Isidor Goldenberg was a Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

n 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

Iasi

Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...

 with the troupe of Sigmund Mogulesko

Sigmund Mogulesko

Sigmund Mogulesko — Yiddish: זעליק מאָגולעסקאָ Zelik Mogulesko, first name also sometimes given as Zigmund, Siegmund, Zelig, or Selig, last name sometimes spelled Mogulescu — was a singer, actor, and composer in the Yiddish theater, originally from Kalarash, Bessarabia Sigmund...

, 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

Galati

Galați is a city and municipality in Romania, the capital of Galați County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, in the close vicinity of Brăila, Galați is the largest port and sea port on the Danube River and the second largest Romanian port....

 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

Botosani

Botoșani is the capital city of Botoșani County, in northern Moldavia, Romania. Today, it is best known as the birthplace of many celebrated Romanians, including Mihai Eminescu and Nicolae Iorga.- Origin of the name :...

, where he played larger roles, notably Avesalom in Abraham Goldfaden

Abraham Goldfaden

Abraham Goldfaden ; was an Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yiddish and Hebrew, author of some 40 plays.Goldfaden is considered the father of the Jewish modern theatre.In 1876 he founded in...

's Shulamith

Shulamith

Shulamith may refer to:*Shulamith School for Girls*Shulamith, a play by Abraham Goldfaden*Shulamith , the cat that founded the American Curl breed-Also:...

and Max in Goldfaden's The Two Kuni-Lemls.

He performed with Axelrod in Lvov from 1889 to 1891, then in Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

 with Josef Eskraiz, Shramek, and Veinstock, back to Lvov 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

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

, 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 reportoire of Jacob Gordin; in 1906 he played in one of the many Yiddish productions of Karl Gutzkow

Karl Gutzkow

Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow was a German writer notable in the Young Germany movement of the mid-19th century.-Life:...

's Uriel Acosta, before heading to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where he performed with Jacob Adler

Jacob Pavlovich Adler

Jacob Pavlovich Adler , born Yankev P. Adler, was a Jewish actor and star of Yiddish theater, first in Odessa, and later in London and New York City....

, Boris Thomashefsky

Boris Thomashefsky

Boris Thomashefsky was a Ukrainian-born Jewish singer and actor who became one of the biggest stars in Yiddish theatre; born in Tarashcha , a shtetl near Kiev, Ukraine, he emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 12 in 1881...

, 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, with the death of Boris Lieblich, became the director of the Jigniţa, which throughout World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 was a highlight of the distressed wartime Bucharest theater scene. Remaining at Jigniţa, in 1923 he invited the Vilna troupe

Vilna Troupe

The Vilna Troupe , also known as Fareyn Fun Yiddishe Dramatishe Artistn and later Dramă şi Comedie was an international and mostly Yiddish-speaking theatrical company, one of the most famous in the history of Yiddish theater...

 to Romania, where their Stanislavski

Konstantin Stanislavski

Constantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski , was a Russian actor and theatre director. Building on the directorially-unified aesthetic and ensemble playing of the Meiningen company and the naturalistic staging of Antoine and the independent theatre movement, Stanislavski organized his realistic...

-influenced style would revolutionize Romanian Yiddish theater and, arguably, Romanian theater in general.