Before the revolution, she was carried in her arms in Odessa, before the war she was furiously applauded by Italy, France, Hermaia, the United States..... Fate and songs of Izya Kremer. The Fate and Songs of Isa Kremer

  In the photo: Isa

Bessarabian singer Isa Kremer had at one time a fantastic success and an equally fantastic fate.

Before the revolution, she was carried in her arms in Odessa, before the war she was furiously applauded by Italy, France, Hermaia, and the United States.

During the war, she gave all her money to the fund for the fight against fascism.

And if someone in Chisinau needs to put a monument - so it is Isa Kremer.

But why don't we know anything about an artist whose creative path was a continuous triumph?

Churchill's Choice

In late November - early December 1943, a meeting of the heads of government of the anti-Hitler coalition - the USSR, the United States and Great Britain - was held in Tehran.

Winston Churchill's birthday was celebrated for him. For him sang Isa Kremer, Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier and Vadim Kozin - performers who had millions of fans.

Kozin later recalled Isa Kremer's performance:

"She performed there in a strict black dress trimmed with white fur, and sang a song about Russia.

And it was necessary to hear how much mystery, enduring bitterness sounded in her words:

"No way, no trace on the plains, / On the plains of boundless snows ... / Not to get to the birthable shrines, / Not to hear native voices ...".

So Isa Kremer mourned the world in which she lived and for which she sang.

In our cultural space, two songs remained from it - the famous "Main Steitele Balti" and "The Last Tango", which is sung in the novel "The Golden Calf" by Ostap Bender.

"Muse of Corn"

She was born on October 8 (Old Style) 1882 to Jankel Kramer.

It is often written that the family was poor, but this is not so.

The name of Isa's father appeared in the address-calendar of the Russian Empire "All Russia" as a member of the partnership of the St. Petersburg manufactory of the city of Balti.

Isa received a good education, at the age of 20 she was fluent in Italian, French, German and Yiddish, later English and Spanish were added.

Hinting at the Bessarabian origin of Isa, Korney Chukovsky later jokingly wrote:

"O Isa, the muse of corn, / The muses are so favorable to you./ You are both a singer and a dance, / And a dragonfly jumper, / And I am without songs and without the sun / In the swamps of a dark chukhonets, / I only cry, remembering / Your cheerful eyes"...

The life of many Bessarabians in the first half of the twentieth century was tragic.

But Isa Kremer lived her life safely, although her youth fell on the terrible years of the revolution of 1917 and the civil war. Everything bad from the singer somehow bounced off - there were only fame, success, universal love.

Having become an Odessa celebrity, Isa Kremer (coming on stage, she omitted one letter in her name) said in an interview that her life flowed without events:

"I did not steal diamonds, estimated at a fabulous amount, because of me resolutely no one shot and did not swallow me a whale during sea voyages. I don't even write a memoir, that's what a humble artist I am... My sweet, gentle songs unexpectedly made me popular. God sees, I didn't look for her. But once she came, I rejoice in her."

Heifetz, Ronzi, Anselmi

The most detailed biography of the singer is described from 1912 to 1919 in the book by Elena Sarieva "The Fate and Songs of Iza Kremer". The fate of the Belchanka was decided by her poems, which Isa sent to Odessa newspapers in her youth. The publisher Israel Heifetz became interested in her and invited her to Odessa. Subsequently, he became Ira's husband and played a huge role in her career, creating a powerful publicity for her. Between them there was a difference of 30 years.

The second person who decided the fate of Isa was 72-year-old Luigi Ronzi. A famous Italian teacher in Odessa gave vocal lessons, and the data of the young singer struck him. In 1909-1910, Isa learned to sing from Ronzi in Italy. The talented debutante performs as Mimi in Puccini's La Bohém in Milan's La Scala and at the Fenice Theater in Venice. Critics note a beautiful voice, excellent school, rare vocal and stage technique. Instead of the five performances to which Kremer was invited, she had to sing 19

Isa returned to Odessa around the beginning of 1911. And then she was lucky for the third time: the famous Italian tenor Giuseppe Anselmi came to the city for only two weeks. He insisted that the role of Mimi in the opera La Bohéme be sung almost without rehearsals by an unknown debutante who was not even listed in the troupe of the Opera House. So, february 21, 1912, Isa made her debut in her homeland, where she was not known as an artist, but remembered as a poetess.

"Scandal" - so called the article about this event "Voice of Odessa".

Odessa went to Anselmi - but he scandalized, next to the debutante was an ordinary artist. Kremer made a splash. "An artist of enormous caliber," hefetza wrote. - Her success yesterday bordered on success that fell only to the share of world celebrities ... For her, the further path will be a continuous triumph."

Of course, the lover Heifetz could not be objective. But his prediction came true. Anselmi left in deep resentment, and Kremer began to sing at the Odessa Opera. The theater occupied the most luxurious and roomy building in the city and was considered one of the best in Russia.

Изик, которая хохочет даже во сн

Одесские критики пишут об Изе как о блестящей  каскадной артистке, одинаково талантливой и в оперных ролях, и в оперетте. Вскоре Кремер переключилась на прославившие ее лирические и юмористические песни: неаполитанские, уличные песенки Монмартра. Она была и автором, и исполнителем, и режиссером, пела, писала стихи и пьесы, переводила с нескольких языков…

Очень скоро певица узнала, что такое настоящий успех. Зрители дарили ей цветы, ее выступления сопровождали бури аплодисментов. Венгерскую песенку с танцами «Ха-ца-ца» пела вся Одесса, появились конфеты с портретом Кремер. В начале 1913 года в город приехал сын знаменитого балетмейстера Виктор Петипа и включил в свой репертуар ее пьесу «Он и Она»… 

Вот портрет Изы Кремер этого периода на страницах «Одесского обозрения театров»: «Близкие называют ее просто «Изик». Лицом и фигурой — типичный итальянский piccolo. Характером напоминает его еще больше. Весела, подвижна, жизнерадостна. Хохочет круглый год. Даже во сне. Обладает прелестным голосом, но сама не знает каким: сопрано или контральто. Впрочем, предпочитает не петь, а напевать. 

Еще лучше - разговаривать. И, кажется, скоро сбежит с оперной сцены в оперетку

 Призваний у нее множество. Певица. Поэтесса. Драматург. Но предпочитает всему - бильярд. 

Works with a with delight, artistic, inspired. And the phrase:

"On the 14th doublet - in the middle!" - she sounds unusually poetic. She loves to mystify her friends.

Has all the feminine flaws.

Including - a passion for outfits. One of her most pleasant pastimes is trying on a dressmaker's dress. Very popular in Odessa. A kind of attraction of South Palmyra

In this respect, he can safely compete with Seryozha Utochkin. He has many fans.

But not a single fan. Loved only by the unyielding half of the human race.

Which, however, she is modestly content with."

Sergei Utochkin, one of the first Russian pilots, was extremely popular in Odessa. So it was a strong compliment. And women really hated Iz Kremer.

And even Taffy inserted a couple of studs into her memories.

Madame Lulu and others

Isa Kremer wasn't just a singer, she was a singing actress. She didn't wring her hands, she didn't press them frantically to her chest, she didn't rush around the stage, she didn't roll her eyes.

Her performing style was very good tasted, was restrained, but Isa was really worried.

In the role of Pericola, she once burst into tears so much that she was given a ovation.

The audience rushed to all subsequent performances to see the tears of the actress, but... on order Isa did not cry

Intimate songs of the singer were gaining popularity.

"It would be in the music of "capriccio", / In sculpture - a statuette of "Renaissance". / There is some way out of it from everyone else, / Madame Lulu boulevard de France"...

Thus begins the most famous song that the audience demanded at all concerts. The words today seem vulgar, but you will find such images and plots in most Russian poets of that time. The plot usually unfolded in a distant southern country or in the Bois de Boulogne, in New York apartments or in the studio of Parisian fashions. Manon, Mimi, Nana in the aroma of mysterious perfumes "Kelkefler", next to millionaires, poor but proud poets, chocolate-purple negroes. All this intrigued both Vertinsky and Kremer. The audience was going crazy. Vadim Kozin said: in 1917, Iza performed in Petrograd, and he went to each of her concerts to memorize the fashionable "Negro from Zanzibar".

"Vertinsky! Isa! Northerner! Idols are new to us"

In 1916, Igor Severyanin presented Isa Kremer with a poem "Blue Letter" with a dedication.

The music was written at the request of the singer by a young Oscar Strok

"She sent me a letter blue, / Letter blue sent by her. / And the jasmines are wheaking, and the oboes are rooing, / And the oboes are rooing, and the moon is pouring. / What is she writing about? What's in your heart? / What in my heart sways tired mine? / To himself calls! And he doesn't write anymore. / And she doesn't write about anything else... / But I won't go tomorrow or Wednesday, / I won't send an answer tomorrow or Wednesday. I will not answer her, I will not go to her, / She is late: I love another!".

Elena Sarieva considers the intimate songs of the Odessa woman to be the prototype of the modern author's song. They have become a sign of the era. Popular performer of Russian and Gypsy romances Maria Kariyskaya wrote: "Everything that is mysterious is unclear, / But harmoniously it sounds like this, Always seems beautiful to us / And we are "painfully" attracted. / Vertinsky! Isa! Northerner! Idols are new to us. / Their language is pretentiously vague, / Leads the audience into ecstasy. / Cocaine image gentle. / Creoles - Negroes, - parrot Jame - / All this, right, is inevitable / In the XX century - it is in Moscow. "

How Isa Forgave Her Accompanist

The singer's tour in Moscow, Petrograd and other cities of Russia was a frenzied success. 1916 was a year of triumph for her. We know nothing about the personal life of Isa Kremer. But such an episode speaks about the relationship with the environment and the lightness of her character.

Accompanist G. Simtsis, who for each exit received from the artist 75 rubles, at the final concert in Petrograd right before the performance demanded 1000 rubles, otherwise refused to sit down at the piano. To disrupt the concert? The singer offered the maestro a check. Simtsis pecked and after the performance rushed to Moscow for his thousand. But in the bank he was presented with a telegram prohibiting him to pay the check, and the new accompanist was already called from Odessa by telegraph

With tears in his eyes, Simcis begged to be forgiven... and Isa forgave. However, the musician in the first concert in the theater did not appear and on the phone said that he wanted to get already 1200 rubles in cash. The audience was making noise, demanding money back... Shocked Isa conceded

You'll be surprised – but she forgave Simtsis again.

The Last Tango

How did Isa Kremer meet the revolution of 1917? In Odessa, she sang under the Reds, the Whites, the Austro-Germans, and the Anglo-French. Maybe she didn't care, maybe she didn't.

In the summer of 1918, a whole constellation of artists and singers who fled from the capitals performed in Odessa, Tolstoy, Bunin, Taffy, Averchenko read their works. Refugees were flowing. But the feeling of impending catastrophe did not seem to disturb Kremer's soul at all. In the mornings, she drinks coffee in bed, is engaged in translations, she has a new hobby - cinema. Russia's first cinema factory "A.O. Drankov and Co." opens a studio in Kiev, a grandiose picture with the participation of Ica Kremer is planned - a dramatization of the song "Black Tom". The fate of the film is unknown

In 1918, on tour in Kiev, Isa Kremer sings her "Last Tango":

"In distant sultry Argentina, / Where the sky is southern so blue, / There are women, as in the picture, / There Joe fell in love with Clo... / The evening light was slightly lit, / She danced with him in the tavern / For drunken and rampant mobs / Teasing tango..."

And here is the end: "Joe with a devilish smile / Plunges a dagger into Clo..."

Applause... Isa is happy and does not realize at all that her earthly judol will end in the "distant sultry Argentina", about which she sang with such passion.

In 1919, the Soviet government outlawed all artists in the territory occupied by the White Army. There is no choice. In early 1920, Isa Kremer and Israel Heifetz leave for Constantinople. Even then they decide to divorce.

In Europe

Singer Yuri Morfessi in the book "Life. Love. Scene", recalling his stay in Turkey, tells how a rich Turk, having left for Europe, left him a three-story mansion in which emigrants arranged a theater and a club: "I was the main director, and my main employee was Isa Kremer"

Further information about the singer is fragmentary. The Russian diaspora scattered across Europe. Unlike Morphessi, Vertinsky, Leshchenko, Isa Kremer did not stay there. She leaves for the United States. She calls Hefetz with her, but he refuses. He will die in France in the Jewish ghetto during the occupation.

In America

Since the mid-20s, the singer has been performing in Broadway theaters and cabaret. At the company "Brunswick" for the first time recorded her records - only 22 records. But this is not the same Isa Kremer, who was idolized in Odessa. Cheerful songs are no longer needed, the romances "Black Eyes", "Two Guitars", "Yamshchik" are in demand... Kremer tours in Germany, Belgium, Italy, England. In 1930, he recorded eight songs in London, including "Madame Lulu" and "Black Tom". Her concerts were organized by a major American impresario Sol Yurok - he showed America Anna Pavlova and Fyodor Chaliapin, Arthur Rubinstein and Yasha Heifetz. So Isa Kremer gained worldwide fame.

She married an Argentine doctor and settled in Rio de Janeiro. During World War II, the government secretly supported the Nazis – but Kremer gave concerts, the collection of which went to the benefit of the Allies. Her husband lost his job because of this. The last big concert of Isa Kremer took place on April 25, 1947 in the hall "Times Hall" in New York, where she regularly visited from Rio de Janeiro.

After the war, Isa Yakovlevna joined the Argentine-Soviet friendship society – she desperately dreamed of visiting her homeland. But in 1956, the 73-year-old singer was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer. A few days before leaving, on July 7, 1956, Isa Kremer died in the Argentine city of Córdoba.

The last trace of the Balti singer Elena Sarieva found in the travel South American essays of the Soviet journalist A. Sofronov "Water from the River Sivi-sivi": "Until three o'clock in the morning we sat at a table in the hospital of 70-year-old Dr. Berman, a great friend of ours. In the center of the room, above the fireplace, hung a portrait of a woman - the recently deceased wife of Berman, the famous singer Isa Kremer ..."

And that's all for now...

Iza Kremer contemporaries considered her one of the most colorful figures of the pre-revolutionary era. But today we know almost nothing about her. From the singer there was a hymn of the city of Balti - the song "Main steitele Baltz" in Yiddish, which was written especially for her by the poet Jacobs and composer Alexander Olshanetsky. Kremer first performed this song in the operetta "Song from the Ghetto", staged in New York in 1932.

In the USSR, long-playing discs of almost all the luminaries of the pre-revolutionary stage were released - Anastasia Vyaltseva, Yuri Morfessi, Alexander Vertinsky. In the 80s, only two songs by Iza Kremer were released on the record with the hits of Alla Bayanova. But Bayanova never in her life had either such success or such fees. But the discs sung by the artist in the United States, in the Union were unattainable, the copyright issue was also unclear.