Publication: The Watford Observer
By: Mattie Lacey-Davidson
7 May 2018

The award winning singer and actress Ute Lemper is going to be in the UK during the summer and will appear at the Radlett Centre on May 23.

Songs for Eternity is of songs written in ghettos and concentration camps. Most of them are in Yiddish, written in the depths of unspeakable ferocity and brutality. Songs of rebellion and hope, songs that celebrate life and love songs that mirror the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust.

As a recording artist, her discography encompasses more than 30 albums over 30 years, including 2012’s Grammy-nominated Paris Days, Berlin Nights on Steinway & Sons. She has been lauded 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, Leo Ferre, Jacques Prevert and Nino Rota, among many others—not to mention her own compositions.

She has recorded the music of Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Philip Glass and Nick Cave, and was named Billboard’s Crossover Artist of the Year for 1993–1994.

Born in Munster, Germany and based now in New York, Lemper completed her studies at The Dance Academy in Cologne and the Max Reinhardt Seminary Drama School in Vienna and made her professional debut in the original Vienna production of Cats in the roles of Grizabella and Bombalurina. She went on to play Peter Pan in Peter Pan in Berlin and Sally Bowles in Jerome Savary’s Cabaret in Paris, for which she received the Moliere Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

She played Lola in The Blue Angel under the direction of Peter Zadek and Maurice Bejart created the ballet La Mort Subite for her in Paris. She originated the role of Velma Kelly in London’s West End production of Chicago, for which she was honored with the Laurence Olivier Award, moved to the Broadway production where she received the American Theatre Award, and went on to star in the production’s Las Vegas premiere with Chita Rivera.

Her many film and television credits include Woody Allen’s recent Magic in the Moonlight.

The Radlett Centre, 1 Aldenham Avenue, Radlett, WD7 8HL, May 23. Details: 01923 859291

Click here to read on the Watford Observer site

Publication: Frankfurter Rundschau
Von: Thomas Stillbauer
6 Mai, 2018

Ute Lemper singt in Frankfurt Lieder aus den Konzentrationslagern. Ein Triumph der Kunst und des Lebens.

Wenn etwas kaum auszuhalten ist, nein, wenn das Le­ben ganz und gar unerträglich ge­worden ist – dann hilft am Ende doch das Singen und das Fröhlichsein dort, wo sich auch nur der geringste Anlass dazu bietet. Das führt Ute Lemper vor mit ihren “Liedern fur die Ewigkeit”, geschrieben in Ghettos und Kon­zentrationlagern während des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Mit den Liedern bereist sie seit 2015 die Welt; am Donnerstag gastierte sie damit zum zweiten Mal in Deutschland, nach Berlin nun in der Frankfurter jüdischen Gemeinde….

Click here for a pdf of the full review
Click here to read the review online

Photo: Getty images

Publication: Evening Standard
By: SOPHIA SLEIGH
Tuesday 1 May 2018

Former West End star Ute Lemper is returning to London to perform songs written in concentration camps.

The star, 54, who won an Olivier award in 1998 for her role as Velma Kelly in Chicago, will sing songs in Yiddish written by people persecuted during the Holocaust.

Lemper, who was born in Germany to a Catholic family, made her name singing cabaret songs from the permissive Weimar Republic era, including some by Jewish composers who later fled the Nazis or became their victims.

She said: “I felt it was my mission to tell the story of those who were on the other side of the barbed wire. Thirty years ago I started singing the music that was banned by the Nazis.

“Those composers had to emigrate in the Thirties and there is the other side of the story — those who didn’t get out. It’s a personal mission to close the circle. It’s a very different concert. It’s a memorial concert reminding us of a difficult and complicated past.”

She feels the concert in West Hampstead, Songs For Eternity, is timely amid concerns that anti-Semitism is growing. “It’s everywhere — in Germany too there is an uprising in anti-semitism and we see it in France,” she said.

“It grows stronger and I find it absolutely appalling. People are still looking for the black sheep. It is certainly a good time to bring this concert to people.”

Songs For Eternity is at JW3 Finchley Road on May 22 at 7:30pm. Tickets are £28.

Click here to read on the Evening Standard’s website