In her recently published book Die Zeitreisende [Time Traveler], global star Ute Lemper describes her unusual journey as an artist—including the years she spent at the Max Reinhardt Seminar. The reading tour of this multiple award-winning actor, singer, dancer, and author included a stop in Vienna, where she joined us at the Seminar for this interview.
How do you remember your student days at the Max Reinhardt Seminar?
Ute Lemper (UL): That was a hugely important chapter in my life, a vault of self-discovery. We had wonderful teachers back then, true mentors and guides—including my principle teacher Karlheinz Hackl, Ernie Mangold, and of course Samy Molcho. It was an intense time, in Vienna, with long evenings at the Akademietheater and performances by Gertraud Jesserer and Erika Pluhar. A big inspiration for me back then was Maria Bill as Edith Piaf: what she did there wasn’t acting—it was a truth unto itself. I’ll never forget that. All of those evenings at the theatre prepared us for the reality that would become our futures.
You performed to great success in major productions like the Viennese première of Cats, Cabaret in Paris, Der Blaue Engel in Berlin, and Chicago (as Velma Kelly) both in the West End and later on Broadway. How did you manage to find your artistic freedom in those shows despite being bound to their choreographies?
UL: In Cats, my exclusive concern was to seek out the meaning in every gesture, in every movement, and to realise emotional intentions in gestures. I was unhappy playing a cat, since I wanted to interpret things like we’d learned to at the Seminar. But even so, the whole cat-thing did have this wildness to it, this darkness and yearning for light. The job was to portray something theatrical through dance—and at some point, I realised how many of those around me were simply dancing the choreography. They had great technique, much better than mine, but they danced without any emotional involvement—always just kind of ticking over. Simply doing justice to the choreography already requires 75 percent, and the other 25 percent—which is about absolute giving and emotional investment—was something many of them were missing. In my case, it was perhaps 50 percent technique and 50 percent interpretation. One consequence of that was, of course, that I got that much more tired than the others. I consistently went full-bore like there was no tomorrow—which, to my mind, was the whole point of performing. Just putting on a show, putting on a mask and acting? Faking it? I couldn’t. What I aspired to there was something like a universal existence. It was almost spiritual.
And then there’s this fine line: Is the actor a self-exposer in the exhibitionist sense? Or really just a medium for this work, this role, this body, this word, realising how he or she’s a mouthpiece for something bigger? So it’s his or her voice, his or her life, his or her experience, his or her emotion. But there’s also something else behind it that’s bigger—and that’s the story one tells as an actor. Having this humility in light of how one’s really just an instrument for something bigger is something that I find very important. In Chicago, the role of Velma felt too one-dimensional to me. I thought to myself: What am I doing here? It’s all slapstick—I’m never allowed to open the door to my heart. I felt like quitting. And then my husband said to me, “You have to do it. It’s an incredible role. You’re so great when you dance, in your style of dancing—it’s practically written for you. So try to also seek out these doubts and this despair that you’re now feeling in the role. And this resignation: search for it in the role, it makes you that much stronger.” So I then went back and said to myself: those doubts no longer make any sense, so I’m going to go all in now and perform.
You’re celebrated worldwide for your Brecht/Weill interpretations, and you were voted Crossover Artist of the Year in the United States quite early on. When did you discover the works by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill?
UL: I experienced the first Brecht/Weill seminar given by Helmut Baumann in Salzburg, back when I was still a student, as a revelation. In the 1980s, there was nothing in German that anyone wanted to sing. There were Schlager songs, and Peter Maffay was doing his rock-thing—but nothing else. Marius Müller-Westernhagen, Udo Lindenberg, and Nina Hagen only came a bit later. So there was a vacuum. And then I heard these songs from the Dreigroschenoper and Happy End—numbers like the “Matrosentango”, the “Lied vom Branntweinhändler”, and the “Song von Mandalay”. They had this bit of aggression to them that I also felt so keenly as a young person. This little touch of punk, as we described it back then. I was searching for expressivity in music that also had class. It was Brecht’s words and Weill’s music, and to me, they seemed like a mouthpiece of my generation. That was my feeling, at least—even if others of my generation found it all wholly uninteresting and old-fashioned. I could identify really well with it; I found my young, rebellious nature reflected in those songs.
On what do you place importance in your musical interpretations?
UL: As I grow older, it’s these moments of quiet that I increasingly find so much stronger than the moments that get filled with words or music. As well as the quiet that inhabits the music itself. I always say to my pianist: “Just wait, don’t fill it in right away. Let the chord stand. You don’t need to improvise around; just sit on your right hand and do nothing at all. Let the sound, the chord, the harmony stand in the space. Then the word can slot itself right in.” Especially in staged settings, music should be not the driving force but rather the textual base layer. When I’m in the midst of a scene, I’ll often tell my pianist to play just individual notes like in film music; an individual note means so much. One needn’t play a cadence or a song. Just one note, already, is so much, means so much.
With all the success you’ve had and the awards you’ve received, do you still experience moments of doubt?
UL: I’ve got such a huge amount of self-doubt! It’ll often be right up to the sound check or the rehearsal that I’ll think: “I’m an absolute nothing, totally incapable.” And then, suddenly, I’ll be swept into a different dimension of existence where, once arrived, I’ll feel everything once more. In my fingertips, in my voice, in the language, and above all in the atmosphere, which kind of sizzles. It’s then that I sense this different level of being human that I need in order to stand onstage. I’m not at all looking to interpret or analyse it; that’s impossible. One can only feel it. You can’t allow doubt to leave you depressed or devastated. On the contrary: doubt’s a healthy sort of humility, I think.
You’ve acted in a huge number of films, including Robert Altmann’s Prêt-à-Porter and Peter Greenaway’s Prospero’s Books after The Tempest by William Shakespeare. How do you view your work in the film medium?
UL: Do you teach film, here? Because that’s an entirely different method.
We do now have supplementary film training from students’ second year onward with film tutorials, audition training, showreel productions, and film work in English. And our film people include quite a few outstanding personalities from real-world practice, just like how it is with our acting and directing colleagues.
UL: I think that’s very important. When I do film, it never fails to surprise me how you have to tone everything down and just internalise it, all focused inward—you can’t still be staging or celebrating the language; you’ve got to just be authentic. My most recent film project was Die Zweiflers, a German miniseries set in Frankfurt immediately following World War Two that tells the story of a Jewish family. I also recently played a cabaret singer from Weimar in an Italian film by Micaela Placido. Film is a different discipline, and it’s something that the Seminar also needs to teach.
You’ve created and performed a number of evening-length shows. How do you work when you develop a theatrical programme and stage-direct it yourself, as you did in your documentary drama Rendezvous mit Marlene?
UL: My Marlene Dietrich evening is based on a phone call I had with her in Paris back in the 1980s. Even as I write something, I live it—which means that in writing, I’m almost doing the stage directing, too. I really crawl into her—so it’s all the figure of Marlene Dietrich as she was at age 87. I only become Ute in the musical numbers. Otherwise, I’m just Marlene and tell the story. It’s her story from her own perspective as an 87-year-old.
What’s important for young actors and directors, in your view?
UL: Your life grows in proportion to your courage, and I’ve always been very courageous. It’s the only way to find out how far you can go. The more you draw on your battery, the stronger it gets. Which is hard—but the more you train this kind of strength, the greater it will become. So be a rebel. It’s a good thing when someone’s not a conformist but a flamboyant personality. The bigger and more idiosyncratic that personality is, the better. How did Max Reinhardt put it? “Not dissimulation is the actor’s task but revelation.” It’s important to define yourself as a human being—and that means educating yourself, having an opinion about the society in which we live and the politics through which we live. The unfairness, the sleepless nights, the question: ’Where do I belong?’: I experienced my Viennese years as a state of freefall. It’s in such a state that you have to find your new identity in this world as a human being, as an artist, and as an actor. And no matter where you land, keep on searching. That’s opened up an entirely new dimension within me. Only this power of humanity that dwells within you can open acting’s door to you.
On 19 March 2024, Ute Lemper held a master class with Max Reinhardt Seminar students. Lemper spoke freely, opening herself up to the students. She described the importance of her own experiences at the Seminar, the passion with which she gives her all as an artist, and her courage to always keep going and tackle situations step by step. Her work together with the students then revealed how she is also a gifted pedagogue.
The participating students performed material including Erich Kästner’s farewell letter, Bertolt Brecht’s “Erinnerung an die Marie A.”, Gerhard Bronner’s “Chesterfield Girl”, “L’Accordèoniste” by Michel Emer (originally sung by Édith Piaf), and “Nur nicht aus Liebe weinen” with lyrics by Hans Fritz Beckmann and music by Theo Mackeben (originally sung by Zarah Leander). Lemper engaged in great depth, listening closely. She placed her focus on these texts’ and songs’ core statements and emotions, carefully working out their situative and scenic contexts. Lemper seemed to perceive each of the performers’ personalities as a whole as she worked with them to gently reduce superficial gestures that interfered with true expressivity—and in the discussion that followed, she emphasized how the feeling onstage should be as “authentic” as possible. It’s about openness and vulnerability, she said, in keeping with Max Reinhardt’s motto: “Not dissimulation is the actor’s task but revelation.” Music occupied an exceptionally important place for Max Reinhardt, who held that singing was to be developed in synergy with the aspects of acting, speech, and movement. Ute Lemper provided a solid look at how this mission can be fulfilled in a masterclass that proved to be an inspiration for all of the students.
Read more about Ute Lemper and her intriguing journey as an artist in her autobiography: Ute Lemper: Die Zeitreisende. Zwischen Gestern und Morgen. Munich: Gräfe und Unzer Edition, 2023.
