The Cherry Orchard Festival presents NY premiere of ADDRESS UNKNOWN

The Cherry Orchard Festival presents the New York premiere of ADDRESS UNKOWN, a play starring pianist Evgeny Kissin and baritone Thomas Hampson in acting-only roles, based on the anti-fascist novel by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor which was banned in 1930s Germany. The performance will take place on April 17, 2024 at 8:00pm at The Town Hall, 123 W 43rd St, New York, NY 10036. Tickets are $65-$225 and are available now at https://cherryorchardfestival.org/2024_address-unknown. 

In an era of austerity, recession, and rising nationalism, two friends are torn apart when the Nazi regime infiltrates their friendship and families to devastating effect. Based on the bestselling book, which was written as an anti-fascist call to arms and banned in 1930s Germany for dramatically exposing the threat of Nazism, ADDRESS UNKNOWN is a timely warning of how humanity can fail in the face of extreme ideology.

CAST

Evgeny Kissin

Thomas Hampson

Karina Arzumanova

Directed by Marianna Arzumanova

A Q&A session with the actors will be held after the show.

ADDRESS UNKNOWN was first staged at the Verbier Festival in the summer of 2022. Part of the proceeds from the show will be donated to UJA of New York’s Israel Emergency Fund. 

Evgeny Kissin was born in Moscow in October 1971 and began to play by ear and improvise on the piano at the age of two. At six years old, he entered a special school for gifted children, the Moscow Gnessin School of Music, where he was a student of Anna Pavlovna Kantor, who has remained his only teacher. At the age of ten, he made his concerto debut playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto K. 466 and gave his first solo recital in Moscow one year later. He came to international attention in March 1984 when, at the age of twelve, he performed Chopin’s Piano Concertos 1 and 2 in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the Moscow State Philharmonic under Dmitri Kitaenko. This concert was recorded live by Melodia, and a two-LP album was released the following year. During the next two years, several Kissin performances in Moscow were recorded live and five more LPs were released by Melodia.

Kissin’s first appearances outside Russia were in 1985 in Eastern Europe, followed a year later by his first tour of Japan. In 1987 he made his West European debut at the Berlin Festival. In 1988 he toured Europe with the Moscow Virtuosi and Vladimir Spivakov and also made his London debut with the London Symphony Orchestra under Valery Gergiev. In December of the same year he performed with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic in a New Year’s concert which was broadcast internationally, with the performance repeated the following year at the Salzburg Easter Festival. Audio and video recordings of the New Year’s concert were made by Deutsche Grammophon.

In 1990 Kissin made his first appearance at the BBC Promenade Concerts in London and that same year made his North American debut, performing both Chopin piano concertos with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta. The following week he opened Carnegie Hall’s Centennial season with a spectacular debut recital, which was recorded live by BMG Classics.

Musical awards and tributes from around the world have been showered upon Kissin. In 1987 he received the Crystal Prize of the Osaka Symphony Hall for the best performance of the year 1986 (which was his first performance in Japan ). In 1991 he received the Musician of the Year Prize from the Chigiana Academy of Music in Siena, Italy . He was special guest at the 1992 Grammy Awards Ceremony, broadcast live to an audience estimated at over one billion, and became Musical America ’s youngest Instrumentalist of the Year in 1995. In 1997 he received the prestigious Triumph Award for his outstanding contribution to Russia’s culture, one of the highest cultural honors to be awarded in the Russian Republic , and again, the youngest-ever awardee. He was the first pianist to be invited to give a recital at the BBC Proms (1997), and, in the 2000 season, was the first concerto soloist ever to be invited to play in the Proms opening concert. In May 2001 Kissin was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music by the Manhattan School of Music. In December 2003 in Moscow, he received the Shostakovich Award, one of Russia ’s highest musical honors. In June 2005, he was awarded an Honorary Membership of the Royal Academy of Music in London. He was recently awarded the 2005 Herbert von Karajan Music Prize. Evgeny Kissin is Honorary doctor of the Hong Kong University, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheba.

Mr. Kissin’s recordings have also received numerous awards and accolades, having contributed significantly to the library of masterpieces recorded by the world’s greatest performers. Past awards have included the Edison Klassiek in The Netherlands, Grammy awards, and the Diapason d’Or and the Grand Prix of La Nouvelle Academie du Disque in France.

Long recognized as one of the most innovative musicians of our time, American baritone Thomas Hampson has received countless international honours for his singular artistry and cultural leadership. His operatic repertoire is comprised of more than 80 roles, and his discography includes more than 170 albums, with multiple nominations and winners of the GRAMMY Award, Edison Award, and the Grand Prix du Disque.

Highlights of Thomas Hampson’s 2022/2023 season on the concert stage include a gala concert with Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Fabio Luisi and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham. He also sings Mahler songs with Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Belgian National Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon and MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig with whom he also tours to the Philharmonie Berlin and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, in addition to playing a vital role in the Mahler Festival Leipzig. Hampson also reunites with bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni for their acclaimed “No Tenors Allowed” program with the Würth Philharmoniker.

Chamber music projects see Hampson perform in the opening season concert with the New Century Chamber Orchestra and Daniel Hope. He will appear in recital at Turku Music Festival with Vlad Iftinca and in the Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam, Mozart-Saal, Stuttgart and Schloss Elmau with Wolfram Rieger. He also sings Schumann’s Dichterliebe at the KKL Luzern with Martha Argerich.

Later in the season, Hampson will return to Opéra national de Paris for his greatly anticipated role debut as Richard Nixon in Adams’ Nixon in China, led by Gustavo Dudamel.

Last season, he created the role of Jan Vermeer in the world premiere of Stefan Wirth’s Girl with a Pearl Earring at Opernhaus Zürich and starred as Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Hampson returned to the Teatro Real de Madrid and traveled to the Festival Castell de Peralada to star in the title role of Rufus Wainwright’s Hadrian. On the concert stage, he joined the Oslo Philharmonic and cellist Sol Gabetta for a concert led by Klaus Mäkelä, Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, Klangforum Wien, and Prague Symphony, among others. His recital performances included organ recitals with Martin Haselböck at the Dresdner Philharmonie, with Christian Schmitt at Tonhalle Zürich, and a recital with Wolfram Rieger at Alte Kirche Boswil.

Hampson is an honorary professor of Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg and an honorary member of London’s Royal Academy of Music. In addition to several Honorary Doctorates, he is a Kammersänger of the Wiener Staatsoper and Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the Republic of France. In 2017 he received the Hugo Wolf Medal, together with Wolfram Rieger. Hampson is the co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Lied Academy Heidelberg. Further teaching commitments include returning for the fourth edition of Opernwerkstatt Waiblingen with Melanie Diener. In 2003, he founded the Hampsong Foundation, through which he uses the art of song to promote intercultural dialogue and understanding. His international master class schedule is a continuing online resource of Medici.tv, the Manhattan School of Music, and The Hampsong Foundation livestream channel.

Marianna Arzumanova (January 1, 1977, Moscow) is a theater director, author, actress, dancer, and teacher of Argentine Tango and acting. She is the founder and director of the MA Theater and its festival Grébovka Summer with the MA Theater. She is a former editor and presenter at Radio Free Europe.

Marianna was born in Moscow, is of Armenian-Jewish-German origin, and holds citizenship of Israel and Czechia. She graduated from the Russian Academy of Theater Arts in Moscow. Immediately upon completing her studies, she played in Moscow theaters. Between 1995 and 2007, she worked at Radio Free Europe first in Moscow, and later in Prague, where she presented several programs as part of the cultural column.

Marianna has been practicing Argentine Tango since 2010, teaching it in Prague at the Buenos Aires Tango School. She traveled to Buenos Aires for some time to learn its principles in Rodolfo Dinzel's studio. In Tango, Marianna found direct parallels with the acting system she studied in Moscow. After returning to Prague, she founded her own theater company, known as the MA Theater, in which she directs her own devised plays, as well as works of other authors in the world repertoire. She teaches acting according to the Stanislavsky system. Marianna began by working with amateurs that she trained herself. Now she cooperates with professional actors of different theaters in Prague.

With the troupe she founded in 2013, she performed on the stages of Divadlo v Celetné, Divadlo v Řeznické, Divadlo Na Prádle, Divadlo Kolowrat, D21, and the Chamber Hall of Divadlo Na Vinohradech. In September of 2020, Marianna opened her own theater space at Žitná Street No. 41, in Prague 1.

In July of the same year, she founded a summer theater festival in Grotta in the Havlíčkovy Sady park in Vinohrady called The Grébovka Summer with the MA Theatre. The MA Theater is under the artistic patronage of the pianist Evgeny Kissin.

About the presenter:

Celebrating the international arts in the heart of New York City and beyond, the Cherry Orchard Festival Foundation works to introduce and promote global cultural activity and an exchange of ideas, to enlighten and engage an intergenerational audience through entertaining and educational programs in all arts genres.

Since its founding in 2012, the festival has consistently presented renowned international works of performing and visual arts to US audiences. The 2024 Festival season welcomed Lucas Debargue, Piano at Stern Auditorium /Perelman Stage, Carnegie Hall; Lia Akhedzhakova in the US Tour of My Grandson Benjamin, March 2024; Ksenia Rappoport and Alexei Serebryakov in the US Tour of Einstein and Margarita, May 2024. For tickets and more information, please visit cherryorchardfestival.org.