Real name: Мария Николаевна Кузнецова ( Maria Nikolaevna Kuznetsova)

Maria Kuznetsova-Benoit (22 {O.S. 10} July 1880, Odesa, Khersonskaya Province, Russian Empire — 25 April 1966, Paris, France) was a Russian opera soprano singer and dancer, daughter of painter Nikolai Kuznetsov (1850—1929). Between 1905 and 1917, Kuznetsova served as the Mariinsky Theatre soloist, widely renowned as one of the leading singers in Imperial Russia. She often sang with Feodor Chaliapin and worked with prominent composers like Richard Strauss and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. After the 1917 revolutions, Maria immigrated to France, performing with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and later co-founding L'Opéra Russe а̀ Paris company. She was married to painter Albert Albertovich Benois (1879—1930), the nephew of Alexandre Nikolaïevitch Benois, and industrialist Alfred Massenet (1872—1942), the composer Jules Massenet's nephew. Name variations: Maria Kuznetsova-Benois, Марія Миколаївна Кузнєцова.

She came from an affluent and respected family, the daughter of notable portraitist N.D. Kuznetsov, descending from Metchnikoff-Nevakhovich, a Romanian-Jewish dynasty of scientists and intellectuals, on the mother side. In 1904, Kuznetsova debuted at St. Petersburg Conservatory in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin; the following year, she joined the Mariinsky Theatre. Maria began touring abroad in 1908, debuting at Opéra National de Paris and London's Royal Opera House. At the First World War dawn, Maria Kuznetsova-Benoit helped to finance and participated in Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes extended seasons in London and Paris. She toured the United States in 1916, appearing in Chicago and New York, where she caused a sensation with the Manhattan Opera Company in the first American production of Jules Massenet's Cléopâtre.

After the 1917 Revolution, Mariya Kuznetsova-Benois fled Russia and settled in Paris, France. She co-founded a new opera company in 1927, Opéra Privé de Paris, with the help of the Ukrainian baritone Mikhail Karakash and his wife, Russian soprano Elizaveta Popova, and the financial backing of her future husband, president of the French mining company Société d'Industrie Minière de Chagali-Heliar and millionaire, Alfred Massenet. Two years later, Georgian Prince and Akaki Tsereteli's son, Alexey Tsereteli (1864—1942), joined Maria as a partner. He was a distinguished opera impresario who organized the first Feodor Chaliapin concerts in the USA and led a successful Spanish ballet opera company for several years. Tsereteli oversaw the adoption of the "Opéra Russe" name, capitalizing on the russophiliac trend in France instigated by Serge Diaghilev's groundbreaking "Les Saisons Russes." He also partnered with ballet impresario Colonel Wassily de Basil (1888—1951) and his troupe, sharing resources and organizing joint tours for both companies. By late 1930, Tsereteli and Colonel Basil allied against Kuznetsova, taking over L'Opéra Russe а̀ Paris and forcing Maria, the founder, out. (After Col. Basil left with Bronislava Nijinska's ballet troupe to establish his Ballet Russe De Monte Carlo in 1932, Tsereteli himself fell victim to a similar "hostile takeover," pushed out of the Opéra Russe by its prima Feodor Chaliapin (1873—1938) and his manager, Michel Kachouk (1877—1952), who jointly directed the company until 1940.)