Fire and Ice – on the outside, Ute Lemper with her angular features and fierce gaze, defines the classic ice queen. Once her engine revs up, however, an inner fire ignites and blazes through the audience. Intensity is the name of Lemper's game, and she brings The Ute Inferno to Joe's Pub for a run of evenings in November.

Ironically, she opens off-stage with Duke Ellington's silky, "In a Sentimental Mood." She then goes into to Pete Seeger's song (Lemper’s words added), "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" sung in English and German. Her sentimental mood is unique. The fun of watching Ute Lemper is the unfolding of layers, inevitably revealing her memories, her passion for love, world affairs, and history, all exhibited with emotion and theatricality, all controlled in the intrepid power of her voice with its riveting vibrato and illustrated with her ringside multilingual playfulness.

Lemper continually returns to the lessons of her homeland, Germany, what she has experienced and how it influenced her life. Her original songs, "Ghosts of Berlin," talks of living within the Berlin Wall, and songs like "Here is Love" and "Blood and Feathers" reflect her search for renewal and new beginnings. She is particularly compelling with her rhythmic "Arabic/ Yiddish Collage" inspired by an Islamic poem.

Lemper ties her passions into both the songs she has written, and delivering works by favorite writers like Brecht and Weill, creators of "Pirate Jenny" and "Army Song," and Monot and Moustaki's "Milord" written for Edith Piaf. While the notes are stamped down with military stress, her zeal also makes room for a glimpse of vulnerability. This is most apparent in Philip Glass's "Streets of Berlin," with its moody spirit when leaving the city she loves.

For the frisky, "Sex Appeal" (Hollaender), she delivers an amusingly nutsy story about her red boa, telling how it made its way from Marlene Dietrich eventually to Margaret Thatcher, who gave it to Helmut Kohn ("She danced, he ate Sacher Torte"), who passed it to Angela Merkel, and on to Condi and Hillary and now, yes, Michelle.

With her audacious flair, Ute Lemper will not bore you, although her precise theatricality is an acquired taste. She is accompanied by a pop/rock/jazz trio with Vana Gierig on piano, Don Falzone on bass, and Todd Turkisher playing drums and percussion, all with force and volume and often a jarring dissonance.

Ute Lemper's new CD, Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, will be released early in the New Year.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
November 14, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org