It’s no exaggeration to suggest that without Gus Smith’s diligent chronicles of opera and opera singers, the historical picture would have remained hazy at best. Across a series of volumes – none of them destined to be best-selling blockbusters, Gus nevertheless championed Irish music making in all its forms.
In 1998, the important “Love and Music: The Glorious History of the Dublin Grand Opera Society” was published after years of painstaking research: there were formal book launch events at the Metropole in Cork and at Jury’s in Dame Street in Dublin (from which the following set of photographs derive). The event was well-attended – and included appearances from key figures in the early history of the DGOS – Moira Griffith (leading soprano back in 1941 and subsequently Chorus Mistress in the 1950s), Nick J. Lewis (baritone solist in the early 1940s), as well as Taoiseach Charles Haughey. The book was well-received by the music critics and it remains a vital source of detailed information regarding the history of opera in Ireland.
Opera in Ireland 