Maria Winetzkaja (''née'' Kleiner, ; born c. 1889
– May 22, 1956), also seen as Maria Winetskaja, was an American mezzo-soprano opera singer born in
Kishinev, in present-day
Moldova
Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of and population of 2.42 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. ...
.
Early life
Winetzkaja was born in
Kishinev, in the
Bessarabia Governorate
The Bessarabia Governorate was a province (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, with its administrative centre in Kishinev (Chișinău). It consisted of an area of and a population of 1,935,412 inhabitants. The Bessarabia Governorate bordered t ...
of
Imperial Russia
Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism.
Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to:
Places
United States
* Imperial, California
* Imperial, Missouri
* Imperial, Nebraska
* Imperial, Pennsylvania
* ...
, the daughter of Wolf Kleiner and Naomi Nemeroff Kleiner. She attended the Imperial Conservatory of Music at Kishinev on a scholarship as a girl, but interrupted her studies in March 1904
to move to the United States with her family. In 1913 she earned a degree at the Institute of Musical Arts in New York.
[Steven Winnett]
"Maria Winetzkaja"
Jewish Women's Archive.
Career
Winetzkaja was with the Boston National Grand Opera Company from 1917 to 1918. She toured South America and the Caribbean with the Bracale Opera Company from 1919 to 1921. She also performed with Philadelphia's Puccini Opera Company and New York's Grand Opera and Metropolitan Opera companies. She gave recitals at
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...
and
Aeolian Hall, sometimes including Russian and Ukrainian folk songs in her program. She also sang songs in Hebrew. In retirement, she taught voice, and was on the faculty at the
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became ...
.
Personal life
Winetzkaja and civil engineer Schai Winett never officially married, but they lived as a married couple from about 1909, and she used a feminine version of his original surname (Winetsky) as her own. They had two sons, Ralph (b. 1915) and George (b. 1923). "Is my husband musical? All I can answer is that he is my most severe critic," she told an interviewer in 1920. "He has always encouraged me to forge ahead in my own profession. I feel that all I have accomplished is due to him." She was widowed when Schai Winett died in 1941. She died in 1956, when she was about 68 years old, from cancer, at Misericordia Hospital in
The Bronx
The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...
.
''The Courier-Journal'' (May 23, 1956): 16. via Newspapers.com
Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. It is owned by The ...
References
External links
Maria Winetzkaja
at Jewish Women's Archive
The Jewish Women's Archive (JWA) is a national non-profit organization whose mission is to document "Jewish women's stories, elevate their voices, and inspire them to be agents of change."
JWA was founded by Gail Twersky Reimer in 1995 in Brook ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Winetzkaja, Maria
1880s births
1956 deaths
Musicians from Chișinău
Bessarabian Jews
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States
American opera singers
20th-century American singers