ERC > LEXICON OF THE YIDDISH THEATRE  >  VOLUME 5  >  ALBERT SEGALESKO


Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre
BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE WHO WERE ONCE INVOLVED IN THE Yiddish THEATRE;
aS FEATURED IN zALMEN zYLBERCWEIG'S  "lEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER"


VOLUME 5: THE KDOYSHIM (MARTYRS) EDITION, 1967, Mexico City


 

Albert Segalesko


 

Born on 19 December (A. S.) 1889 in Vaslui, Romania. Parents -- the actors Mordechai and Amalia Segalesko, who soon settled after his birth in Bucharest, where his father directed a theatre troupe partnership with Lazer Tsukerman in the Lazer's coffee house.

Being musically gifted, S., at age ten entered into a conservatory in Bucharest, and at the same time began to act in children's roles in the local Jignitza under the direction of his father (Director -- M. Lieblich and Itsikl Goldenberg), where he also performed in a chorus as an alto.

At the age of thirteen he became a conductor. 1906 -- he completed with a second prize, the conservatory in declamations and music, at the same time completing harmony and counterpoint with Professor Kostaldi, but not seeking his musical education, he was drawn more to the stage, and when Itsikl Goldenberg traveled to America in 1908, he began to act in roles for adolescents until 1913, acting in Bucharest and in the Romanian province and guest starred in Czernowitz (Director -- Akselrad), Vienna (Hotel Stefanie, Director -- M. Ziegler), and Budapest (Crystal Palace, Director -- Wertheimer).

1913 -- taken into the military and participated in the World War on the Romanian front against Bulgaria. Returning to Romania, he again began his theatre activity, together with Leopold and Sara Kaner et al.

1916 -- arrested due to the military environment, sat for six months in the Galata prison, and then was sent to the military front, where he was wounded, then again he was sent to the front, where he deserted and arrived in Iasi, where he entered into the national theatre as second opera conductor. Here he also wrote an oratory for a revue, which was performed there many times. Not seeing, however, certain? due to his desertion, and hearing about the February Revolution in Russia, he fled together with  his friend, the actor Adolf Segal, in 1917 to Odessa, where he was soon taken in as a member of a Yiddish troupe.

1919 -- entered into a local Jewish state theatre under the direction of Bartanov, then into the "Kometa" Theatre, and back to the Jewish state theatre. Later he migrated with Yiddish troupes across the Ukraine. 1925 -- celebrated in Odessa his twenty-fifth stage jubilee, then acted for a season in Leningrad, and again in the Ukraine, later in Romania.

According to Julian Schwartz, S. in 1940, when there was founded in Kishinev, under the leadership of Y. Shterenberg the "Moldava State Yiddish Theatre," he toured with a small Yiddish Estrada troupe, and he had from Tashkent gepuelt through Moscow that, due to his Moldavian origins, they should include the "Moldavian State Yiddish Theatre" with the members of the small troupe. When the Nazis were felled in Russia, S. together with the entire theatre were evacuated. In Tashkent he became ill from typhus, and passed away in either 1941 or 1942.

S. was a working actor of the Soviet Union. The title he had received in Uzbekistan. He used to act with success in the title role of Sholem Aleichem's "Tevye the Milkman."

According to Julian Schwartz, S. was a typical actor of the Goldfaden form. Early on he was more absorbed in Goldfaden, later in Gordin repertoire. He had especially excelled as "Shloimke Sharlatan"; he had a risky voice, really a question aryh, and from the operetta his desire for melodrama continued.

In 1918 S. participated in Odessa in the film "The Jews in Romania."

S.'s daughter, Rokhele Paskewitz, acts in the All Ukraine State Yiddish Theatre in Kharkov. His second wife is the actress Roza Brin, the former wife of Max Brin.

His brother Chaim Meir Segalesko (see "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre", Vol. II, pp. 1510-1511) was a Yiddish actor.


Sh. E. from Julian Schwartz.

  • "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre," Warsaw, 1934, Vol. II, p. 1509.

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 5, page 4379.
You can read Albert's initial Lexicon biography in its Vol. 2.
 

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