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 Feinmann, and Moishe Finkel. This inspired him to organize his own youth theater. In 1885, he toured in a troupe led by Zaharia Filipescu 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.
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. 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-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 [Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre]. With the assistance of Jacob Mestel. Vol. 1. New York: Farlag "Elisheva". Columns 273-274.