Claire Booth on Life Stories

Following a 150th anniversary album devoted to the songs of Schoenberg and a programme of works inspired by his Pierrot Lunaire, the intrepid British soprano Claire Booth recently commissioned a song-cycle from Zoë Martlew which takes its cue from the Austrian composer's cabaret songs and from Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins. Premiered at Wigmore Hall in late 2024, Hôtel Babylon is a veritable rogues' gallery featuring a sinister Yorkshire madame, a psychotic French chef, an amoral cashier, a manipulative beautician and more...

Booth's new album Life Stories presents Martlew's new work alongside cabaret-influenced songs by Hanns Eisler, Poulenc, and Thomas Adès (whose Tennessee Williams setting from 1994 gives the project its title). We spoke earlier this month about the blurred lines between cabaret and classical song, the challenges and pleasures involved in bringing Martlew's parade of grotesques to life, why Eisler's songs occupy a very different space to those of his contemporary Weill, and why she's on a mission to help young singers to find their own niche in contemporary opera... 

What’s the origin-story for this recital?

The project was born out of the Schoenberg 150th anniversary in 2024: his Brettl-Lieder were my impetus for commissioning Hôtel Babylon from Zoë Martlew.  That got me thinking about what comes to mind when we hear that word ‘cabaret’ in 2026…We live in a world where cabaret is almost extinct because everything is permitted: the politically charged, subterranean 1930s Berlin version doesn’t really work today, which raises an interesting question about what cabaret actually is and whether it can return to a pseudo-political space. 

I was thinking about this when I went to see Cabaret in London a couple of years ago…The production itself is amazing, but the pre-show immersive stuff fell a bit flat because we’re all so used to those visuals now - androgyny, fishnets and plus-size bodies in provocative clothing are no longer titillating or especially subversive. The origins of cabaret (and Cabaret) are obviously left-of-centre, so do we need to be in a reform government for it to have meaning? Perhaps.

When we performed some of this programme at Wigmore Hall last year the promotional text described it as an exploration of ‘the lighter side of song’, which only tells part of the story. Cabaret often explores pretty dark themes, but it also encompasses a range of styles that we associate with ‘light’ music - perhaps because the songs speak to us in such a direct, visceral way. 

It’s interesting to think about whether there’s still a certain stigma around art that provokes an immediate response: is it somehow worth less if you don’t have to go away and think about it? It shouldn’t be. Do those Earl Wild transcriptions which Jâms plays so beautifully on the album have less value than a Ligeti prelude? Or, conversely, is Ligeti somehow less ‘authentic’ than Earl Wild because his music takes longer to reveal its secrets? Of course neither of those things are true: Earl Wild wrote the music he wanted to write, and so did Ligeti! 

How did the programme go down at Wigmore Hall?

It was a Friday afternoon in November and we filled the ground floor, which is pretty good going! Quite a lot of actor friends came along because they were keen to see Zoë's work, so it was a bit different from the standard Wigmore audience: Hôtel Babylon was the mainstay of the programme, and I think people were a bit blown away by her writing! People who don’t often come to song recitals are always so happily surprised when they see singers really engaging with them. Of course good singers will always do that, but the standard repertoire only allows a limited amount of leeway – the refined, standing-still approach that you often see in Lieder has a beauty and poise of its own, but that's never really going to work for a pseudo-cabaret programme.

Zoë’s writing is obviously very theatrical, and there’s a certain amount of that written into the score: knowing winks, cheeky asides, blowing kisses etc which you can’t get across so easily on a recording. I take my hat off to Jâms Coleman, because as well as playing those Gershwin arrangements like a dream he also threw himself into Zoë’s piece and really got into the spirit of what’s dramatically required. We were a true double-act.

How did you meet Zoë and how did the piece take shape?

I got to know her through the late Ollie Knussen, and it felt so meaningful to work with someone whom Ollie had so much faith in. I felt the same when Ryan [Wigglesworth] and I did Helen Grime’s orchestral song cycle Folk a couple of years ago; Ollie was quite particular about who he worked with, and it’s lovely to keep that community of creatives going now that he’s no longer here.

There are seven songs in Hôtel Babylon, each loosely based around one of the Seven Deadly Sins. I've definitely got my favourites, but the whole thing surpassed my expectations. They’re all Zoë’s own texts – she’s not interested in setting other people’s words, and it’s glorious working with her because she’s so open to revising or condensing things as we go. We cut three whole pages from ‘Chef’, which is still very wordy!

The writing sounds technically formidable, but absolutely tailor-made for you! How much input did you have on that side of things?

When I first looked at the score I did swallow hard, but if there’s nothing to challenge you in a new piece then where’s the fun in that? I wonder how it is for the Erin Morleys of this world, who seem to be able to take the most extreme writing completely in their stride…although I’ve no doubt that Erin works as hard on her coloratura as Federer does on his forehand!

With standard repertoire there’s a set expectation: you know the aria/role and its challenges, and it’s for you to decide whether your voice is ready for it. There’s no sense that what’s been written isn’t viable, because so many people have already done it. With new music it can be lovely to collaborate with the composer, but I challenge myself not to get too involved when they're writing – it’s for me to work out how I’m going to do something rather than just say it’s not doable. 

And sometimes that sense of difficulty is part and parcel of the music: Gerald Barry, for instance, will often write something challenging because he wants to hear you struggle! On some level it’s still our job to do what we’ve been asked - and if you don’t like what someone’s asking then they might just not be the composer for your voice. 

I’m currently working on a project with Schott Music and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to bring together an anthology of opera arias by living composers, so that singers, coaches and audition-panels can make more informed decisions when it comes to choosing the right contemporary repertoire. The idea is that people will be able to say ‘I suit Birtwistle but I don’t suit Anderson’, just as you might say ‘I suit Donizetti but I don’t suit Verdi’.

You also have a lot of different accents to contend with in Hôtel Babylon…

‘Madame’ was originally written in a Cockney accent, and I tried and tried but I just couldn’t do it: I grew up in the North of England, and so the Yorkshire Madame was born! ‘Chef’ is meant to be sung in a cod French accent, which I felt very comfortable doing, and for ‘Beautician’ I have to try (and fail) to do a South American accent…The comedy lies in the fact that it’s unsuccessful, and I hope that comes across on the recording because Zoë would never want to imply that this is what people from South America actually sound like!

The next person who takes this score and runs with it might have a very different background to me, and should be able to make it their own…although I do slightly hope that I get to keep being associated with the piece because it’s so damned good!

How did the rest of the programme come together?

It’s been a delight to present Hôtel Babylon in the context of other repertoire which inhabits similar worlds: Zoë’s music is definitely more heart-on-sleeve and unashamedly performative than Poulenc, Eisler or Adès, but it absolutely stands up in that company. Zoë and Tom [Adès] are friends, so his Life Story felt like an obvious inclusion. There were a couple of recordings already, but it’s not for the fainthearted: you can’t stand and sing, you have to enter this nonchalant but very painful world which Tom and Tennessee Williams build around the idea of a one night stand. Like all the pieces on the album it’s an absolute gift to an actor-performer, and I hope I’ve been able to put that across. 

How does Hanns Eisler fit into the picture?

It was the composer John Woolrich who alerted me to Eisler’s work, and I was really delighted to discover his music. Kurt Weill has never really worked in my voice because it sits a bit too low: the Eisler songs aren’t explicitly written for high singers, but something about the structure just suits me better. 

Eisler and Weill are often bracketed together because they were both German-born émigrés who settled in the United States, but they’re very different voices with very different stories: Weill was Jewish and Eisler was a Communist, so they were both forced into exile by the Nazis, but that’s where the similarity ends. Eisler ended up being blacklisted in Hollywood for his Communist sympathies during the Cold War, and was regarded with suspicion by the US authorities: there’s footage of his brother Gerhart (who was a prominent journalist and politician) taking a plane to Russia with the American reporter saying ‘Thank God we’ve got rid of another Commie!’. Darkness and exclusion were very much part of his life, but it’s a different darkness to the narrative of Jewish exceptionalism.

The Hollywooder Liederbuch is such an interesting collection, because there were lots of reasons why Eisler felt welcome in the States and also plenty of reasons why he felt like an alien there. The title in itself (which people sometimes translate into English) is fascinating: did he just use the word ‘Liederbuch’ rather than ‘Songbook’ because he’s German, or are these songs trying to reframe what we think of as Lieder? Maybe it’s not that deep, but it's quite nice to unpack how somebody who was collaborating with Bertolt Brecht in the 1930s thought about Lieder. 

Brecht wrote the texts for three of the Eisler songs on the album, and his ability to condense that feeling of alienation into a very few words is awesome: ‘An den kleinen Radioapparat’ is just one page of music, and ‘Über den Selbstmord’ ([‘On Suicide’] is so shocking and sparing.

Brecht's texts are amazing in themselves, but we’re so used to hearing them through Weill these days and Eisler has even more bitterness - Brecht himself was actually much more a fan of Eisler than of Weill. Weill was really keen for them to work together again after The Threepenny Opera, but in Brecht’s view that was all a bit too commercial; he really wanted to do something darker, and he found a kindred spirit in Eisler. Going back to the question of whether you can find darkness in a cabaretesque world, Eisler is a prime example of someone who nails it: a lot of Brecht’s texts are incredible little vignettes with all sorts of double meanings, and Eisler is so alive to all of that. 

Do you have plans to take the programme on tour?

I’d love the album to have an afterlife and I’m exploring options, but you need a lot of buy-in from so many different parties to make a cabaret programme work as theatre. My next project with Jâms is around ghost stories, and we’re hopefully doing it in conjunction with the Uncanny podcast; we’re setting one of the Uncanny stories and a paranormal psychologist is going to prime the audience to be suggestible. I think it’s going to be super-fun…