Billy's Aria from "Trilby" was recorded by Sergei Lemeshev in 1928, while
he was singing with the Opera of Harbin, Manchuria. It is one of a number
of records made by the soloists and chorus of the Harbin company over a
period of two weeks in May of that year. The records were made for the
Victor Company by their travelling engineers, and capture Lemeshev at the
beginning of his career, before he became a leading artist at the Bolshoi.
The opera was composed by A. I. Yurasovsky. In his autobiography Lemeshev
refers to "Trilby" as an "opera-melodrama" which had great popularity in
the '20s. He says the composer died when he was quite young. Apparently
Lemeshev sang in this opera in both Harbin and Tiflis. In Tiflis his
partners were Glafira Zhukovskaya as Trilby and Alexander Pirogov as
Svengali. Lemeshev particularly admired Pirogov's characterization of
Svengali.
