19 September 2013

Ute Lemper

Awesome, Astounding, Legendary, Phenomenal, Powerful, Spellbinding. 
BRAVA UTE !!!.
The Brisbane Festival 2013
Friday 13th September The Concert Hall QPAC
Beginning with an astounding 70 minute performance of her new album of her compositions for the love poems of revolutionary Pablo Neruda.
Following interval we were treated to some of the best of the best From Berlin To Broadway with songs by Kurt Weill. Marlene Dietrich, Edith Piaf, Chicago etc. - 
Port of Amsterdam by Jacques Brel  found me overcoming my recent reticence and screaming BRAVA! at the top of my lungs. This song has memories from numerous clips and performances. Once I saw Pete Seeger in concert and he finished his evening with the most ngripping and passionate performance of the Brel classic. He ended with a screaming "God Damm Amsterdam!" threw his guitar to the floor and walked off dramatically. Shit it was awesome.

After two and a quarter hours the final encore Milord found me the first to my feet yelling.
From Wikipedia:- Born 4 July 1963 in Münster Germany, Ute Gertrude Lemper was raised in a Roman Catholic family. She joined the jazz-rock 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 Seminary 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 voices of Ariel in Disney's The Little Mermaid and Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame for German-speaking audiences. However The Little Mermaid was redubbed in 1998. 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 in the Middle East. Her autobiography was published in Berlin in 1995. She has also authored several journal articles.
My collection of Ute Lemper CDs
 
Once before, quite some years ago I bought tickets to see Ute Lemper but was overcome with a powerful case of agoraphobia and could not go. I had to give away my tickets. So glad I finally made it.
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