Coupletist
Encyclopedia
A coupletist is a poet, singer, or actor who specializes in couplets - wittily ambiguous, political, or satirical songs, usually in cabaret settings, usually with refrains, generally used as a transition between two cabaret numbers.
With sarcasm and humor, coupletists take on political dignitaries, the prevailing zeitgeist and lifestyle, in short, "all of the world's madness." Friedrich Wolf called the couplet "the direct involvement of the audience in the game."
The Wiener Couplet is a little song found in the farces and comedies of Viennese popular theater. The couplet interrupts the action on stage, is directly addressed to the audience and has reflections on various subjects often unrelated to the plot. While the couplet is sung, "dramatic time" stands still. The actor leaves his role to act as the writer's accomplice, interacting directly with the audience. The actor uses a send-up of his personal problems to make general comments on social and political grievances or human character flaws.
In Yiddish theater, the kuplét was "the comedian's almost obligatory comic patter song." It duplicates vaudeville's intense rapport between performer and audience.
With sarcasm and humor, coupletists take on political dignitaries, the prevailing zeitgeist and lifestyle, in short, "all of the world's madness." Friedrich Wolf called the couplet "the direct involvement of the audience in the game."
"In the cinemas, besides films there would also appear the touring so-called kupletists (singers of topical, satirical songs) - Vasily Pravdin, Gregory Marmeladov and others. Kolya and I enjoyed the kupletists very much and, buying their librettos, zealously studied their soliloquies in order to recite them with feeling to our ladies. ... It was supper time and all of us children sat at the table, mama pouring tea from the samovar boiling on the table. ... I, holding in my hand the libretto of a kupletist, was reciting one of his soliliquies at the top of my voice. Unable to stand my noise, mama entreated me to quiet down and when this did not help, she tore the libretto from my hands and stuck it into the pipe of the samovar, where the fire consumed it.
The Wiener Couplet is a little song found in the farces and comedies of Viennese popular theater. The couplet interrupts the action on stage, is directly addressed to the audience and has reflections on various subjects often unrelated to the plot. While the couplet is sung, "dramatic time" stands still. The actor leaves his role to act as the writer's accomplice, interacting directly with the audience. The actor uses a send-up of his personal problems to make general comments on social and political grievances or human character flaws.
Michael Tilson ThomasMichael Tilson ThomasMichael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony Orchestra.-Early years:...
was "... amused by the sheer amount of improvised satirical and topical couplets [created by his grandparents Boris and Bessie Thomashevsky] ... the modernity of the Thomashefsky improvisations a century ago in the Yiddish theater was remarkably reminiscent of those on Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
."
In Yiddish theater, the kuplét was "the comedian's almost obligatory comic patter song." It duplicates vaudeville's intense rapport between performer and audience.
"For a contemporary example, one verse of the naughty kuplét of Money, Love and Shame, sung by a clever comedian in Tel Aviv in 1975, makes fun of Brezhnev, to the delight of an audience of recent immigrants from Russia ... Jacob Jacobs [leans] over to the audience, in the course of a kuplét, to commiserate with someone in the first row on his Galician accent - always good for a laugh. Another of his perennial reoutines is to sing a verse about a man who is cuckolded or impotent, peer out into the audience, and ask someone why his wife is laughing so hard.
Some artists who identified themselves as kupletists:
- Dzhib, whose real name was Iakob Goldshtain
- Pesach BursteinPesach BursteinPesach "Peishachke" Burstein , born in Warsaw, was an Israeli-American comedian, singer, coupletist, and director of Yiddish vaudeville/theater. His wife Lillian Lux, and son Mike Burstyn are also actors.-Early years:...
(1896 - 1986) - Ben-Zion WitlerBen-Zion WitlerBen-Zion Witler , 1907–1961, Jewish singer, actor, coupletist, comedian and composer.At the age of six Witler moved with his family from Belz to Vienna, where he received a strict Chasidic religious upbringing; fearing his family's reaction, in 1919 he secretly joined the "Free Jewish Folksbiene"...
(1907-1961) - Boris Thomashevsky
- Shloyme PrizamentShloyme PrizamentShloyme Prizament , Jewish composer, actor in the Yiddish theater, and badkhn, son of Moyshe Prizament ."-Early years:...
- Leo FuchsLeo FuchsLeo Fuchs was a Polish-born Jewish American actor. According to YIVO, born Avrum Leib Fuchs in Warsaw; according to Schechter, born in Lemberg, Galicia, then Poland, now Lviv, Ukraine)....
- Jacob Jacobs (1890-1977)
- Otto ReutterOtto ReutterOtto Reutter was a German comedian, coupletist, and singer....
(1870-1931) - Jack Rechtzeit (1903-1988)
- Nellie CasmanNellie CasmanNellie Casman was an actress and singer in Yiddish theater. Some sources say she was born in Proskurov, Russia, and moved to the United States in the early 1900s; Zylbercweig says she was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Her father was a hazzen...
(1896-1984) (one of the few female coupletists) - Gregory Krasavin (debuted the 1926 Russian lyrics to the song Bublichki written for him by Yakov Yadov)
- Argo (Abraham Markovich Goldenberg, 1897-1968) wrote for music halls and the circus
- Aduev (N. A. Rozenberg, 1895-1950)
- Vitaly Efimovich Lazarenko, 1890-1939, joined M. I. Kotlikov’s circus in 1898, creating the character of a philosophizing tramp. "Lazarenko was concerned with topical social and political issues (his monologues became famous)... He called himself a folk jester."
- Vladimir Koralli
- Maria Conesa (1892-1978)
- Constantin TănaseConstantin TanaseConstantin Tănase was a Romanian actor and writer for stage, a key figure in the revue style of theater in Romania.-Life:Born into a working-class family living in a peasant house in Vaslui, Romania...
(1880-1945)