Halina szpilman biography

Previews starting: September 26, 2023
Opening night: September 29, 2023
Running through: October 22, 2023

TICKETS are priced for $25-$70

New Brunswick Performing Arts Center
11 Livingston Avenue
New Brunswick, NJ 08901

This event is recommended by the Polish Cultural Institute New York.

George Street Playhouse (David Saint, Artistic Director) presents THE PIANIST, a play with music, based on the memoir “The Pianist” by Władysław Szpilman and directed and adapted for the stage by Emily Mann (Broadway: A Streetcar Named Desire, Having Our Say, Anna and the Tropics). THE PIANIST begins previews on September 26, with an official opening night set for September 29. The play runs through October 22.

Presented in association with producers Michael Wolk, Kumiko Yoshii and Robin de Levita, THE PIANIST is a new stage adaptation of Władysław Szpilman‘s harrowing account of the annihilation of Jewish life in Warsaw during World War II and his remarkable survival through the transcendent power of music. Szpilman was the most acclaimed young musician of his time until his promising career was interrupted by the onset of World War II. He played the last live music heard over Polish radio airwaves before Nazi artillery hit. Though he escaped deportation, Szpilman was forced to live in the heart of the Warsaw ghetto. The play follows Szpilman’s heroic and inspirational journey of survival with the unlikely help of a sympathetic German officer.

Szpilman’s memoir inspired the 2002 Oscar-winning film starring Adrien Brody.

THE PIANIST stars Ukrainian-Russian Jewish actor Daniel Donskoy (A Small Light; The Crown) as Władysław Szpilman in his American stage debut and features Claire Beckman (The Torch-Bearers) as Mother, Austin Pendleton (Between Riverside and Crazy; The Minutes; The Little Foxes) as Father, Paul Spera (On The Basis of Sex) as Henryk, Arielle Goldman (The How and the Why) as Regina, Georgia Wa

Polish pianist, composer and Holocaust survivor (1911–2000)

Władysław Szpilman (Polish pronunciation:[vwaˈdɨswafˈʂpilman]; 5 December 1911 – 6 July 2000) was a Polish Jewish pianist, classical composer and Holocaust survivor. Szpilman is widely known as the central figure in the Roman Polanski film The Pianist, which was based on his autobiographical account of how he survived the German occupation of Warsaw. In the film, Szpilman is portrayed by American actor Adrien Brody.

Szpilman studied piano at music academies in Berlin and Warsaw. He became a popular performer on Polish Radio and in concert. Confined within the Warsaw Ghetto after the German invasion of Poland, Szpilman spent two years in hiding. Following the Warsaw Uprising and the subsequent destruction of the city, he was helped by Wilm Hosenfeld, a German officer who detested Nazi policies. After World War II, Szpilman resumed his career on Polish Radio. Szpilman was also a prolific composer; his output included hundreds of songs and many orchestral pieces. Szpilman was also recognized as the most famous of the "Robinson Crusoes", a term referring to Poles who survived in the ruins of Warsaw after the Warsaw Uprising.

Career as a pianist

Szpilman began his study of the piano at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw, Poland, where he studied piano with Aleksander Michałowski and Józef Śmidowicz, first- and second-generation pupils of Franz Liszt. In 1931, he was a student of the prestigious Academy of Arts in Berlin, Germany, where he studied with Artur Schnabel, Franz Schreker, and Leonid Kreutzer. After Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Szpilman returned to Warsaw, where he quickly became a celebrated pianist and composer of both classical and popular music. Primarily a soloist, he was also the chamber music partner of such acclaimed violinists as Roman Totenberg, Ida Haendel and Henryk Szeryng, and in 1934

This article is about the book. For the film by Roman Polanski, see The Pianist (2002 film).

1946 memoir by Władysław Szpilman

The Pianist is a memoir by the Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman in which he describes his life in Warsaw in occupied Poland during World War II. After being forced with his family to live in the Warsaw Ghetto, Szpilman manages to avoid deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp, and from his hiding places around the city witnesses the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and the Warsaw Uprising (the rebellion by the Polish resistance) the following year. He survives in the ruined city with the help of friends and strangers, including Wilm Hosenfeld, a German army captain who admires his piano playing.

The book was first published in Polish in 1946 as Śmierć Miasta. Pamiętniki Władysława Szpilmana 1939–1945 ("Death of a City: Memoirs of Władysław Szpilman 1939–1945"), edited by Jerzy Waldorff, a Polish music critic and friend of Szpilman's. In his introduction, Waldorff explained that he had written down the story as told by Szpilman. A 1950 Polish film based on the book was heavily censored by the Communist government.

A German translation by Karin Wolff in 1998, Das wunderbare Überleben: Warschauer Erinnerungen ("The Miraculous Survival: Warsaw Memories"), named Władysław Szpilman as the sole author, and in 1999 an English translation by Anthea Bell was published as The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45. Two years after Szpilman's death, Roman Polanski's film The Pianist (2002) won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and the following year it won three Academy Awards (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Director), and BAFTA Awards for Best Film and Best Direction.

Synopsis

Władysław Szpilman

Further information: Invasion of Poland and General Government administr