Yureneva V.L. (1876-1962), actress

Categories / Art/Music, Theatre/Personalia
YURENEVA Vera Leonidovna (1876-1962), actress, Honoured Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1935. She came to St. Petersburg in the 1890s, to complete the Drama Courses of the Theatre College in 1902. She worked at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in 1902/03, 1922-24, and 1936-39 renamed as Academic Drama Theatre in 1920. She was an actress at K. N. Nezlobin's Theatre in 1911-14 and 1916-18, which had stages in Moscow and St. Petersburg. She became renowned performing parts in contemporary plays mostly by symbolists S. Pshibyshevsky, Y. Zhulavsky, and L. N. Andreev such as Bronka in Snow first played in 1904 and in St. Petersburg from 1911, Psyche in Eros and Psyche in 1912, and Ekaterina Ivanovna in the play of the same name in 1917. Among other famous roles played at Nezlobin's Theatre were Margaret in J. W. Goethe's Faust, Elena Nikolaevna in M. P. Artsybashev's Jealousy in 1913, and Rautendelein in G. Hauptmann's Sunken Bell in 1917. Yureneva's performance was mainly devoted to love emotions. Womanly, attractive, inconsistent and mysterious, her characters were imitated by many contemporaries. Her performance was characterised by modernist affectation, incomplete intonations, impulsive emotions, and perfect acting technique that made up her own acting style. Among her favourite roles was Larisa in A. N. Ostrovsky's The Dowerless Bride. She performed many parts in plays by H. Ibsen, K. Hamsun, and A. Strindberg. As an actress of the Academic Drama Theatre, she also played Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and Katerina in Ostrovsky's Storm in 1923. She appeared on stage in the country in 1903-11, at Sukhodolskys' Moscow Drama Theatre in 1915, in Kiev in 1918-19, at the former F. A. Korsch's theatre in Moscow in 1919-20, and at the Second Moscow Art Theatre in 1930-36. She was an elocutionist in 1939-47 and an actress at the Literature and Drama Theatre of the All-Russian Theatrical Society in 1947-55. She appeared in films in 1913-17. Among her film roles were Vera in Precipice in 1913, Anna Betskaya in Woman of Tomorrow in 1914-15, and Ira in Queen of the Screen in 1916. She wrote a number of books and articles including memoirs, Actress' Notes, published in Moscow and Leningrad in 1946.

Reference: Дейч А. И. Голос памяти: Театр. впечатления и встречи. М., 1966. С. 40-50.

A. A. Kirillov. Andreev Leonid Nikolaevich
Artsybashev Mikhail Petrovich
Goethe Johann Wolfgang
Hamsun (real name Pedersen) Knut
Hauptmann Gerhard
Ibsen Henrik
Korsch Fedor Adamovich
Nezlobin Konstantin Nikolaevich
Ostrovsky Alexander Nikolaevich
Pshibyshevsky Stanislav
Shakespeare William
Strindberg Johan August
the Sukhodolskys
Yureneva Vera Leonidovna
Zhulavsky Juliusz
Дейч А. И. Голос памяти: Театр. впечатления и встречи. М., 1966 Theatre College
Alexandrinsky Theatre