In 1888, Anton Rubinstein awarded him a scholarship to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory where he was assigned to the class of the distinguished teacher Stanislav Ivanovich Gabel (1849–1924).
According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera at least, Yershov made his operatic debut in Saint Petersburg in 1893 as Gounod's Faust.
The young tenor travelled to Italy the following year to complete his studies in Milan with Ernesto Rossi.
While in Italy, he performed at Turin and at Reggio Emilia, appearing as Don Jose in Carmen and Canio in Pagliacci.
Such was his promise, however, he was offered a contract by Russia's foremost opera house, the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg.
Before long, he was being hailed by audiences and music critics alike as Russia's finest dramatic tenor.
He would appear regularly at the Mariinsky in a wide spectrum of operatic works, including Peter Tchaikovsky's masterpiece Eugene Onegin, in which he sang the part of Lenski.
Other roles which he undertook included John of Leyden, Florestan, Grishka Kuterma, Sobinin, Tsar Berendey, Sadko, Finn, Mikhailo Tucha, Orest, Gvidan and Golitsyn.
In private life Yershov was a reserved, serious-minded individual who shunned the limelight and was genuinely humble about his achievements.
He also disliked travel and when Cosima Wagner asked him in 1901 to sing at the Bayreuth Festival, he declined the invitation on the grounds that he did not wish to restudy his Wagnerian roles in German.
(He also feared that his musical interpretations would be stifled by the prevailing Bayreuth style of singing, which preferred Sprechgesang to bel canto.)
Yershov believed strongly that opera was an important art form and not mere entertainment for the wealthy.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he concentrated most of his energies on producing operatic works and teaching vocal students at the Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) Conservatory, although, in February 1919, he agreed to perform the leading role in a revival of Rimsky-Korsakov's Kashchey the Deathless.
He also sang Truffaldino in Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges, which received its premiere Russian performance in February 1926 at the Mariinsky (or the "Leningrad State Academic Theatre for Opera and Ballet" as it had been renamed by the Soviet authorities).
Although his career was almost completely confined to Russia, Yershov is considered to have been one of the very best operatic tenors of the past 125 years,[according to whom?]
on a par with the likes of Jean de Reszke, Francesco Tamagno, Enrico Caruso, Lauritz Melchior, Beniamino Gigli and Jussi Björling.
His enormous reputation is supported by a handful of acoustic discs which he made in Saint Petersburg for Columbia Records and the Gramophone and Typewriter Company in 1903, most of which are now available on CD reissues.
These recordings consist of some Russian songs and a few operatic arias by Giacomo Meyerbeer, Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi.
I view my entire life through fantasies, chasing after dreams and pursuing the most romantic ideals, the questions .
(Rossiiskaia natsionalnaia biblioteka (RNB), f. 275 (personal fond of Ivan Vasilievich Ershov), op.