The following is extracted from Volume IV of the 1986 edition of South African Music Encyclopedia (J.P. Malan, ISBN 0 19 570311 1)
LLOYD STRAUSS-SMITH, tenor, born 31 January 1921 in Lichtenburg
Lloyd Strauss-Smith's extremely musical family included: a grandfather who conducted church choirs; an aunt, Violette Cowie (stage name: Violette Noveni) who sang with the Leonard Rayne Opera Company in South Africa and with others in Australia and India; and an uncle who was a soloist at municipal concerts in Johannesburg. His own career started at fifteen with Aimée Parkerson who spotted the potential of his voice. After two years' training he made his professional debut. The Second World War intervened, and six years later, after demobilisation, he joined John Connell's National Opera Company and sang tenor parts, for example in Lohengrin (1945).
In 1947 he went to London, where he was to stay, with brief interruptions, for twenty years. There he took roles in more than eighty operas, mostly produced for radio. They included many works by moderns, including British premieres of works by Schönberg, Reizenstein, Dallapiccola, Fricker, and Frank Martin. Two were television firsts: Menotti's The Saint of Bleeker Street and Nino Rota's I Due Timidi in which he sang the principal role. Other activities include some 200 broadcasts of songs and oratorios, appearances with leading orchestras and at the 1965 Glyndebourne Opera Festival, and visits to the continent. He sang the tenor part in Bach's B minor Mass at Naarden in Holland, when Kathleen Ferrier interpreted the contralto arias (1951).
In South Africa he sang the part of Eisenstein in PACT's 1966 production of Die Fledermaus. The next year he took roles in The Bartered Bride and Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Since 1967 he has lived in Cape Town and taught (until 1978) at the College of Music. He has often sung in concerts and opera productions put on by CAPAB and the College of Music.
