Photographers
unknown

Sitter
Bertha Kalich, May 17, 1874 - April 18, 1939

Date
unknown

Type
Portrait

Medium
Photograph

Credit Line
Museum of the Yiddish Theatre

Testimony
"She made such a deep impression on me in the role of Sophia Fingerhut [in a production of Sappho"], that I could not forget it. The play was indeed one of Gordin’s best and most interesting, but who knows if it would have had the same importance and the artistic success if Kalich had not played the title role. The role is a daring one, a role that Kalich had not played before. In her character, Gordin had instilled an Ibsen-like streak. She was the free woman of the new era. … Bertha Kalich used to play the same role with such artistic insight and with so much elastic elegance, that the audience was enchanted. The innocently romantic moments with her second lover in the plot, the pianist with the musical name Apolon Zonenshayn, were performed by Kalich like the finest notes in a musical symphony. This was theatre as it was understood when one spoke of Sarah Bernhardt or Eleanora Duze. Such was the high standard of acting offered by Bertha Kalich."

Source of Testimony
William Edlin -- "Bertha Kalich" -- "A Glittering Star of the Yiddish and English Stage," Der tog, N.Y., April 20, 1939.