Film Night at St Peter's Presents The Lives of Others

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Church's cultural programme Quidam continues tonight

Quidam co-ordinator Caroline Langton says: "Our principal aim in setting up the Quidam events programme was to attract more local people into our beautiful church as it is as much their heritage as the worshipping community.

"We want the profile of St Peter's to be raised and for people to regard it as a friendly, interesting, beautiful, historic place of culture and fellowship, with no overt religious messaging at all."

Here's what's happening in November, beginning this evening with Quidam's monthly Film Night.

Friday, 9 November, 7.45pm - The Lives of Others

Doors open at 7.30 pm; film starts at 8pm, with an introduction by Dr Katrin Schreiter, Lecturer in German and European Studies, King’s College London.

To reflect the mood of Remembrance weekend, Quidam present a sombre, powerful German film – The Lives of Others, an Oscar winner in 2007 for Best Foreign Language Film, directed by Florian von Donersmarch.

Over 100,000 of East Germany’s 16m population worked directly for the STASI secret police and over 400,000 were listed informants on their fellow citizens. The film depicts the moral compromises, big and small, forced on a group of individuals working in the theatre in East Berlin in 1984, and the price they pay for ‘collaboration’ with Government to protect their careers. Central to the film is how the STASI agent, assigned to spy on a playwright and an actress, understands his own corruption; and how, post German unification, he experiences a form of redemption.

A bleak film in one way, reflecting the German people’s tragedy in the first half of the 20th century (and continued in the east until 1989); but also, a morality tale for everyman – not to rush to moral condemnation of adjustments that those living in a police state must make in order to get by – ask not for whom the bell tolls.

Dr Katrin Schreiter is a Lecturer in German and European Studies at King’s College London. She received her PhD in History from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012. Her research examines the interplay of economics and culture of the Cold War era, and how these areas are connected to the politics of German diplomacy and ideas about nationhood. This research is captured in her forthcoming monograph Designing One Nation: The Politics of Economic Culture and Trade in Divided Germany, 1949-1990 with Oxford University Press. Dr Schreiter will be happy to take questions after her talk.

The now famous Carpenter’s Arms steak, salad and chips supper deal will be available on the night from 6.30pm. Price £15. This will need to be booked in advance. Please call 020 8741 8386.

Saturday 17 November, 6pm - Opera Masterclass with Alison Wells

An Opera Masterclass with Alison Wells, during which four young singers are given 30 minutes to work with a professional on a song or aria of their choice. Tickets are £10 on the door, and refreshments will be available.

Alison Wells was born in Yorkshire and originally trained as a pianist. She read Mathematics and Music at London University and then spent a year at the Royal Academy of Music, after which she began her vocal studies. She made her South Bank debut in the Park Lane Group’s January Series, and in the same year sang the Governess in the Turn of the Screw and took part in Elisabeth Schwarzkopf’s Masterclasses at the Wigmore Hall. Since then she has appeared in all the major London concert halls and in many festivals both at home and abroad.

A large part of Alison’s work is in the field of contemporary music, and she has sung with London Sinfonietta, Matrix, Lontano, Music Projects/London, Composers’ Ensemble, Kokoro, Psappha, Gemini, Ensemble Corrente, Apartment House, the french ensemble 2e2m, the Schoenberg Ensemble and ASKO in Amsterdam, and Champ d’Action in Antwerp. She has broadcast many times on BBC Radio 3. Alison is in great demand as a teacher of singing, teaching professional singers in both the opera and choral worlds in her private studio, and she is a member of the vocal studies department at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and at the Royal College of Music.

The singers include Hannah Crerar (Mezzo-soprano), Eric Kallo (Counter-tenor) and Milly Forrest (Soprano), accompanied by Jo Ramadan on the piano.

Find out more at St Peter's Hammersmith.

 

November 8, 2018