Isidor Goldenberg (1870–?) was a
Romanian
Jewish singer and actor, prominent in
Yiddish theater in the late 19th and early 20th century.
As a boy, he sang in the choir of Leibuş Sanberg. In 1883, as an adolescent, he performed in
Iaşi with the troupe of
Sigmund Mogulesko
Sigmund Mogulesko (16 December 1858 – 4 February 1914) — Yiddish: זעליק מאָגולעסקאָ ''Zelik Mogulesko'', first name also sometimes spelled as Zigmund, Siegmund, Zelig, or Selig, last name sometimes spelled Mogulescu &m ...
, Sigmund Feinmann, and Moishe Finkel. This inspired him to organize his own youth theater. In 1885, he toured in a troupe led by
Zaharia Filipescu Zaharia is an Albanian and Romanian variant form of the given name or surname Zechariah/Zacharias.
Notable people with this surname
* Zaharia family, an Albanian noble family
** Koja Zaharia
** Lekë Zaharia
** Elia Zaharia
*Alexandru Zaharia, Ro ...
and his wife.
In
Galaţi he spent a summer performing in one of the garden theaters common at the time, then worked with a singer named Solomonescu, before hooking up with the troupe of
Marcu Segalescu, in which he played small roles.
[Zylbercweig, Zalmen, ed. (1931).]
Goldenberg, Itsikl
. ''Leksikon fun yidishn teater'' exicon of the Yiddish Theatre With the assistance of Jacob Mestel. Vol. 1. New York: Farlag "Elisheva". cols. 273-274.
He travelled with Segalescu to
Botoşani, where he played larger roles, notably Avesalom in
Abraham Goldfaden's ''
Shulamith'' and Max in Goldfaden's ''The Two Kuni-Lemls''.
He performed with Axelrod in
Lviv from 1889 to 1891, then in
Budapest with Josef Eskraiz, Shramek, and Veinstock, back to Lviv where he played in several Goldfaden plays ''Rabbi Yosselmann'', ''The Tenth Commandment'', ''Judith and Holofernes'' and ''Baron Rothschild''. From there he went on to Budapest again, then to
Bucharest, where he joined the Jigniţa Theater as an actor and (from 1897) a director of the company.
Beginning in 1904, he had great success with the more naturalistic repertoire of
Jacob Gordin; in 1906 he played in one of the many Yiddish productions of
Karl Gutzkow's ''
Uriel Acosta'', before heading to
New York City, where he performed with
Jacob Adler,
Boris Thomashefsky,
Max Morrison, and others. He loved the New York Yiddish audience, who showed more enthusiasm than any he had ever known. At the time he wrote "...they applauded, clamoured, vociferated, whistled — yes, whistled", they held up the play for a quarter of an hour with their applause, "sincere, spontaneous, and from the heart."
He returned to Europe and, in 1913, upon the death of
Moritz Lieblich,
[Zylbercweig, Zalmen, ed. (1934).]
Lieblich, Moritz (Yitzhok Moshe)
. ''Leksikon fun yidishn teater''. Vol. 2. Warsaw: Published under the auspices of the Hebrew Actors Union of America. col. 1038. became the director of the Jigniţa, which throughout
World War I was a highlight of the distressed wartime Bucharest theater scene. Remaining at Jigniţa, in 1923 he invited the
Vilna troupe to Romania, where their
Stanislavski
Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski ( Alekseyev; russian: Константин Сергеевич Станиславский, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin sʲɪrˈgʲejɪvʲɪtɕ stənʲɪˈslafskʲɪj; 7 August 1938) was a seminal Soviet Russian th ...
-influenced style revolutionized Romanian Yiddish theater and, arguably, Romanian theater in general.
Notes
References
*
Bercovici, Israil, ''O sută de ani de teatru evreiesc în România'' ("One hundred years of Yiddish/Jewish theater in Romania"), 2nd Romanian-language edition, revised and augmented by Constantin Măciucă. Editura Integral (an imprint of Editurile Universala), Bucharest (1998). . 101, 125.
*
Zylbercweig, Zalmen, ed. (1931).
Goldenberg, Itsikl . ''Leksikon fun yidishn teater''
exicon of the Yiddish Theatre With the assistance of Jacob Mestel. Vol. 1. New York: Farlag "Elisheva". Columns 273-274.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldenberg, Isidor
1870 births
Year of death missing
Romanian Ashkenazi Jews
Yiddish theatre performers