Isa Kremer
In 2000 her life was the subject of a television documentary entitled Isa Kremer: The People's Diva which was made for The Jewish Channel.
The family was part of the bourgeois class and Isa was brought up under the care of a governess and attended a private school operated by the Russian Orthodox Church.
The newspaper's editor, Israel Heifetz, took an interest in Kremer and provided her with the funds to pursue studies in opera with Pollione Ronzi in Milan from 1902 to 1911.
[4] In 1911 Sholem Aleichem's story "The Chosen Ones (From the Life of Little People)" translated from Yiddish into Russian by Iza Kremer (in the journal - Kreymer) was published, which was included in the first book of the Sovremennik magazine (1911.
Amfiteatrov, who highly participated in creating of this magazine, wrote about Isa Kreymer to Sholom Aleichem on November 21, 1910: "It would be nice to receive your story as going into the first book.
[7] She made her professional opera debut in 1911 at the Teatro Ponchielli in Cremona as Mimì in Giacomo Puccini's La bohème to the Rodolfo of Tito Schipa.
She was then active as principal artist at the Mariinsky Theatre (then known as the Petrograd Opera) in Saint Petersburg where she starred in several operettas and was heard in various works from the concert repertoire.
Some of the roles she sang there were Dolly in Franz Lehár's Endlich allein, Elvira in Lehar's Die ideale Gattin, Helen in Oskar Nedbal's Polská krev, and Laura in Karl Millöcker's Der Bettelstudent.
"[4] She became highly active in intellectual circles, and notably became close friends with Sholem Aleichem, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Mendele Mocher Sforim, and Mark Warshawski.
[4] While Odessa was her home, Kremer was also actively performing as a guest artist throughout Europe in concerts, operettas, and operas during the second decade of the 20th century.
[1] Among the roles in her stage repertoire were Tatyana in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and the title heroines in Jules Massenet's Manon and Puccini's Madama Butterfly.
[2] While on tour to Constantinople in 1917, the Russian Revolution occurred which proved ill fortune for Kremer and her family who were known supporters of Alexander Kerensky.
The family's Odessa property was confiscated, Heifetz was imprisoned, and their daughter, governess, and Kremer's parents were forbidden from leaving the city.
[2] Kremer first came to the United States in the autumn of 1922; arriving in New York City where she signed a contract with artistic manager Sol Hurok.
She later starred in a musical at a theatre on Second Avenue in the Yiddish Theater District in 1930 opposite Seymour Rechzeit which was entitled The Song of the Ghetto.
