Nimidoff studied at the
Milan Conservatory. She came to Paris to finish her musical studies at the singing school of
Eugénie Vergin-
Colonne in 1899 then with
Désirée Artôt. She made her debut at the Paris Opera on March 10, 1900, as Stéfano in Gounod's
Roméo et Juliette where she sang the role of Hilda in
Sigurd in October 1905. She married psychiatrist Louis Bour and held a literary salon which was attended by
Louis Barthou, Prince
Pierre de Polignac and
Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Belgium, but also writers from the
interwar period:
François Mauriac,
Henry Bordeaux,
Anna de Noailles and
Léon-Paul Fargue,
Jean Cocteau,
Henri de Régnier,
Abel Bonnard, and also
Georges Henri Rivière,
Émile Borel. Vera Bour's salon was one of the most important from a medico-literary point of view. It is Léon-Paul Fargue who introduced
Paul Valéry in 1923; Louis Bour and his wife quickly became close friends of Valery but also sponsors. Valéry consulted Louis Bour on his health problems and Vera, often in the company of the poet's wife, was a regular auditor of Paul Valéry's lessons at the
Collège de France. Her sister Sonia Liédine Nimidoff was also a singer who performed in Paris. Her brother was killed at the age of 18 by the
Cossacks during the . == Model ==