Music Reviews : Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill at Westwood Playhouse

With her overglazed glamour and sense of ironic introspection, Ute Lemper sings the music of Kurt Weill as if Liza Elliott had somehow dreamt her way into Mahagonny.

At the Westwood Playhouse on Monday, Lemper’s sophistication gave a new contemplative dimension to pithy solos from Weill’s early, German masterworks. In the same way, Weill’s Broadway songs gained an edge of wry self-mockery. Finally, a selection of French ballads found both composer and vocalist immersed in pure feeling.

With pianist Jeff Cohen alert to nearly every whim, Lemper plunged deeply into the heartsore revelations of Weill’s women. “Surabaya Johnny” (from “Happy End”) emerged classically plaintive and “The Alabama Song” (from “Mahagonny”) gloried in subtle distinctions between the whiskey, pretty boys and dollars sought in the three verses. Taken very rapidly, “The Barbara Song” (from “Die Dreigroschenoper”) offered spectacular switches in mood and attack--a performance that superbly illustrated Lemper’s statement about Weill symbolizing “freedom of expression.”

Highly specific and purposeful in her interpretation of a text, Lemper could not always ideally stabilize the scale of her singing--a problem worsened Monday by overamplification. Thus her phrasing could seem overblown to the point of shapelessness, especially in “I’m a Stranger Here Myself” (from “One Touch of Venus”) and “The Saga of Jenny” (from “Lady in the Dark”).

Lemper could sing with great simplicity in French and German (her native language), with excerpts from “Das Berliner Requiem” especially intimate and forthright. Yet “My Ship” (from “Lady in the Dark”) had a peculiar, croony style--inappropriate and forced.

Some of Lemper’s most artfully controlled singing came in selections created for males--a sly, understated “Die Moritat von Mackie Messer” (from “Die Dreigroschenoper”) and a disarmingly unsentimental “September Song” (from “Knickerbocker Holiday”)--as well as in the French songs: “Complainte de la Seine,” “Youkali” and “Je ne t’aime pas.” This music is perhaps the least championed of Weill’s output and Lemper claimed it with extraordinary finesse.