Weill in the streets

>> Patricia O'Callaghan's cabaret reaches from Weimar to Seattle

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

With a voice that's as precise an instrument as an electron microscope, and a lot prettier than anything you'd see through one, Toronto's Patricia O'Callaghan breathes new life into the all-but-forgotten cabaret thing. As is to be expected, she tackles Leonard Cohen and Kurt Weill (the overlord of Weimar-era German cabaret), buffing both up to a brand-new shine. But then, her latest CD, Real Emotional Girl, takes its name from a Randy Newman tune. It's in there next to that irascible Gaul, Arthur H., a Dylan number and--get this--Pearl Jam's "Better Man," a nice tune once de-Vedder-ized. When she performs at (appropriately) Cabaret this week, she promises further goodies: Tom Waits, Astor Piazzolla, some Latino folk and an Elvis Costello tune. Sweet!



Mirror: I'd like to know, what attracted you to cabaret in the first place?

Patricia O'Callaghan: When I was 16, I discovered the album Theresa Strata Sings the Unknown Kurt Weill. I'd just started studying classical voice at the time, and that album really blew me away. It influenced me--Kurt Weill did in general--the way he made these accessible tunes that were still so deep and required a trained voice. I never lost my love of that. Then I went to university and did the classical thing, but again, I was very attracted to this period of time--Poulenc, Satie, Weill, the '20s. It was this meeting of high and low art.

M: You've been a rock singer, and have studied classical and jazz. Cabaret seems to fall squarely in the centre of that triangle.

PO: It does. It seemed to satisfy a lot of needs and desires I had as a performer and a singer.

M: People seem really surprised by your choice of a Pearl Jam cover. I find it fits nicely with the rest of the record, but some people are thrown by something that--

PO: Modern.

M: Something we know from the radio. At least the Randy Newman tune, that's old enough to be before my time.

PO: Randy Newman is, to me, very much in the Kurt Weill style: sardonic, political, humorous--a continuation of Weill. The Pearl Jam--because I've had all this classical training but grew up today, I don't really see those boundaries like a lot of people do. North Americans, anyway. For me, that was a guy singing a song about a girl. Great text--I rollerblade to it at night, I thought it would be good to give it a try.

M: What do you look for in a song's lyrics? What moves you, what resonates?

PO: The contrast of dark and light. I like to hear that, that everything isn't wonderful, or horrible either. There's that play of huge contrasts. The humanity in it is what's so interesting to me. Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"--and there's a million Kurt Weill songs like this, too--has the sweetest, most wonderful melody with some real bitterness and harshness in the lyrics. It's that lovely juxtaposition that makes them interesting.

At Cabaret on Tuesday, April 10, 9pm, $10