THE IRISH TIMES Monday, 22nd December 2003

Enchanted by a dark angel    

One to remember our critics reflect on memorable cultural encounters of 2003              

An Irishwoman who sings the songs of Brecht, Weill, Brel and even Nick Cave has cast her spell on Eileen Battersby .

To be taken by surprise by the arts is not as easy as it used to be. Creative spontaneity has to battle nowadays, because we all know - at least think we know - so much about everything. I know the visual art I like; the same instinct directs me to the films I want to see, to the books I want to read, to the theatre I want to experience.

As for music, I discovered Chopin when I was five, and everything have ever needed is contained within the great classical tradition.If it sounds narrow, forgive me; Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert are riches sufficient for any one lifetime. There is also space for Eastern European folk music, Paul Simon, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Kurt Weill and Jacques Brel.

Anyhow, trapped in festering traffic and obliged to hear the radio news, I paused The Magic Flute and tuned in to RTÉ Radio 1. Far more exciting than the headlines was the amazing voice just finishing Kurt Weill's Youkali, and the singer, a woman, began speaking with Pat Kenny.

The subject? A pet love, the Berlin Kabarett, the satirical musical response to the oppressions of the Weimar Republic. Kenny sounded mesmerised. So was I. She sang another song, Nick Cave's hauntingly defiant, candid lament People They Ain't No Good. Magnificent. Kenny was awestruck. So was I.

It was decided. Walk, if necessary, to Dublin to hear this sophisticated artist of light and shadows perform her sell-out Dark Angel show, in the Spiegeltent during Dublin Fringe Festival. Based on songs from Weimar as well as by artists influenced by the era, such as Cave and Tom Waits, it would be original and different.

Chuffed with my discovery of a world-class "international" Irish singer, I informed all. Most of them already knew about Camille O'Sullivan. "She can sing anything, from Brel to Tom Waits. She has an informed following." Where had I been for the past few years? Listening to CD recordings of Bach and co, I guess, occasionally venturing out for chamber recitals and church music.

Hint: time to experience a live performance. An O'Sullivan gig is more than live; she has a generous, dramatic stage presence, an unpredictable, daring sense of theatre, an impressive tonal range and earthy humour. Sultry, witty, intelligent, she looks wonderful and sounds better. Here is someone who can not only sing gloriously but also understands the complex, nuanced lyrics and the situation that inspired them. She sings, indeed lives, the songs. Above all, she tells the stories, assuming a range of personalities, from tragic girl to world-weary woman beaten by life.

"Cabaret songs are like poems - they express the personal, political and sexual issues of a nation at a time of crisis," she said that night in the atmospheric setting of the Spiegeltent, a magic hall of mirrors and shadows. "We are on a journey to the darker side of the human condition." No woman has sung Mack The Knife quite as well; she "enacted", with subtle indignation, Friedrich Hollander's prophetic Munchaussen (Liar, Liar) about the rise of Hitler and Germany's degradation. Moving from the tender to the raucous, she has power and feeling; irony, timing and sheer musicality.

"Darker side" sounds just about right, although there was humour, tenderness and regret as well as anger and cynicism. Afterwards, we found ourselves standing side by side; I asked the singer about the songs, how she had first discovered the wealth of these German satires. She began to tell me - "oh, do you mind waiting a minute? I have to pay my musicians." But won't your manager do that? "I don't have one," she said. Off she rushed through the tent. O'Sullivan looks after musicians; they enjoy working with her. While I waited, I bought her CD, A Little Yearning, from a young man selling them from his coat pocket. It was a touch of 1920s Berlin in 2003 Dublin. "You'll enjoy it," he said. "She's brilliant; all the tracks are great." How come she doesn't have a manager? "She needs one," he said. "She has to do everything herself; all the organisation, the business stuff, hire the musicians, get the venues, do the lighting and perform. She's a genius. But she doesn't have it easy - she's too fair."

It's a quicksilver voice, shifting from silk to broken glass, from lilting whisper to full-hearted exuberance. In France or Germany she would be revered; here she is a specialist artist singing in French, German and English. So good yet so young, maybe 30 years old, on stage she's a woman, in person she's a girl and a qualified architect. Whereas cabaret to me has always meant Berlin, Brecht, Weill and images by Otto Dix, in Ireland it describes a variety show full of feel-good songs and skits.

The CD is terrific, dominated by superb renditions of Brel's Voir Un Ami Pleurer, Marieke, The Song Of Old Lovers and Amsterdam, Weill's subversive fantasy Pirate Jenny and the title track, Hollander's A Little Yearning. Is she a singer or an actor who can sing very well? I don't know. But Camille O'Sullivan is one of the most gifted interpreters of narrative songs yet to appear, with a natural artistry welcomed by the late Agnes Bernelle.

O'Sullivan's recent Brel show at the Helix in Dublin opened with the Belgian master's salute to mortality, My Death. Song after song, there was drama, pathos, comedy and anger, another wonderful performance of Brel's story about the rowdy sailors in the port of Amsterdam and La Moribund, his personal farewell to life. Jacques Brel had a multisided, emotive response to life, love and death. The ambiguities intrigue. In Camille O'Sullivan, he and any other writer of inspired songs has a singular and courageous interpreter.