Sacred fire

There’s a thin thread running through nearly a century of European and American music (cabaret in Berlin, Parisian bistros, Broadway lights, the melancholies of the Río de la Plata) and that thread is the singer-songwriter tradition, embodied by Ute Lemper. Chosen to open the 18th Venezia Jazz Festival at Goldoni Theatre, Lemper presents her program Da Berlino a Broadway with the PN3Orchestra: a special ensemble combining the Accademia d’Archi Arrigoni, the Accademia Musicale Naonis, and the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone, conducted by Valter Sivilotti. An incomparable performer, singer, dancer, actor, songwriter, Lemper was born in Münster in 1963 and made her stage debut at sixteen when she discovered Kurt Weill, whose work has profoundly shaped her career. Over forty years she has built an enormous repertoire and a stage presence critics call magnetic and singular, becoming one of the foremost voices of the historic Berlin and Paris cabaret traditions that Nazi censorship tried to erase. She has become a passionate interpreter who brings the political urgency and aching beauty of that era vividly to contemporary audiences. Da Berlino a Broadway traces the rich territories of twentieth- century song.

It begins with Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht – the founding duo of a song-theatre that transformed popular music with biting irony and social critique – then moves to Edith Piaf and the French chanson, with texts by Jacques Prévert and songs by Jacques Brel and Léo Ferré. The program evokes Marlene Dietrich’s seductive irony and extends into American musical classics and Gershwin, where European tradition meets Broadway energy. The set also includes works by Nino Rota and Astor Piazzolla and even settings of Pablo Neruda’s poems, some of which Lemper has set to music herself. Lemper’s career is defined by remarkable collaborations: Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Nick Cave, and Philip Glass have written for her voice; Maurice Béjart created an entire ballet piece for her. She has performed on the world’s most prestigious stages, from Milan’s Scala Theatre and the Sydney Opera House to the Lincoln Center and Berliner Ensemble, and with leading symphony orchestras. Across eighteen editions, Venezia Jazz Festival has continually sought new musical souls. Hosting Lemper in an orchestral guise with the PN3Orchestra expands her palette, amplifying subtle shades of her artistry and offering perhaps her most complete incarnation. Her performance is presented as the ideal opening for a captivating summer of music in the city that has long been the festival’s home.