In 1988, a 24-year-old Ute Lemper, then living in Paris, received a phone call from longtime Parisian and artist Marlene Dietrich. It was in response to a postcard sent by Lemper, who had won the French Moliere Prize for her star-making role as Sally Bowles in Cabaret. Lemper apologized for the press comparisons between them. Dietrich, 87, was by then a recluse, her only connection to the world a telephone line. That call lasted three hours. Dietrich regaled Lemper with stories from her life: of her work and lovers, her estranged daughter, Rilke's poetry, her hatred of Hitler, and her continuing grief and longing for the Weimar Republic. During the war Dietrich housed refugees, helped create a fund to assist escaping Jews and dissidents, performed near the front lines, and provided personal financial support.
Moved by Dietrich's epic life, Lemper resolved to tell it from the star's point of view. She created Rendezvous with Marlene as a show with monologues and songs about what she knew from the call and research of Dietrich's career. This release reproduces the touring show's music, impeccably recorded in a studio with a string orchestra and Vana Gierig's jazz quartet. While Lemper thoroughly channels Dietrich's aesthetic spirit, she is always herself musically. She opens with a bluesy, sultry reading of Johnny Mercer's and Harold Arlen's "One More for My Baby," cut by Dietrich in 1954. Lemper offers her theatricality with her own provocative phrasing. The performance of "Naughty Lola" is one for the books given Lemper's commanding use of scat singing and vocalese. Dietrich recorded her own charting cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" in German; Lemper delivers it bilingually with halting strings, muted percussion, and sparse piano. She also delivers wonderful versions of two iconic Friedrich Hollaender songs, "The Ruins of Berlin" and "Want to Buy Some Illusions" that Dietrich sang in the film A Foreign Affair in 1948. Pete Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" is here because Dietrich cut it in thunderous applause; Lemper's bilingual performance is dignified and questioning. Her version of "Just a Gigolo" (Dietrich sang it with David Bowie in 1978 in her final film role) is filled with regret and acceptance. Hollaender's "Falling in Love Again" is Dietrich's most famous song. After singing it in Blau Engel in German, she recorded it in English in 1937 as a metaphor to renounce her German citizenship. Lemper's take is sublime: Bold and jazzy, she juxtaposes the erotic flush of new romance with a resolve to abandon the past. Also included are seminal French songs, including fine readings of Charles Trenet's "Que Reste-t-il de Nos Amour" and the classic "Dejeuner de Matin" by Joseph Kosma and Jacques Prévert, rendered with the pained beauty of classic chanson that both Lemper and Dietrich revered. Rendezvous with Marlene concludes with five beautifully rendered German songs reflecting Lemper's homage to Dietrich, as well as their kinship as expatriates and. This is one of Lemper's finest moments.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo