In the fall of 1899, he even held the official title of music director and composer of the Windsor Theatre. He sang in the Polish opera Halka and Halévy’s La Juive ( Zhidovka). He performed standard French and Italian operas like Carmen and Pagliacci as well as portions of Russian operas. He starred in many shund (“trash”) operettas, including new ones by Hurwitz, in addition to a play by Gordin. Medvedieff performed in an astonishing array of works in the Yiddish theatre context during his American visits between 18. In 1904, Hurwitz brought over an entire company of opera singers to stage popular French and Italian operas in Yiddish translation at the Windsor Theatre. Adler, and Moyshe Hurwitz were bringing to America from Europe, introducing new blood and excitement into the highly competitive Yiddish theatre to attract audiences. Medvedieff was also among a growing group of artists whom managers like Boris Thomashefsky, Jacob P. Although opera singers in the Yiddish theatre were the exception rather than the rule, their appearance in both environments underscores the interconnectedness of the two spheres. Medvedieff was just one of a number of musicians, including Melanie Guttman-Rice, Regina Prager, Bertha Kalish, and, somewhat later, Joseph Winogradoff, who appeared in both opera and the Yiddish theatre. One point of overlap was in shared performers. (Yiddish operettas, for example, were often referred to simply as “operas.”) This and other types of overlap between the worlds of Yiddish theatre and opera, however, have yet to be examined in detail, perhaps because the blend was so tight as not to be considered worthy of much attention. Historical and contemporary observers have noted – in both positive and negative ways – opera’s presence within the diverse mix of musical styles of the Yiddish theatre. The Yiddish theatre was in fact shot through with operatic elements. Poster for Medvedieff’s Yiddish theatre debut, including Dovids fidele and The Jewish King Lear,April 1898 This last form of crossover, Medvedieff’s foray into Yiddish theatre circles, is particularly interesting because it reveals the multifaceted intertwined nature of opera and the Yiddish theatre around the turn of the twentieth century. Medvedieff is therefore emblematic of several common forms of cultural crossover in the musical-dramatic sphere of the period: the transatlantic exchange of artists, as a European musician touring America linguistic crossover, as a singer who performed in multiple languages and theatre crossover, as an artist who appeared in both opera and more popular musical-theatrical genres. Medvedieff performed predominantly for the Yiddish-speaking Jewish public, appealing especially to Russians, many of whom knew of him when they were still in Russia. He arrived by way of the Yiddish theatre, starring in both Yiddish productions and European operas. Yet when Medvedieff came to New York in 1898, it was not through typical operatic channels. Mikhail Medvedieff, Photograph of the Imperial Theatre