Lulu - A Murder Ballad

Piosenka Artystyczna
premiera polska: 2015-03-06
kontynent: Europa
kraj: Anglia
opakowanie: digipackowe etui
opis:
multikulti.com:
The Tiger Lillies, nieokiełznani i obrazoburczy Anglicy, mający fanów na całym świecie wydali właśnie nową płytę.

Specyficzne poczucie humoru i sceniczny wdzięk sprawiły, że w ich muzyce i spektaklach zakochał się m.in. legendarny komediowy reżyser Mel Brooks, twórca ‘the Simpsons’ - Matt Groening i członkowie kultowego kwartetu skrzypcowego Kronos Quartet.

Na ‘Lulu - A Murder Ballad’ The Tiger Lillies sięgnęli do tekstu utworu scenicznego niemieckiego pisarza i aktora Franka Wedekinda (1864- 1918). Wedekind to jeden z największych skandalistów swoich czasów, w 1898 r. po opublikowaniu przez niego w Simplicissimusie poematu satyrycznego ‘Im heiligen Land’ (W ziemi świętej), w którym prześmiewczo przedstawił wizytę cesarza Wilhelma II w Palestynie, jest pilnie poszukiwany przez bawarską policję. Musi salwować się ucieczką do Szwajcarii, gdy w 1899 Wedekind wraca do Monachium, zostaje aresztowany i skazany na sześć miesięcy ciężkiego aresztu w twierdzy Königstein.

W 1904 r. dochodzi do prapremiery kolejnego utworu scenicznego Wedekinda, zatytułowanego ‘Die Büchse der Pandora’ (Puszka Pandory). Jednocześnie pod zarzutem obrazy moralności następuje sądowne zajęcie książkowego wydania tego dramatu. Dopiero w 1934 r. utwór ten będzie mógł ujrzeć wreszcie światło dzienne, pod tytułem zmienionym na Lulu. Zgodnie z opinią Bertolta Brechta, znawcy i gorącego wielbiciela twórczości Wedekinda, utwory poetyckie tego ostatniego, napisane dla potrzeb kabaretów, po dzień dzisiejszy pozostają swego rodzaju wzorcem doskonałości i punktem odniesienia w dziedzinie niemieckiej piosenki literackiej.

Nie dziwi fakt, że panowie z The Tiger Lillies prędzej czy później musieli sięgnąć po jego teksty. Humor Monty Pythonów, żart Rolanda Topora, ironia Franka Zappy. Wodewil? Kabaret? Operetka?. Czegóż nie można znaleźć w The Tiger Lillies?
Perkusja, kontrabas, akordeon plus charakterystyczny falset Martyna Jacquesa w połączeniu tekstami Wedekinda o makabrycznej wymowie z to wybuchowa mieszanka!

Główną bohaterką sztuki jest Lulu, demoniczne uosobienie seksu i amoralności. Jej mentalność i sposób życia biorą swój początek z doświadczeń z lat dzieciństwa i młodości, które bohaterka spędziła z opiekunem, najpierw wykorzystującym ją seksualnie, a następnie stręczącym do nierządu. I tak Lulu trafia do domu doktora Schöna, gdzie pełni rolę etatowej kochanki i ojca, i syna. Później zostaje odstąpiona staremu rozpustnikowi Goollowi, a w ostatnich scenach "Ducha ziemi" zabija strzałem z rewolweru doktora Schöna na oczach jego syna Alwy - literata.
‘Lulu - A Murder Ballad ‘ to kolejna genialna odsłona The Tiger Lillies, mistrzów mieszania makabry z dowcipem, stylu, którym zasłynął Roland Topor.
autor: Witek Leśniak

Editor's info:
The songs of Lulu - A Murder Ballad come from the verses written by Frank Wedekind.
It is not a happy or a nice story. Lulu is abused by all her lovers: Shunning, Goll, Schwartz, Alva, and Shig encourages this abuse. Her final lover, Jack, ends her short life, liberating her from the squalid hypocrisy of all of them.
Frank Wedekind, the writer of the original Lulu, was born in Hanover in 1864. His first play, Spring Awakening, was banned in Germany for its graphic portrayal of abortion, homosexuality, child abuse and suicide. His bohemian lifestyle and political activism on the Left brought him into contact with many of the leading artistic and philosophical figures of his time.
He wrote the first Lulu play, Earth Spirit, in 1898 and the second, Pandora’s Box, in 1905. In an early staging of Pandora’s Box Lulu was played by the young Austrian actress Tilly Newes, with Wedekind himself as Jack. He once said that Lulu was created ‘to stir up great disaster’.


thecourieronline.co.uk
Joe Tetlow Reviews Lulu: A Murder Ballad, A haunting portrayal of prostitution and death.

Emerging in the dark, The Tiger Lillies take to the stage in a deathly sort of way. As the accordion sounds, Lulu steps forward from behind the scenes and almost like a puppet, dances to Martyn Jacques’ tune. Her ‘papa’ smiles manically, front of stage, spitting out ‘show us ya tits’ and ‘rape’, imperiously setting the tone to a jolted audience.

The room is in immediate love with Lulu. Played by Emma Caldow, she captures the attention over the shrill of Jacques’ tenor and the ensemble’s haunting presence. Wandering in and out of projected images, from Paris to Cairo, it is a transfixing performance. The charismatic Jacques, undoubtedly best when away from his piano stall, outshines the rigidity of his trilby sporting male companions. Stout, on contra bass, does his best to chip in and look lively, but can’t shake the unfortunate image of Trigger from Only Fools and Horses.

When the east-London musicians return from the intermission, the dark portrayal of prostitution reaches its captivating climax. As Pickering on percussion turns his creaking symbol – ‘Papa’ croaks directly at the elusive murderer ‘Will you go to heaven Jack?’ to the backdrop of a motionless Lulu. Perhaps it should have finished there, but in search of a cyclic end, the final song undermined the melodrama with Jacques comically denouncing ‘Papa’.
by Joseph Tetlow


weirdestbandintheworld.com
When the Tiger Lillies take the stage tonight at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, England, I really hope lead singer Martyn Jacques begins the show by declaring, “This is a play Lou Reed and Metallica stole from Frank Wedekind—we’re here to steal it back!”

Yes, the Tiger Lillies’ latest opus, a 19-song suite called Lulu – A Murder Ballad, is based on the same source material as the ill-fated “Loutallica” collaboration Lulu from a few years back. Both draw their inspiration from a pair of pitch-black plays by the German playwright Frank Wedekind, about a dancer-turned-prostitute named Lulu who endures a series of abusive sexual relationships in turn-of-the-century Berlin, Paris and London on her way to an untimely demise. With all due respect to the late, legendary Lou Reed—truly one of the greatest artists ever to wield a black leather jacket and an electric guitar—I’m going to go out on a limb and say the Tiger Lillies’ version will be the better of the two. At the very least, it will almost certainly not feature any songs in which Jacques declares himself to be a table.

The Lillies have already been performing Lulu – A Murder Ballad elsewhere around Europe, but tonight marks the show’s premiere performance in their native Blighty. It also marks the first release of the show in album form.

For now, the only places you’ll be able to see Lulu are Leeds, Coventry and Manchester—for full dates, visit the Tiger Lillies’ website. But Martyn and the boys tour more or less non-stop, so I’m sure they’ll be mounting further presentations of it (complete with visuals by Mark Holthusen) elsewhere around the demimonde in the months ahead.

We’ll leave you with the first official video from from Lulu: “Jack,” an eerie meditation on the mind of Jack the Ripper. Not only was Jack a character in Pandora’s Box, the second of the two Lulu plays, he was played in the original production by the playwright Wedekind himself. No wonder the Tiger Lillies were drawn to this guy’s work.
by weirdestband


The Guardian
Martyn Jacques could easily be mistaken for a Victorian pickpocket, right down to his scruffy tails and raffish bowler hat. Given the macabre, vaudevillian flavour of the Tiger Lillies, the cult cabaret trio he founded and fronts, this isn't too inappropriate. But rehearsals for the band's latest project, Lulu: A Murder Ballad, haven't actually started yet. We're sitting in a cafe opposite Leeds bus station – and Jacques's funereal demeanour is receiving some very curious looks.

"I'm not that well known," he says. "But I do tend to attract famous people." Celebrity fans of the Tiger Lillies include comedy legend Mel Brooks, the Simpsons creator Matt Groening and revered classical players the Kronos Quartet, with whom the Tiger Lillies collaborated on an album of dark Americana dedicated to the gothic humorist Edward Gorey. "Marilyn Manson played it at his wedding," Jacques cackles. "It was reported in Vogue."

The Tiger Lillies' closest flirtation with popular success came when Jacques created the music for the 1998 "junk opera" Shockheaded Peter, based on Heinrich Hoffmann's book. Jacques won an Olivier for his performance in the mock-cautionary tale for children. But otherwise, the band has generally been content to operate beneath the radar, issuing over 30 albums dealing with every conceivable form of necrosis and neurosis, including 1997's notorious Farmyard Filth, a suite of songs about bestiality. "I can't remember how many records we've made," Jacques says. "But I do know we've sold them all – one at a time at our gigs."

Now Jacques has turned to Lulu, the self-destructive sex symbol who first emerged in the dark expressionist dramas of Germany's Frank Wedekind at the end of the 19th century and has since infiltrated any number of genres. The character reappeared as the titular lead in Alban Berg's incomplete operatic masterpiece of 1935, and in GW Pabst's 1929 silent melodrama Pandora's Box. More recently, she featured as the subject of Lou Reed's final studio recording, a concept album created with Metallica, and you can even manipulate your own virtual Lulu as part of the video game Final Fantasy. Yet the character – whose amorous exploits lead her from a life of squalor to the heights of the European bel monde, and eventually to her murder in London's East End – offers such a potent distillation of Jacques's favourite themes, it's surprising he hasn't flirted with the character before.

"I think I've always been aware of Lulu," he says. "But I have almost avoided her for fear of what she might unleash in me." Jacques says. He may have had a point: "When Opera North approached me with the idea of creating a production, I went away and wrote 120 songs in a month. I then had to throw 100 away."

Initially conceived as a single play, Wedekind ended up dividing his ever-expanding material between two dramas, Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, obsessively written and rewritten between 1895 and 1904. Jacques's first task was to find a way to condense this sprawling, expressionist epic into a concise, 90-minute song cycle. He found the key in a poem Wedekind appended to an early version of the plays, which summarises Lulu's adventures in ballad form.

"It's not a very nice poem," says Jacques. "But it made it clear to me that Wedekind was ultimately writing about child abuse. There is a verse describing Lulu's first wealthy patron who 'at about the age of six or seven, washed her, dressed her and placed her in a classy school'. It's probably the first explicit literary reference to the practice of grooming."

Accompanying himself on accordion, piano and ukulele, Jacques combines extracts from Wedekind's ballad with his own grisly inventions, including a morbid dialogue with Jack the Ripper, Lulu's murderer, delivered in a mix of unearthly falsetto and a growling form of sprechstimme (or speech-singing) derived from the works of Berg and Kurt Weill.

Although the piece is not an opera as such, it will be presented on an operatic scale. In addition to his fellow Tiger Lillies, bass player Adrian Stout and percussionist Mike Pickering, there will be a dancer who will embody the role of the heroine, as well as visuals by video artist Mark Holthusen, who devised and directed the Tiger Lillies' acclaimed dramatisation of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner at the Southbank Centre in London last year.

Holthusen created a magical, melancholic ocean setting for Coleridge's nautical nightmare, in which the band appeared as doomed sailors trapped in a giant, 3D cartoon. For Lulu, he has created a spectral, gaslit world using imaging technology to replicate the ropes and pulleys of Victorian music hall. Combined with Jacques's eerie, timeless music, this approach solidifies the impression that, although Lulu inhabits a late-19th century epoch, she is still very much present today.

"There are Lulus everywhere," Jacques says. "Go to any lap-dancing bar and you'll find them. Ever since the plays were first produced, people have argued over whether Lulu springs from the warped imagination of a rampant misogynist, or can be held up as an example of sexually liberated early feminism. I don't think she's either. I think she's just the representation of every woman who has ever had to deal with the world's bullshit and hypocrisy."


www.whatsonstage.com
Lulu, as created by Frank Wedekind and most famously realised in the Pabst/Louise Brooks film and the Berg opera, is the archetypal predator and victim. The men she couples with usually end up dead, but she herself is constantly brutalised and ultimately dies at the hands of Jack the Ripper.

Thus she forms an ideal subject for the Tiger Lillies, with their empathy with Victorian Grand Guignol and decadent inter-war cabaret. It was a bold decision by Opera North Projects to commission Lulu - A Murder Ballad, presented in association with West Yorkshire Playhouse and Warwick Arts Centre, a decision well justified by the enthusiastic near-capacity audience at the Courtyard Theatre and, no doubt, by the international touring still to come.
Writer/composer/performer Martyn Jacques' programme note states clearly where his sympathies lie, with "the one person who has no choice: Lulu." The ballad tells her story, narrated in rasping Sprechgesang by Jacques as her "father" Shig, the first to exploit her, his self-delusion captured in the final irony. After a false curtain, he croons Cole Porter's great ballad of sexual cynicism, "My Heart Belongs to Daddy", and really seems to believe he treated her so well!

The first half of Lulu: A Murder Ballad I found always interesting, with some moments of acute shock and some memorable melodies and images, the second half, with its bruised ballads and waltzes and the bizarre combination of accordion and musical saw, I found totally compelling. The focus is very much (perhaps too much) on Martyn Jacques, with his white-face clown's make-up, his eerie falsetto, his accordion and his often surprisingly delicate piano playing.
Adrian Stout and Mike Pickering are reduced to band members, but both are superb, Stout adding the evocative sounds of jews harp, theremin and saw to his excellent bass playing, Pickering a powerful drummer who plays all kinds of games with his percussion toy-box!
Jacques, as always, compels attention, but the eye is constantly drawn to the brilliant designs of Mark Holthusen, always on the move, often lop-sided, drifting in and out to provide a pictorial link to Lulu's travels or an atmospheric commentary on her situation. Aided by Tim Skelly's lighting, their visual impact creates drama beyond the trio's performance. The other added extra is the dancing of Laura Caldow, graceful, vulnerable, but not a Lulu who is consistently the focus of the drama.

Finally I was left wanting to see it again, to fit everything into place. I suspect that it's a notch below the best of Tiger Lillies, but go to see it anyway – there's nothing else like it!
By Ron Simpson

muzycy:
Adrian Stout - Contra Bass, Singing
Mike Pickering - Drums, Singing
Martyn Jacques - Accordion

utwory:
1. Daughter
2. Bird in a Cage
3. Gates of Hell
4. Violin
5. Dr Goll
6. Mirror
7. Suicide
8. Court Jester
9. Shunning
10. Daddy
11. Clown
12. Poor Lulu
13. Pimp’s the Name
14. Flowers
15. Albion
16. Hey Jack
17. Jack
18. My Heart Belongs to Daddy

wydano: 2014-03-10
more info: www.tigerlillies.com