Ute Lemper’s Skillful but Uneasy Blend

Ute Lemper brought her attempt at reinventing cabaret for the new century toUCLA’s Royce Hall on Friday, and while the German singer-actress skillfully melded the songs of modern writers with an old-fashioned theatricality, the 90-minute show proved an uneasy blend of pop concert and music-hall performance.

The set included most of “Punishing Kiss,” Lemper’s new album featuring darkly dramatic interpretations of new and obscure works by such artists as Elvis Costello, Tom Waits and Philip Glass. She and her backing quintet also offered contemporary takes on some of the Weimar Republic-era songs and French chansons for which she is best known, recasting such classics as “September Song” in jazz/hip-hop arrangements without trivializing them.

Lemper gave such dire numbers as Nick Cave’s “Little Water Song” (sung by a woman being drowned by her lover) and the Divine Comedy’s “The Case Continues” a deadpan anti-romance treatment vaguely reminiscent of English rocker PJ Harvey. But not everything was as gripping.

The stories were deliberately sculpted in ice (the better to reveal the heart’s dark side), but the auditorium setting worked against the intimacy Lemper needed to drive the contrast home. Her considerable talents and her talkativeness between songs helped shrink the vast space, but the show might have fared better in a smaller theater or, better yet, a nightclub.