Dynamic German songstress Ute Lemper appears to have it all: bone structure, business acumen, and the fine balance between work and family life. However, success as an artist broke her first marriage, she tells Ciara Dwyer, and left her feeling an emptiness that her children helped her to overcome

'Before I had my children I was very self--destructive," says German-born singer Ute Lemper. I am shocked. From the minute I meet her, she strikes me as an immensely strong woman, the sort who has always been in control of her life, moving it along in a positive fashion. Before we settled down to talk, I marvelled at how she balanced her work and family life without batting an eyelid.

It was 11 at night in Girona, a small town outside Barcelona. She and musician Todd Turkisher, her partner of 10 years, and a friend, sat eating dinner with their four-year-old son, Julian. There was garlic bread and spaghetti and red wine. After a long day rehearsing for Ute's show, they were enjoying the meal. On the floor beside them there was a case full of toys. Naturally, the boy banged his spoon against the chair instead. Ute told him to stop, glared at him and eventually he obeyed.

Then she left them to do this interview, while they went off to bed. We started half an hour early. She had proposed to meet at midnight, the only time she was free.

Welcome to the world of Ute Lemper. Lean and long-limbed, the 46-year-old, thin-lipped blonde singer may have the bone structure of her heroine, Marlene Dietrich, but she has the business acumen of Richard Branson. She calls the shots in her life.

Ute is her own manager, which means that the days are packed with responsibilities but she says that she enjoys putting together the puzzle of her life. Every night when she goes to sleep, she can almost hear her brain whirring with exhaustion.

You can see this dynamic woman next Tuesday at the National Concert Hall with the RTE Concert Orchestra when she will perform some of her popular repertoire -- Falling in Love Again, Mack the Knife and All that Jazz from the musical Chicago in which she famously played the part of Velma Kelly. In the Nineties her spellbinding performance in that West End show won her an Olivier award, then catapulted her to Broadway. She has lived in New York ever since.

But there was a time when work alone no longer fulfilled her. She admits that artists have to be self-centred but she didn't like what she had become.

"I was self-obsessed, self-destructive and self-centred. How can you possibly live life more than being on stage and making music? Then you want to go further. You want to smoke and drink and find the juice of life. You try to find something that could satisfy you ultimately and you will never find it. It's in the little things that you find satisfaction but you don't know this until you have children.

"These little things mean nothing to the people who don't have children. It means chasing your kid on the street, going down the slide with them in the playground, cleaning up after them, just those things which suddenly make sense.

"Up until then I only cared about my life and my choices. I was obsessed about studying and my craft. It made me a great craftswoman by the time I was 30. Then I thought, wait a minute, I've done this for 10 years."

By that stage she had already established a worldwide career. She had record contracts which guaranteed that her CDs were released internationally. She'd done Cabaret in Paris, she had been The Blue Angel in Berlin (the role Marlene Dietrich had once played) and there was Cats and Peter Pan too. Awards aplenty, she'd also sung with symphony orchestras.

She had come a long way from the young girl growing up in Munster, West Germany, where her banker father had urged her to apply for a job in the bank. She had scowled her way through her teens, having been scolded by her parents for her short skirts and atheist rock'n'roll boyfriends. This was not how a good Catholic girl was expected to behave. She left home at 17, went to drama school and gradually set the world on fire.

"I had tried almost everything by the time I was 30 and it was great," she says. "It was all about pursuing my dream but at the end of the day it wasn't life. There was a discrepancy between being a successful artist and living your life. It wasn't the same thing. It didn't mean happiness. I wasn't unhappy but there was still a space that couldn't be filled."

In Girona she will do a show based on poems by the American poet, Charles Bukowski. One of his poems resonates with her as it reflects the void she once felt.

"It is about during the best moments and the greatest times, you know there's emptiness in there, a space which cannot be filled," she says.

"I didn't have the kids to fill the emptiness but I had exhausted myself with myself. I had to do something less self-centred than being an artist all the time. I had given enough to myself and I was ready to give to others, whether that meant becoming a teacher, a mother or doing humanitarian work in Africa."

Two days before she had her first child, Max, she married David, an American comedian. Then a couple of years later, they had their second child, Stella. Motherhood was something which Ute enjoyed.

"I hated to take planes after I became a mother because I thought if anything happened I was so needed. I was very scared to go. Also, you want to cut back on work because you want to spend time with your kids but on the other hand it's great to have this other identity where you are in your own domain.

"I'm a better mother when I'm a working mother because you do become a marshmallow if you only do the kids thing."

And so, Ute carried on performing. Like so many women, she faced the conundrum of trying to balance work with rearing her children. She got the part in Chicago in the West End when her kids were aged three and one.

"I hated going into work. It was eight shows a week. I would get up at seven in the morning and then bring the kids to the zoo. But I wouldn't want to leave them. I remember being so tired on the Underground, falling asleep and even missing my stop once. I used to bring the kids into the matinees and my little girl liked being around the other women, watching them change.

"It was a huge balancing act and I think those shows cost me my first marriage. Of course there were lots of other reasons why we broke up, but that was one of them."

During all of this there was a television documentary about the show. Ute was very frank about her crumbling marriage and how she couldn't cope with the strain of work.

"When we did the documentary I looked into the mirror and said, 'I don't even know how I'm going to make it today. Don't even ask me about tomorrow.' It was that bad but I had to keep going. I'm not a giver-upper, so there was no choice of stopping.

"The divorce was a horrible thing to go through. It was ugly and heartbreaking."

Ute got together with Todd, who had also been married. Both got divorces and then they set up home together, having their son four years ago. Ute tells me that she couldn't have done it alone. She and Todd split the parenting duties evenly.

"Fifty-fifty and I'm not kidding, from diaper changes to cleaning up the puke," she says.

But mostly they get on with living and enjoying their full life together in New York.

Ute's two older children see their father, who lives only a few blocks away, regularly. "It's not nice but we try to deal with each other in a civil way as the kids go back and forth," she tells me.

She likes living in New York. "It's very positive, full of life and spirit and playgrounds. And everything is within walking distance -- the hairdresser, the manicurist, the music studio."

The beauty about New York, she tells me, is that no one makes a fuss over the stars. She sees Sarah Jessica Parker in the playground with her kids. They check out Mickey Rourke's new facelifts as he goes through The Village with his white poodle and his blonde girlfriend. And she often sees Dustin Hoffman getting pedicures. There he is chatting to the Chinese girl in his tracksuit bottoms.

"Thankfully my ex-husband was an American, so I got the green card and the kids all have American passports."

Life is good but Ute tells me that she works at making the most out of things. She believes in making things happen. She works at making her life fulfilling.

"I've always had the feeling you've got to do it right now. You've got to take it in your hand and make it good. Forget about living in the future. Who knows what will happen in the future? Take today. It's always fun to dream about things but you need to do something about the dream. Work on it so it will come true.

"When I was 15 I didn't think I'd still be alive at 25. Then at 25, I thought, who knows at 35? And now I'm 46 and I've had a great ride. This is the one chance you have. Who knows whether the soul is going to get into a different body and if it does, you won't even remember it.

"So I say, take this ride now, before you're old and decrepit and go and have fun. Do whatever you need to do. If that means taking 10 lovers in a week, do it. Just go out there and make yourself happy."

Just as she has done.

Ute Lemper performs at the National Concert Hall on Tuesday 1st December with the RTE Concert Orchestra and conductor Robert Ziegler.

Tickets: €25, €40, €55 (concessions available)

Booking: 01 417 0000 or www.nch.ie

- Ciara Dwyer

Sunday Independent