Zbrueva was born in Moscow, the daughter of composer Pyotr Bulakhov.

(Her surname came from her mother's first husband, because her parents were not legally married.)

[1] Zbrueva was a contralto in the Moscow Imperial Opera at the Bolshoi Theatre from 1894, and with the Mariinsky Theatre from 1905 until 1918, including appearances in Paris[2] and Munich.

[4] Zbrueva's repertoire included roles in Glinka's A Life for the Tsar (1894), Saint-Saëns' Henry VIII, Rimsky-Korsakov's The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya (1907) and The Snow Maiden (1894),[5] Tchaikovsky's Cherevichki,[6] Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina,[7] Ruslan and Lyudmila,[3] Prince Igor, and Carmen.

Volume III (1992, Pearl Records),[9] Great singers at the Mariinsky Theatre (1994, Nimbus Records),[10] Great Singers in Moscow (1996, Nimbus Records),[11] and Rimsky-Korsakov performed by his contemporaries (1999, Russian Disc).