G. was born in Yekaterinoslav, Ukraine. Her father was a cantor. She learned in the Marinsker gymnasium, and as a child she made a great impression with her beautiful voice. The Russian opera singer Kitain learned she [umzist] music, and got her the opportunity to perform in serious music in his student concerts. At the age of fifteen G. went into the Ukrainian opera theatre of Saksagansky and Kropivnitsky and soon became popular as a prima donna under the name of Maria Gurenko, also performing in "Shulamit". Several years later, when Spivakovski's Yiddish troupe and Krause performed in Yekaterinoslav, she moved the conductor Sandler to [have her] perform in Yiddish theatre, where she acted in "Shabbat kodesh". After acting for several years in operettas, she went over to the Warsaw United Troupe, where she performed in January 1910 as "Ranya di patshtarka" in Gordin's "Di shbueh", which then was acted for the first time in Europe, under the direction of I. L. Peretz. After a tour across Russia in dramas and operetta repertoire, G. acted for three months in Constantinople, then in Rumania, and in 1912 she traveled to America, where she aced for one season, and she became engaged by Esther Ruchel Kaminska for Warsaw. There she became through the guest-starring  Malvina Lobel engaged back to New York. In America G. had he opportunity to act with Adler, Moshkovitsh and Schwartz, and she went on tour with Kessler across America with the plays "Style" and "Gekkoyft un batsolt".

After her marriage to sculptor Boris Bley, G. acted only from time to time.
 

Sh. E.

M. E. from Shlomo Krause and H. Feinstein.

Noah Prllutski -- "Yidish teater", Bialystok, 1921, I, p. 139.