Marjorie Lawrence

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Marjorie Lawrence (February 17, 1907 - January 13, 1979) was an Australian soprano, particularly noted as an interpreter of Richard Wagner's operas. She served on the faculty of the School of Music at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Lawrence was born in Deans Marsh, south of Winchelsea, Victoria. She won a number of vocal competitions in her teens. In 1927, Australian baritone John Brownlee introduced Lawrence to famous opera teacher Cécile Gilly in Paris. In 1932 she made her operatic debut in Monte Carlo as Elisabeth in Wagner's Tannhäuser. On 25 February 1933, she made her first appearance at the Opera Garnier in Paris, playing Ortrud in Lohengrin, and in the same year she sang in the world premiere of Joseph Canteloube's Vercingétorix.

On 18 December 1935, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City playing Brunnhilde in Die Walküre, and the following year played the immolation scene in Götterdämmerung by riding her horse into the flames as Wagner had intended, making her one of the few, possibly the only, soprano to do this. She had been an athletic child and had learned to ride in Australia. Her physicality and beauty made her popular with audiences and she danced the Dance of the Seven Veils in Richard Strauss's Salome more convincingly than other sopranos. Just as Florence Austral was able to alternate Brunnhilde with Frida Leider, Marjorie Lawrence was of a calibre to alternate the role with Kirsten Flagstad at the Metropolitan in 1937.

On 29 March 1941, at New York City's City Hall, she married Dr. Thomas King, osteopath and Christian Scientist.

During a performance in 1941 in Mexico, she found herself unable to stand. She discovered that she had polio, and was left in a wheelchair as a result. She attempted to make a return to the stage, but was hampered by her lack of mobility. During World War II, she performed in charity concerts in Australia, seated in a chair. A performance as Amneris in Giuseppe Verdi's Aida in Paris in 1946 was well received, but Lawrence retreated from the stage, and instead began to work as a teacher. She retired to her ranch, Harmony Hills, in Hot Springs, Arkansas where she taught international students until her death in 1979.

Although best known for her Wagner, Lawrence played in a range of other works, including Salome and less Wagnerian works such as Georges Bizet's Carmen. She made a number of recordings, mainly of works by Wagner. She was never regarded as such a great singer as her contemporary Kirsten Flagstad, but she received many good reviews, and it is generally thought that she would have continued to become more significant had she not suffered from polio.

In 1949, Lawrence wrote her autobiography Interrupted Melody. In 1955, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a film based on her book, Interrupted Melody, starring Eleanor Parker as Lawrence; Parker mimed the voice of Eileen Farrell.

[edit] Literature

• G. Davidson, Opera Biographies (London: Werner Laurie, 1955), pp. 158-159