can never hold onto as it washes over us all leaving little but memories. This is a personal trip by Ute Lemper as she acts not only as our guide to the music that has inspired her over her life, but also some very special moments in her own life. Our story takes us back to the last days of the Weimar Republic and the subversive music of the Cabaret bars of 1920s Berlin, through the terrible years of World War 2, the rise and fall of the Berlin wall and into Ute Lemper immersing herself in the music and ideals of 1980s Paris.
In this show Ute Lemper leaves no one in the audience in any doubt as to why she is regarded by many as one of the great performers of her generation – a link in that great line of German Cabaret stars and singers as she effortlessly moves through the cabaret of Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht, Chansons Francaises, Jacques Brel, Argentinian Tango, American Jazz (I need to add Ute Lemper to that very small list of people I can listen to scatting now too) and innovative work with poets such as Charles Bukowski. Also work from the sublime collaboration with Paulo Coelho on the album “The 9 Secrets”.
Last Tango in Berlin is very much a story, and part of the wonder of this show is going on this journey with Ute as she tells you this story and introduces you to music and people along the way. It is a very skilfully conceived work that, although having great cohesive strength, also has an air of fragility about it, almost as if Ute is whispering her words on the winds of time itself as you start to leave the world of the theatre behind you and enter completely into the world that Ute is creating out of her words and music. I don’t want to spoil that world for you by telling you too much about it, but a few highlights will give not too much away.
Opening with “Want to Buy Some Illusions” by Ute Lemper, the scene is set immediately for a master storyteller at work, and through our journey, classics including “Falling in Love Again”, “Mack The Knife” and “Lili Marlene” are brought to life as only Ute Lemper can. The highlight of the evening for me though was a beautiful performance of Jacques Brel’s “Ne me quitte pas” – of course keeping the original lyrics and not the English ones by Rod McKuen. Whatever language Ute Lemper is singing in as she effortlessly switches from German to French to English, somehow her performance of the song translates everything into a universal language that you instinctively understand the meaning and essence of somewhere in your very soul.
Proving that time is itself of course timeless, and that words and music can have as much relevance now as when written, a touching performance of “Das Lila Lied” (“The Lavender Song”) a German cabaret song written in 1920 with lyrics by Kurt Schwabach.
Ute Lemper is a totally unique artist, performer, singer, and writer, and in a very special place that few performers ever get to. I have a belief that words and music are like magic, and in their own right almost alive, and everywhere around us. Sometimes they choose a very special person to be an interpreter for them…someone who can live and breathe what they have to say, and Ute Lemper is one of those very special people.
Accompanying Ute Lemper tonight on stage were Vana Gierig (pianist), Victor Hugo Villena (bandoneon) and Romain Lecuyer (acoustic bass).
Here are a couple of other links to online reviews of the UK tour:
The Wee Review
Pulse-Alternative Magazine
Peter Dennis authored a great review of Ute’s recent Cadogan Hall performance forn Pulse-Alternative Magazine.
“Ute Lemper brings her latest project, the 9 Secrets, to The Cadogan Hall in the heart of Chelsea. Based upon the novel ‘Manuscript Found in Accra’ by Paul Coehlo, this ‘lost’ text laid undiscovered for 700 years and is an echo from history bringing a message for modern humanity. A bible without religion that offers 9 secrets, or commandments, for a more wholesome, peaceable life…”
Click here to read the full review!