Maria Winetzkaja

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.

Early life Winetzkaja was born in Kishinev, in the Bessarabia Governorate of Imperial Russia, 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

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 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. 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.