Shloyme Prizament (1889–1973) (also Shlomo or Szlojme Prizament or Szlomo Prizment), Jewish composer, actor in the Yiddish theater, and ''

badkhn A ''badchen'' or ''badkhn'' (, pronounced and sometimes written batkhn) is a type of Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazic Jewish professional wedding entertainer, poet, sacred clown, and master of ceremonies originating in Eastern Europe, with a history da ...

'', son of Moyshe Prizament (a famous badkhn known as Moyshe Hibiner / Hibnever).

Early years

Born in

Uhniv Uhniv ( ) is a city in Sheptytskyi Raion, Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine. It has a population of 939 as of 2022. Uhniv is the smallest city of Ukraine. It is located from Belz and from Rava-Ruska. It is located next to the Poland–Ukraine ...

, Galicia, Austria-Hungary, Prizament moved to Lemberg (

Lviv Lviv ( or ; ; ; see #Names and symbols, below for other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine, as well as the List of cities in Ukraine, fifth-largest city in Ukraine, with a population of It serves as the administrative centre of ...

) as a child. When he was 16 his father died and he then supported the other 12 children in the family by becoming a badkhn himself, using his father's writings (scripts). Prizament wrote for Gershom Bader's ''Der yidisher folks-kalendar'' and began writing songs and instrumental music for

Yiddish theatre Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satire, satiric or nostalgic revues; melodr ...

. He is known as a transitional figure since he also wrote for the last of the broder-zingers - Salcia Weinberg, Jule Glantz, Helena Geshpas and Pepi Litman (1874–1930), characterized as "a Jewish chanteuse in Hasidic trousers", for whom he wrote ''Lomir beyde davenen fun eyn makhzer (Let’s Both Pray from One Prayer Book)''. He later collected and arranged songs from other surviving Broder Singers. ''Bin ikh mir a klezmerl (I’m a Little Musician)'' was also written in that genre.

Later career

Prizament also acted, directed, and wrote plays and song, both music and lyrics. He began directing for Ber Hart's traveling troupe.Zalmen Zylbercweig, ''Leksikon fun Yidishn teater'', Book three, 1873-1875 Two of his famous operettas are ''(The Flower Queen)'' and ''(The Gypsy Girl).''Fater, Isaschar (1970).
Yidishe muzik in Poyln tsvishn beyde velt-milkhomes
' (Jewish Music in Poland between the Two World Wars), pp. 340-342. He wrote music for operettas, his first being

Joseph Lateiner Joseph Lateiner (December 25, 1853 – February 23, 1935, birth surname: Finkelshteyn) was a playwright in the early years of Yiddish theater, first in Bucharest, Romania and later in New York City, where he was a co-founder in 1903 with Sophia K ...

's ''Khosn-Kale (Groom and Bride)'', a show which played in Kraków with Yidl Gutman and in New York with

couplets In poetry, a couplet ( ) or distich ( ) is a pair of successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there ...

Sigmund Mogulesko Sigmund Mogulesko (16 December 1858 – 4 February 1914) — Yiddish: זעליק מאָגולעסקאָ ''Zelik Mogulesko'', first name also sometimes spelled as Zigmund, Siegmund, Zelig, or Selig, last name sometimes spelled Mogulescu & ...

and music by Louis Friedsell. His first acting role was in

Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin Jacob Michailovitch Gordin (Yiddish: יעקב מיכאַילאָװיטש גאָרדין; May 1, 1853 – June 11, 1909) was a Russian-United States, American playwright active in the early years of Yiddish theater. He is known for introducing Re ...

's ''Yiddish King Lear'' and he stuck with acting, spending less time directing orchestras. In 1910 he was made director of the Ukrainska Besida Theater but soon left again to travel Galicia with wandering theater troupes, thence to Argentina where he wrote in ''Yidisher Soykher (Jewish Merchant)'' In 1912 he played as a comic and directed under Meltzer in Romania and worked with Zigmund Faynman in Gordin's repertory company. During the Romanian Bulgarian war foreigners were expelled from Romania; Prizament went back to Galicia and traveled with the Glimer troupe and his brother, Jacob Prizament, until the outbreak of the first World War. He was a soldier on the Italian and Russian fronts and arrived in Vienna in 1918 where he opened a Yiddish theater called "Bemishn Hof" - but after losing a permit to play he moved on to Budapest and joined the troupe "Shtramer, Rabinovitsh, Vayts, Sheyn" and played until

Miklós Horthy Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya (18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957) was a Hungarian admiral and statesman who was the Regent of Hungary, regent of the Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946), Kingdom of Hungary Hungary between the World Wars, during the ...

's regime forbade Yiddish theater. He went back to Vienna and opened a Miniature-Theater and composed, with Avish Meysels, a version of the

Golem of Prague A golem ( ; ) is an animated Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is created entirely from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century ...

. In 1923 he began touring

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, working in the HaOr troupe. He met and married Gizi Hajdn, a singer and relative of violinist Oscar Zehngut, and worked in Galicia.http://www.zchor.org/bialystok/yizkor3.htm#theater Bialystok yizkor remembrance In 1925 he starred in Warsaw's Kaminski Theater for a season, at the same time writing music and lyrics for the operetta ''Di Galitsianer Mume'' and for Moyshe Rikhter's ''Di tsvey shvigers''. He worked at the ''

Sambatiyon Sambatiyon, a ''kleynkunst'' company founded in Vilnius, Vilna, Poland in June 1926, was called by its founders a "Jewish literary-artistic revue theater." Sambatiyon's founder, Yitshkhok Nozhik, wrote: "Clumsy American produced operettas, which a ...

'' revi-teater in 1927, writing music for several shows. In 1928 he worked in the ''Azazel-Sambatiyon'' ensemble as music director, and then worked in Romania, where he played in theaters and kleynkunst productions, then going back to Vienna and then Poland. He was Yitskhok Nozhik's closest collaborator. Some of the songs he wrote for these revues are often now presumed to be folk songs, e.g. (Rent Money), "(The Rabbi calls us to be merry)" and "(The Wheel Turns)". He wrote a piece called ''In Hitler-Land'' in 1933; it played in Warsaw's Kaminski Theater. In 1938 he played in Lemberg's summer theater's production of ''Shray, Israel (Cry out, Israel)'' and worked with VYKT for which he wrote a musical score to

Abraham Goldfaden Abraham Goldfaden (; born Avrum Goldnfoden; 24 July 1840 – 9 January 1908), also known as Avram Goldfaden, was a Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in Yiddish and Hebrew languages and author of some 40 plays. Goldfad ...

's ''Shulamis'' in Zygmunt Turkow's production, and to Israel Ashendorf's ''Broder Zinger''. Some of his other works were ''Lemberg far der milkhome (Lemberg before the war)'', ''A moyd fun provints (A Girl from the Sticks)'' and many works translated from other languages. Prizament also wrote a few hundred songs and

. He survived the second World War by escaping to the Soviet Union. After 1949 he lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Prizament, Shloyme Jewish cabaret performers Yiddish theatre Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) Polish cabaret performers Badchens Broder singers Argentine people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent People from the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria Ukrainian Jews Jews from Austria-Hungary 1889 births 1973 deaths 20th-century Polish comedians Yiddish-language singers of Austria

Early years

Later career

See also

References