Marjorie Lawrence
Marjorie Florence Lawrence
Her life story was told in the 1955 film Interrupted Melody, in which she was portrayed by Eleanor Parker, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Lawrence.
Early life
Lawrence was born at
Career
In January 1932, Lawrence made her operatic debut in Monte Carlo as Elisabeth in Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser.[1] On 25 February 1933, she made her first appearance at the Opera Garnier in Paris, singing Ortrud in Lohengrin,[1] 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 singing Brünnhilde in Die Walküre, and the following year performed the immolation scene in Götterdämmerung by riding her horse into the flames as Wagner had intended, the first Metropolitan Opera soprano to do so.[1] She had been an athletic child and learned to ride in Australia. In this famous performance, Lauritz Melchior was her Siegfried. The performance was recorded and is the only complete Götterdämmerung with Melchior as Siegfried on record.
Lawrence's physicality and beauty made her popular with audiences – she performed the "Dance of the Seven Veils" in Richard Strauss's Salome[1] more convincingly than most other sopranos. Just as Lawrence's great compatriot Florence Austral had been able to alternate the role of Brünnhilde with Frida Leider, she herself was able to alternate the role with Kirsten Flagstad at the Metropolitan in 1937.
She turned down a small role in the premiere of George Enescu's opera Œdipe in 1938, which caused her fellow Australian (by adoption) Hephzibah Menuhin (a close friend of Enescu's) to consider the soprano "snobbish and petty".[3]
Lawrence returned to Australia periodically from 1939, where English critic Neville Cardus wrote of the "'unselfconscious pathos' and 'intimate poetry' in her performances, of the 'superb range' of her powerful voice, 'rich in vocal splendour' throughout".[1]
In 1939 it was announced she would play
On 29 March 1941, at New York City's City Hall, she married Dr. Thomas King, an
During a performance in 1941 in Mexico, Lawrence found herself unable to stand—she had
Although best known for her Wagnerian interpretations, Lawrence sang a range of other works, including Salome and
In 1949, Lawrence wrote her autobiography Interrupted Melody;[1] by February 1950, Hollywood was interested in making a film and Lawrence indicated "If a film is made I will do the singing".[6] In 1955, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released the film version, Interrupted Melody, starring Eleanor Parker as Lawrence; Parker loved opera and learned to sing all of the arias, although her singing was later dubbed in by soprano Eileen Farrell.[7] Lawrence criticised the film as being untrue to her life.[1]
Lawrence died, aged 71, of heart failure on 13 January 1979 at St Vincent's Hospital, Little Rock, Arkansas, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Hot Springs, where she had made her home for many years.[1]
Honours
In 1946 she was awarded the cross of the
References
- ^ Melbourne University Press. pp. 14–15. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
- Australian Government. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
- ^ Jacqueline Kent, An Exacting Heart, p. 109
- Sunday Times (Perth). No. 2180. Western Australia. 5 November 1939. p. 5. Retrieved 16 October 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ Vagg, Stephen (10 August 2019). "Unmade Cinesound". Filmink.
- ^ "Film likely of story of Marjorie Lawrence". The Canberra Times. National Library of Australia. 2 February 1950. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
- ^ Los Angeles Times, 10 December 2013, Obituary for Eleanor Parker and quote from Paul Clemens, her son.
- G. Davidson. Opera Biographies (London: Werner Laurie, 1955), pp. 158–159
- Lawrence, Marjorie. Interrupted Melody: An Autobiography, Sydney, NSW, 1949, Invincible Press.
External links
- Majorie Lawrence Collection in the Performing Arts Collection, the Arts Centre, Melbourne (correspondence, photographs, programmes, scrapbooks etc.)
- biography at AllMusic
- Marjorie Lawrence Papers, 1926–1977 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center
- Pathé News Clip showing Lawrence performing Elektra with Rodzinski and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra following her return to performance - the only publicly available film footage of Lawrence performing.