Ute Lemper, the queen of dark and subversive cabaret, is known for her interpretation of the bleak songs of Kurt Weill. But the German singer has latterly found an uncharacteristically positive muse: Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho.
Lemper, who returns to perform in Britain later this year, spoke this weekend of the importance of avoiding cliched treatments of romance, and explained her work with Coelho and the drive to develop a lasting repertoire that offers something useful to humanity.
“I have always wanted not to sing romantic songs,” she told the Observer this weekend. “I wanted instead to sing songs of the outcasts. These songs may sometimes be subversive, or just simply tragic. Music finds a way to express this more than words.”
In September, Lemper, 53, who now lives in New York, will visit Britain to tour a show, Last Tango in Berlin, that will showcase some of the best loved Weimar cabaret songs, along with the moody music of Marlene Dietrich, Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf. But the charismatic performer has also fallen under the spell of Coelho, the author best known for the international bestseller The Alchemist.
Lemper will give a single concert at Cadogan Hall, London, on 15 September of songs inspired by Coelho’s 2012 book, A Manuscript Found in Accra. It is a story she hopes will lift the audience, with its persuasive tips for surviving life.
“I have called the show 9 Secrets. These are not negative, dark songs. He offers a sense of pleasure in the world, so it is an inspiring evening,” said Lemper. “It is a very dense work. It is more than just a concert.
Coelho, 69, has also inspired the Chicago rap artist Lando Chill, who has just produced an album, The Boy Who Spoke to the Wind, based on The Alchemist. A long-awaited film of the book is also due out next year, and is likely to star Idris Elba and be directed by Laurence Fishburne. The writer is known to be reluctant to allow his work to be adapted or altered.“I have been a fan of Paulo’s writing for 15 years,” she said. “When I was in São Paulo with my show based on the poetry of Pablo Neruda, I told a friend how much I enjoyed Coelho’s work and he said he knew him. I had an email from Paulo the next day, so I visited him. Amazingly, he said, ‘I give you the copyright’. It was really wonderful encouragement for me. I wrote it up in my roof apartment in New York.”
Lemper’s new show is the third in a trilogy inspired by writers (she adapted the poetry of Charles Bukowski before she turned to Neruda. A Manuscript Found in Accra was recorded as an album in New York, and she has since performed there and in a few venues in Europe. It revolves around the discovery of ancient documents that appear to offer answers to the meaning of life.
“The book delighted me because, of course, it does not give me the answers. The search itself is the purpose, and the search itself never ends,” said Lemper, adding that its message to her was not to rely on routines and old ideas.
Despite the trilogy of shows, Lemper has not turned her back on the Weimar cabaret classics that made her name. “These songs, like the songs of Brel, are from a darker universe and they also have something to say.Something like Spoliansky’s 1920 Weimar classic the Lavender Song will go on for ever. Art can’t change things but it can be an activist. It is a positive tool, so it can contribute.
“These are the songs that last, like a Bob Dylan song or a John Lennon song.”
Lemper also recently worked on a cycle of Yiddish songs taken from the Jewish ghettos of Europe before the Second World War. “Weill and other composers escaped. These are the songs of the ones who did not make it out. They are full of rebellion.”Lemper, who was born in Münster and grew up in a divided Germany, said that it is a mistake to think we are now living through darker times than usual.
“All chapters of human history have darkness. Every era has its own complexities. I was near the Bosnia civil wars in 1989 and I saw the impact of the Algerian conflict when I was in Paris. Then I was here in New York with my young children when 9/11 happened. We thought the world would end.
“I had a terrible feeling in my gut. For a while we were neurotic when travelling. I thought twice about using the subway and we even bought a little house upstate, to have a refuge. I think times have always been like that for some people.”
The singer admits that her work can only help people in abstract ways. “If I wanted to do something, I would join something like Médecins Sans Frontières and go out to Syria. That would be a lot more effective – and some artists do that. I am just an artist, although I would definitely take refugees into my home.I would be happy to do that.”
