The Washington Post 4/17/06: Smokey, sultry Ute Lemper is the reigning queen of cabaret in America, and she showed why on Saturday night at George Mason University. “I want to take you on a journey across the world,” she announced – but that was just for starters. By the end of the evening, she’d led the sold-out crowd into dark and anguished depths of the soul, where few singers dare to tread.

Lemper’s shows feel almost like improvisations – she talks, sings, and whistles her way through some of the edgiest music of the early 20th Century, from the chansons of Edith Piaf, to the smoldering sexuality of Marlene Dietrich, to the worldly lyricism of Kurt Weill. And her voice is a wonder; one moment a husky growl, the next a lilting soprano, the next a strangled cri de coeur – all while shifting effortlessly among French, English and German.

But the most striking thing about Lemper’s singing is its authenticity. As a German who lived in France and is now based in New York, Lemper gets deep inside this music – whether it’s Pirate Jenny from Weill’s “Threepenny Opera,” or Chava Alberstein’s “An Angel Weeps”, or the Piaf heartbreaker “Ne Me Quitte Pas”. She also updated Friedrich Hollander’s lively “Munchausen” -- with its refrain of “I’m sick and tired of lies from you / How I wish your lies were true” – to aim some pointed jabs at the White House.

The National Gallery is bringing Lemper back to Washington on April 29 as part of its ongoing dada exhibit. Get there early – you won’t want to miss it.