Inside Vancouver

Ute Lemper brings Last Tango in Berlin to the Vancouver Opera Festival

by Shawn Conner in Uncategorized on April 21, 2017

Ute Lemper. Steffen Thalemann photo.

One of the special events at this year’s inaugural Vancouver Opera Festival is a performance by Ute Lemper.

The 53-year-old singer, who lives in New York with her family, will perform her show Last Tango in Berlin May 4 at the Orpheum Theatre. With a bar stool, microphone, and trio (piano, bandonen, and bass), the multilingual song stylist delves into cabaret ballads by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, chansons by Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf, tangos by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, and other songs cherry-picked from her other current repertoires.

Reviewing the show in the New York Times, Stephen Holden described a 2013 performance as “a stream of consciousness in several languages, mostly German, French and English, in which Ms. Lemper interweaves songs, song fragments, personal reminiscences and social commentary into an impressionistic historical tapestry. Wearing a gleaming black cocktail dress, her eyes narrowed to slits, her sleek blonde head thrown back, she embodies the Marlene Dietrich archetype of a forbidding continental temptress who has seen it all.”

Here’s a partial transcription of our interview with the divine Ms. L.

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Ute Lemper brings Last Tango in Berlin to the Vancouver Opera Festival

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Vancouver Opera Festival – Dead Man Walking

by Shawn Conner in Uncategorized on April 13, 2017

J’Nai Bridges and Daniel-Okulitch star in Dead Man Walking, at the 2017 Vancouver Opera Festival. Emily-Cooper photo.

When most people think of opera, they think of classic, centuries-old pieces like La Bohéme, The Marriage of Figaro and Carmen, to name a few.

But one of the three major works being staged at the inaugural Vancouver Opera Festival (April 28-May 13) is a much more recent piece. Dead Man Walking is based on the 1993 book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J., and which most people will know from a 1995 movie adaptation starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. But, in 2000, it also became an opera, written by Jake Heggie with a libretto by Terrence McNally.

We talked to Joel Ivany, a Toronto-based director known for his innovative approach to opera, about bringing this version of Dead Man Walking to the Vancouver Opera Festival. (Note: Vancouver Opera Festival is offering a special promotion for Dead Man Walking, FORTY Under 40. Tickets for the opera are only $40 if you’re under 40. $40 under 40 tickets are available in limited quantities. To claim this deal, enter discount 6593 online at vancouveropera.ca/tickets. or call the ticket centre at 604-683-0222. Tickets will be available at will call and ID will be required.)

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Vancouver Opera Festival – Dead Man Walking

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Visual art, Inuk throat-singing and German cabaret part of the first Vancouver Opera Festival

by Shawn Conner in Uncategorized on April 7, 2017

Tanya Tagaq, pictured here performing in Vancouver in 2011, is one of the performers at the inaugural Vancouver Opera Festival. Ashley Tanasiychuk photo.

Beginning April 28 and running until May 13, Vancouver will host its first opera festival. Presented by Vancouver Opera, the Vancouver Opera Festival includes three operas as well as concerts from celebrated Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq and German cabaret stylist Ute Lemper, an art installation by Vancouver artist Paul Wong, and more. Festival-goers will also be able to party and talk opera at an opera bar and tent set up on the plaza outside Queen Elizabeth Theatre (650 Hamilton St.) in downtown Vancouver.

That’s not all, as we learned in a conversation with Tom Wright, Director of Artist Planning.

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Visual art, Inuk throat-singing and German cabaret part of the first Vancouver Opera Festival

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