The tenor Sergey Lemeshev (1902–1977) was one of the biggest Soviet music stars of the period. He studied initially at the St Petersburg Military Academy and later at the Moscow Conservatory, also studying acting with Stanislavsky. During the 1920s he sang in the provinces before joining the Bolshoy Theatre Chorus in 1931, where he remained until 1961 as one of the house’s triumvirate of great tenors, the others being Nelepp and Koslovzky. An enormously popular figure, he recorded extensively and appeared in several films.