Jacob Spivakofsky, a Russian Jew, was one of the first stars in the
early years of Yiddish theater.The highly cultured scion of a wealthy
Odessa Jewish family, Spivakofsky had an academic education and was
already a well-traveled young man who, by Jacob Adler's account "acted
with talent and taste in Russian amateur theatricals" and "recited the
poetry of Pushkin with something close to genius" (Adler, 1999, 60)
when he was sent in 1877 to Bucharest, Romania as a foreign
correspondent for an Odessa newspaper, to cover the Russo-Turkish War.
He crossed paths with Abraham Goldfaden, who only a year earlier had
founded the first professional Yiddish-language theater troupe, and
abandoned journalism to become a romantic leading man.He soon left
Goldfaden's troupe along with fellow odessite Israel Rosenberg. They
briefly toured (with a repertoire purloined from Goldfaden) in
Moldavia, but the end of the war dried up the supply of free-spending
merchants and middlemen who had briefly made Yiddish theater in
Romania a prosperous enterprise. At the suggestion of Jacob Adler,
they came back to Odessa, where Spivakofsky was the first leading man
in Rosenberg's new Odessa-based troupe, the first professional Yiddish
theater troupe in Imperial Russia. (Adler, 1999, 60, 68)
early years of Yiddish theater.The highly cultured scion of a wealthy
Odessa Jewish family, Spivakofsky had an academic education and was
already a well-traveled young man who, by Jacob Adler's account "acted
with talent and taste in Russian amateur theatricals" and "recited the
poetry of Pushkin with something close to genius" (Adler, 1999, 60)
when he was sent in 1877 to Bucharest, Romania as a foreign
correspondent for an Odessa newspaper, to cover the Russo-Turkish War.
He crossed paths with Abraham Goldfaden, who only a year earlier had
founded the first professional Yiddish-language theater troupe, and
abandoned journalism to become a romantic leading man.He soon left
Goldfaden's troupe along with fellow odessite Israel Rosenberg. They
briefly toured (with a repertoire purloined from Goldfaden) in
Moldavia, but the end of the war dried up the supply of free-spending
merchants and middlemen who had briefly made Yiddish theater in
Romania a prosperous enterprise. At the suggestion of Jacob Adler,
they came back to Odessa, where Spivakofsky was the first leading man
in Rosenberg's new Odessa-based troupe, the first professional Yiddish
theater troupe in Imperial Russia. (Adler, 1999, 60, 68)
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