Kathleen Ferrier - new film by Diane Perelsztejn

A new film about Kathleen Ferrier exploring her life and her music is now out.  Diane Perelsztejn's film moves briskly through Ferrier's early life to the triumphs of her career, which will be familiar, but are presented in a fresh way.  There are new things too, dealt with for the first time, and new, analytical material. Read the full review by Claire Seymour HERE in Opera Today :

"The final stages of the film deal with Ferrier’s personal relationships, and we learn about her relationship with Rick Davies — the significance of which has not been previously well known due to the media’s respect for the singer’s privacy and Winifred restricting access to the diaries — and with her father. Her fatal illness is sensitively depicted, revealing the humour and courage (she continued to perform despite the pain caused by her breast cancer) with which she bore discomfort and adversity."

"Contralto Natalie Stutzmann insightfully analyses the strengths and appeal of Ferrier’s voice, remarking its ambiguous combination of “the colour of the chest voice usually found in the male voice with the clarity of the female voice”, and the beauty and length of her breath. But, whatever her technical strengths, it was the way her relaxed, earthy contralto communication so naturally that struck her devotees, for whom she was the ‘girl-next-door’, bringing classical music to an entirely new audience.