By: David Noh
Gay City News, 1 March, 2018

The minute I heard Ute Lemper’s new show at the Café Carlyle was about Marlene Dietrich, I knew I had to talk to her. For me, that German superstar could very well be the most important woman of the last century. Her life spanned nearly all of it and took her in so many directions, to so many worlds: two World Wars, the latter of which saw her playing an important role, as an entertainer who performed near the front lines, imperiling herself, having refused offers to return to Germany to become a Nazi movie star. Her films spanned the silent and sound eras, and she worked with the finest movie talents of her day…

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By: Regina Weinreich
Gossip Central, March 01, 2018

Photo: David Andrako

“Music, champagne, dancing—wonderful things that make you forget, until you find something to remember,” Ute Lemper laughs dramatically perched on a barstool close to the Café Carlyle’s grand piano, skin showing through her skirt’s slit. She chides the audience, “Stop looking at my legs. They are not that good. I just know what to do with them.” This was opening night of Ute Lemper’s show at the Café Carlyle, “Rendezvous with Marlene,” this week, and many of her fans attended to hear the leggy redhead recount the history that forms this tribute performance to the legendary Marlene…

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By Paul Hansen
Charged FM, 1 March, 2018

The singer returns to the Carlyle with a tribute to Marlene Dietrich.

Although it is a word that is often overused, I think that it is safe to say that Marlene Dietrich was an iconic figure of the twentieth century. It is not for nothing that she is mentioned in Madonna’s iconic (there is that word again) song “Vogue.” Born in Berlin in 1901 and passing away in 1992 at the age of 90, Dietrich’s very presence radiated urbanity and sophistication.

The acclaimed singer and actress Ute Lemper opened a new engagement at the Café Carlyle this past Tuesday in a tribute to Dietrich entitled Rendezvous with Marlene. Lemper had some contact with Dietrich in the late 1980’s which included correspondence and a three hour telephone conversation. (Like Greta Garbo, Dietrich was reclusive in the last years of her life, largely interacting with the world through letters and lengthy phone conversations). It was entirely appropriate that Lemper would devote a whole evening to Dietrich at the Carlyle as Dietrich rose to fame in the celebrated 1930 German film Blue Angel in which she played a cabaret singer…

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by Alix Cohen in ‘Playing Around’
Woman Around Town, March 1, 2018

Photo: David Andrako

German born Ute Lemper has intermittently channeled Marlene Dietrich for much of her career. This highly theatrical show is based in large part on a three-hour phone call between the ladies in 1988. After receiving the French Molière Award for her Paris performance in Cabaret, young Lemper sent a respectful postcard to the star essentially apologizing for media attention comparing the artists.

Much to her surprise, she received a telephone call in response. From that call and, one assumes, additional research, we hear Dietrich’s ‘first person’ recollection of the vocation she seems to disdain, passionate bisexual love affairs driven by pugnacious independence – with a nod to her open marriage, strong political views, and an enormously fraught relationship with her homeland. Performance is in English, German, and French…

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