UTE LEMPER - Rendezvous with Marlene

Ute Lemper's career is as impressive as it is multifaceted. She has been performing professionally and passionately on stages around the world on all continents for over 40 years and has built up an international audience spanning generations that has followed her spellbound for decades.

Whether in Europe, America or Asia, whether in English, French, Spanish, Russian or Yiddish, whether solo with a band, with a string quartet or with a symphony orchestra: Ute Lemper's concerts inspire people all over the world. Her extensive work as a musician and singer includes her own compositions on Paulo Coelho's The Writings of Accra, the song cycle Forever - a tribute to the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda - her concert evening Ultimo Tango, her avant-garde collage The Bukowski Project and the Grammy-nominated project Paris Days/Berlin Nights with the Vogler String Quartet.

"Rendezvous with Marlene" is Ute's latest creation, a self-written performance, an experience of music and theater, based on the true, wonderful story of her phone call with Marlene Dietrich in Paris in 1988. Since many performances of this evening were canceled worldwide in 2020 due to the pandemic, Ute filmed this play during the lockdown in NY in the fall and received fantastic international reviews as a magical fusion of theater, live music and cinema.

1988 in Paris. The phone rings and Ute Lemper can't believe it's Marlene Dietrich on the phone.
The two of them have a three-hour phone conversation - what a precious gift for the then 23-year-old Ute Lemper.
The grand dame had tracked down her aspiring young colleague and called her to thank her for her post. After Ute had received the French MOLIERE Award for her performance in "CABARET" in Paris, she wrote a postcard to Marlene Dietrich, directly to 12 Avenue de Montaigne, where Marlene had been living since 1979. Ute essentially wanted to apologize to her for the media attention.
And then the phone rings.

They talk about her life, her work and her style, her love of Rilke, her complicated relationship with Germany, her grief and her fascinations. How I would love to be a fly on the wall and listen to these two showgirls. Ute was at the beginning of her theater and music career. Marlene Dietrich, on the other hand, could already look back on a long, fulfilling life full of films, music, incredible collaborations, love stories and fame.

1992 in Berlin. Six days before Ute's premiere in the role of Lola in "DER BLAUE ENGEL" at the Theater des Westens - the very role that had made Marlene a star in 1928 - Merlene Dietrich died in Paris. After the glittering funeral in La Madeleine, Marlene finally returned to Berlin to find her final resting place.

Ute Lemper, now a world star herself and long regarded as the "new Marlene", tells us about this in her new program, taking us 30 years into the past and allowing us to take part in her conversation with Marlene. She tells us Marlene's story and sings her fabulous songs from all chapters of her life, from the Berlin cabaret years to her fabulous collaboration with Burt Bacharach.