Music / Berlin Electric, Brad Cooper (tenor) and Bev Kennedy (piano). At Wesley Music Centre, March 23. Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

The promise from Art Song Canberra of a wild, Weimar-fuelled afternoon of satire, hedonism, innuendo and gay abandon under the title of Berlin Electric was an offer too good to resist.

The fact that the program lived up to the hyperbole preceding it surprised many in the audience used to more esoteric offerings from Art Song Canberra but dazzled by the artistry and brilliance of tenor Brad Cooper and associate artist, pianist Bev Kennedy.

Their presentation of an extraordinary selection of songs by composers as diverse as Korngold, Weill, Stolz, Spoliansky, Hollander, Eisler and many less famous, all sung in the language they were written, were a revelation, even to those of us who don’t speak German.

Renowned for his versatility Brad Cooper is an accomplished operatic tenor equally at home in opera, operetta, Lieder and cabaret. Berlin Electric emerged during the covid lockdowns when opera houses and performing arts venues closed.

Rather than sit around and wait for the pandemic to pass, Cooper decided to take advantage of the situation to indulge his interest in German kabarett, which draws on gallows humour, cynicism, sarcasm and irony for inspiration.

Finding the perfect collaborator in Bev Kennedy, one of the country’s finest cabaret exponents, together they devised this extraordinary program, which not only proved an enlightening insight into a particular performance genre, but also remarkably entertaining.

Recognising that many in the audience would miss the nuances of the lyrics when sung in the language in which they were written, Cooper preceded each song with a brief history of the circumstances under which it was written.

Apart from being an enthralling raconteur, Cooper drew on his considerable operatic skills to communicate the meaning and intent of each of the carefully chosen songs as he performed them.

In this endeavour, Kennedy’s ability to capture the mood and atmosphere of each song was on full display demonstrating why she is so sort after as a collaborator by our most accomplished cabaret performers and recognised as being among Australia’s finest musical directors and accompanists.

The songs addressed a wide range of topics relating to the decadence of the Weimer period (1919-1933), but still startlingly relevant to events of the present day.

Superbly performed by Cooper, A Song Goes Round the World, linked with Austrian tenor Joseph Schmidt since 1933, was inspired by films and cabaret of that time.

The Robert Stolz ballad, The Song is Over (also known as Don’t Ask Me Why I’m Leaving) gained additional context when Cooper disclosed the story behind its composition.

Although written in the 1930s, Esler’s haunting Song of a German Mother recounting a grieving mother’s anguish at realising the full significance of her son’s brown uniform, and his Ballade of the Crippled Brigade purporting that prosthetics are more beautiful than limbs, were unmistakable references to current events.

Hollander’s We All Want to be Children Again, in which the self-described happy little huns exhort listeners to forget the atrocities they committed and join them in frolicking nude among the flowers, chilled with its sinister silliness echoing contemporary views touted in social media.

Although just some examples of the treasures uncovered by Cooper and Kennedy for their extraordinary exploration of this bygone era, while hugely entertaining, their song selection throughout represented a brilliantly subversive comment on how little we seem to have learned from history.

After dazzling his audience with Weimar cabaret songs, Cooper had more surprises for his encores.

An hilarious version of Fascinating Aida’s Lieder complete with Dillie Keane’s choreography satirising the performances of Marlene Dietrich and Lotte Lenya, left his audience convulsed with laughter.

Then his gentle jazz-infused version of the Kurt Weill song Speak Low, complete with a superb cool-jazz accompaniment from Kennedy, which he ended with some gorgeously high head notes, left his audience both surprised and pleased. You should have been there.