Ute Lemper flies as the firefly from "Masked Dancer"

The show “The Masked Dancer” is supposed to spread the idea of celebrities in disguise who appear on stage. The show actually started with a surprise.

Cologne – A firefly turns into a one-day fly by accident: the internationally renowned actress and singer Ute Lemper was the first celebrity to drop out of the new ProSieben show “The Masked Dancer”.

Quite surprisingly, the 58-year-old was exposed on Thursday evening in the opening episode of the riddle show, in which celebrities dance and hide their true identity under lavish disguise. “It was an incredible experience,” said Lemper.

Too few audience votes

Nobody had suspected that the musical performer (“Cats”, “Chicago”) and world-class chanson singer could be there. As it turned out, Lemper was dressed in a dazzling firefly costume with big eyes, sweeping wings and gaps between teeth. She had to take off her dress because the dancing animal received too few audience votes for its performance.

Lemper then commented on her capabilities with a good dose of understatement. “I thought my dancing days were actually over,” she said. The show made her train again – including dancing in the living room. During the Christmas season, the Christmas tree almost fell over. “I’m happy, the bones weren’t cracked,” said Lemper. Her conclusion: “I still have a little inside me.”

That was an understatement because the firefly performed a very elegant dance to the song “XO” by US star Beyoncé. Nobody guessed Lemper. Steven Gätjen (49), who sits on the show’s advice team, suspected that the 36-year-old actress Palina Rojinski was under the mask. His colleague Ruth Moschner (45) was done after the unveiling. “I’m completely in love with shock,” she said. 1.75 million viewers watched the show in front of the screen. When the fifth season of the original format “The Masked Singer” started in October, around 3 million viewers were recorded.

Lemper was born in Münster, but has lived in the USA since the 90s. As Grizabella in the musical “Cats” she celebrated her first triumphs in Vienna – at the time she was just 20. She was acclaimed as Velma Kelly at an award-winning “Chicago” guest performance in 1998 in London. In the same role she caused a sensation on New York’s Broadway. The singer was lolling there, laying her legs casually over the red “Chicago” font, back then on oversized advertising walls. With a demanding program, she also became a chanson star.

New challenge for Lemper

The firefly presented Lemper with completely new challenges. “The costume weighs a lot. It was much more massive than I had imagined before, ”she told the German Press Agency. “I thought that I would be more of a fairy – graceful, with long arms and legs.” Instead, the firefly was more of a grumbler. “I could have fallen with it – I would always have landed softly.”

Thanks to Lemper, “The Masked Dancer” had a surprise right in the first episode – and that’s what the show idea, which is an offshoot of “The Masked Singer”, lives from. In the original, celebrities sing in opulent costumes. Above all, their voices give clues as to who might be under the mask. In the spin-off there is no singing, but dancing.

One can already say: The focus on movement makes unmasking more difficult rather than easier. This could be read off at the start of a cascade of tips of various stripes, which the advice team reported – including the theory that model Heidi Klum (48) could be in a mouse costume. Also included are a dancing colored pencil, a monkey, a muscular superhero called Maximum Power, a latently stupid-looking sheep and a kind of mop that ProSieben christened Zottel.

What is new is that the guessing team now has jokers in hand. With these, certain circumstantial evidence can be examined more closely and – even more revealing – small audio snippets of the original voice of the costumed celebrity can be heard. The word “good”, which was brought in in this way, led to the strong assumption that presenter Jörg Pilawa (56) could dance in a sheep costume. A word had also been heard from Ute Lemper as the firefly – but this did not lead to her exposure. However, Steven Gätjen stated that it was a “sexy voice”.

There are now three more episodes planned. Like the original, the spin-off will be moderated by Matthias Opdenhövel (51). Although this one also knew how to surprise: he entered the stage with a recognizable beard. “The Masked Dancer” is just a new show. Even if it is just nuances. dpa