Chanteuse Has No Illusions About ‘Illusions’

In her show “Illusions”--a concert based on the music of Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich--German chanteuse Ute Lemper creates a visual and aural ambience for songs such as “Les Feuilles Mortes” (“Falling Leaves”) and “La Vie En Rose” that begs nothing from their originators.

In a video shot during the show’s European run, she sings Fredrich Hollander’s “Illusions” while languorously stretched across the top of a grand piano with a simmering intensity that makes Michelle Pfeiffer’s similar display in “The Fabulous Baker Boys” look like kid stuff. Prancing on long, black stocking-clad legs through a Dietrich-esque reading of “Naughty Lola,” Lemper is the epitome of theatrical sophistication.

“But the glamorous part of the image is not really me,” protests the singer, who will perform “Illusions” tonight at the Wadsworth Theater. “I am not at all glamorous, and it’s really contrary to what I want to do on stage.

“I prefer to think I am very straightforward . . . although maybe still with a secret. Glamour is not what I’m looking for in my performance. I’m looking for emotional expression, not in a sentimental or stylized way, but with complete honesty and directness.”

Born in Munster to a banker and an opera singer, Lemper now lives in Berlin. Her multifaceted resume includes appearances in German theatrical versions of “Cats,” “Peter Pan” and “Cabaret.” Last year, she did a five-month Berlin run in “The Blue Angel,” and in 1991 performed in Paris in a ballet choreographed for her by Maurice Bejart.

Her first Weill album (a second is due in the spring) reached No. 1 on Billboard’s crossover chart in 1989, and she was nominated for the Laurence Olivier award for her Weill recital in London in 1990.

Lemper, who last performed in Los Angeles three years ago in a Weill program at the Westwood Playhouse, is quick to acknowledge that 29-year-old singers do not usually concentrate on works from the Weill/Dietrich/Piaf eras. And unlike Patricia Kaas, a young French artist who interprets similar classic material with contemporary rhythms, Lemper does not choose to calculatedly modernize her interpretations.

“The minute I started rehearsing these songs,” she recalled during a recent phone interview from New York, “I found so much more to explore than I had ever heard in them before.

“I like to take risks, and I think it is a risk to approach the songs in a totally creative way, without trying to be either alike or different from Piaf and Dietrich, and without trying to make them sound groovy so as to be acceptable to a present-day audience.”

Lemper also recognizes the contradiction between the relatively low commercial potential and the complex aesthetic possibilities of her repertoire.

“I know this material isn’t American, and may not even be familiar to many American listeners,” she said. “But it’s very true in terms of art.

“I often go to see shows where there is a tango performer or an African singer, or some kind of music I’m not familiar with, because I love to experience different aspects . . . of artistic expression.

“It has taken me considerable energy and time to be able to do what I’m doing today,” Lemper added. “And, even though my music may be marginal in terms of its marketability, and probably won’t give me a gold record, I’m still very happy with it. I just hope--and I believe--that there are enough people around who will respond to what I’m doing if they just take the time to listen.”