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Marjorie Lawrence, the Life of Marjorie Lawrenc Marjorie of the Life One of Australia’S Most Renowned Opera Stars

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Marjorie Lawrence, the Life of Marjorie Lawrenc Marjorie of the Life One of Australia’S Most Renowned Opera Stars wotan s daughter wotan ’ arjo The life o ’ s daughter M rie Lawrence richard davis richard Wotan’s Daughter recounts the turbulent life and career of Marjorie Lawrence, The LifeThe of Marjorie Lawrenc one of Australia’s most renowned opera stars. From humble beginnings in rural Victoria, Lawrence rose to Richard Davis is an internationally become one of the pre-eminent acclaimed writer specialising in biographies. Wagner singers of her generation, Wotan’s Daughter – The Life of Marjorie Lawrence acclaimed and honoured in Europe is the latest in a series devoted to the lives of and at the Metropolitan Opera in famous Australian musicians. These have New York where she shared roles with enjoyed international critical success and the legendary Kirsten Flagstad. Stricken earned Richard the 2011 Joan Sutherland by polio at the height of her career, and Richard Bonynge Award for the Arts. Lawrence fought back courageously Richard is also the author of some lighter against physical disability and prejudice books including the popular The Ghost Guide to rebuild her shattered life and return to Australia. He also teaches creative writing and to the stage. This is a book for all music his Creative Writing Weekend Workshops are lovers and those who value an inspiring justly famous throughout the eastern states. story of triumph over adversity. ISBN 978-1-74305-122-1 Photos: front cover, Marjorie Lawrence as Brünnhilde, France, 1933; front flap and back cover, studio portraits, New York, 1941 and 1939; above, Richard Davis with Dame Joan Sutherland 9 781743 051221 richard davis Wakefield Press Wotan’s Daughter wotan’s daughter arjo The life o M rie Lawrence richard davis Wakefield Press 1 The Parade West Kent Town South Australia 5067 www.wakefieldpress.com.au First published 2012 Copyright © Richard Davis, 2012 All rights reserved. This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher. All photographs are from the Marjorie Lawrence Papers, and were generously provided by the Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois. Edited by Penelope Curtin Cover design by Stacey Zass Typeset by Wakefield Press Printing and quality control in China by Tingleman Pty Ltd National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Davis, Richard Michael. Title: Wotan’s daughter: the life of Marjorie Lawrence / Richard Davis. ISBN: 978 1 74305 122 1 (pbk.). Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Subjects: Lawrence, Marjorie, 1909–1979. Sopranos (Singers) – Australia – Biography. Singers – Australia – Biography. Poliomyelitis – Australia. Dewey Number: 782.1092 This book is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Sheila Prior, AM, BEM, DLJ 1914–2004 Sheila Prior devoted her life to working in an honorary capacity for various community organisations and for the arts. During a thirty-two-year tenure as Founding President and Chairperson of the Australian Opera Auditions Committee Inc., Sheila was instrumental in raising more than two million dollars. These funds were used to support talented Australian singers, conductors and instrumentalists. Nothing is impossible, nothing hopeless if you have courage and faith in God. Don’t ever lose your sense of humour. If you can keep laughing you are safe. I have walked hand in hand with God. He has given me strength. It has made every impossible thing, possible. Marjorie Lawrence Contents Foreword by Dame Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge ix Preface xi Chapter One ‘Push the Pram for Baby’ 1 Chapter Two Stitches and Scales 12 Chapter Three Innocents Abroad 26 Chapter Four Mademoiselle Lawrence 36 Chapter Five Triumph in the Sun 49 Chapter Six Doubts, Delays and Disputes 58 Chapter Seven L’Étoile de l’Opéra 72 Chapter Eight Apple Pie and Horseplay 86 Chapter Nine Storm Clouds Gathering 100 Chapter Ten Lucky Strikes and Jackboots 112 Chapter Eleven Homecoming 126 Chapter Twelve The Glory Years 138 Chapter Thirteen ‘Was ich liebe, muss ich verlassen’ 152 Chapter Fourteen ‘Master of my fate and captain of my soul’ 166 Chapter Fifteen Chin-up Girl 179 Chapter Sixteen Off to War 192 Chapter Seventeen Twilight of the Gods 203 Chapter Eighteen Interrupted Melody 215 Chapter Nineteen Professor Lawrence 229 Chapter Twenty ‘Leb’ wohl’ 241 Notes 253 Appendix A Discography of Marjorie Lawrence’s Recordings 279 Bibliography 299 Index 303 Foreword I first heard the glorious voice of Marjorie Lawrence just before my fourteenth birthday in September 1944 in Sydney. I can still hear her incomparable sound in Dido’s ‘Lament’ as if it were yesterday. Five years later Joan and I adored her Sydney concerts – she gave at least six in June and July 1949. Her sublime final scene from Götterdämmerung, her ‘O don fatale’, her ‘Divinités du Styx’ remain with me forever. If only I had heard her Valentine in Les Huguenots at the Opéra in Paris in 1936! She came to La Scala in 1966 to see Joan as Donna Anna and we spent a memorable evening after the opera. We later had the indescribable pleasure of being in the same concert together for the United Nations in New York in 1976. Marjorie sang ‘Waltzing Matilda’ from her wheelchair and the entire audience was in tears. How privileged we were to share even a tiny part in her life. In our opinion the voice of Marjorie Lawrence was the only Wagnerian compa- rable to Kirsten Flagstad and certainly one of the three greatest ever to come from Australia. Bravo to Richard Davis for the long-awaited biography, which restores a great singer to her rightful place in operatic history. Joan Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE Richard Bonynge, AC, CBE ix Preface On 20 April 1955 the world premiere of one of the few successful opera films to come out of Hollywood was given in Melbourne, Australia. Within days the film was released across Australia, then the United States and Great Britain. It received rave reviews wherever it was shown. Audiences flocked to see it and the film netted millions of dollars for Metro Goldwyn Mayer. The film was called Interrupted Melody and was based on a best-selling book of the same name. It told the story of an Australian country girl named Marjorie Lawrence who rose to become one of the world’s great opera singers before being struck down by a crippling disease. Audiences reached for their handkerchiefs as they watched the film’s glamorous star, Eleanor Parker, fight pain, disability and depression to get back on her feet – metaphorically and physically – and to return to the opera stage, aided and abetted by Glenn Ford, playing the heroine’s devoted husband. The film combined rags to riches, romance, glamour, tragedy, courage and ultimately triumph, along with good acting and the best representation on screen up to that time of opera staging and opera singing. The question therefore arises: why, with a successful book and a successful film chronicling Marjorie Lawrence’s life, is a modern biography needed? A number of sound reasons answer this question, the most obvious being that Marjorie had another thirty years of active life after the book was published. Secondly, the book Interrupted Melody was ghost-written for Marjorie as her autobiography, with all the information it contains supplied by her and not inde- pendently verified by the ghost writer. By comparison with the autobiographies of most prima donnas, Interrupted Melody is delightfully candid, but when the book was written Marjorie was still active as a singer and therefore selective about what she revealed, omitting or underplaying anything that might have been harmful to her career. Marjorie also took a great deal of poetic licence in reporting certain events, especially those of her early years, and in some cases the ghost writer (expert though he was) embroidered them further. Thirdly, although modesty was not a particularly conspicuous trait in Marjorie’s character (it is rare among prima donnas), she is modest about her own accomplish- ments in Interrupted Melody. Nowhere in the book will the reader find the kind of objective analysis of her voice and her singing necessary to fully appreciate her art. Nor will the reader find comparison between Marjorie and other Wagnerian sopranos, also necessary if she is to be accorded her rightful place among them. The film of Interrupted Melody takes enormous liberties with the already dubious content of the book, and admirable though it may be as cinema, if we relied upon it for our understanding of Marjorie Lawrence we would end up with a much distorted view. Another compelling reason is that Marjorie Lawrence is one of those musicians xi Wotan’s Daughter of the past who is ripe for re-evaluation. Apart from vintage record collectors, Wagner historians, a small claque of her devoted former students and the fading memories of some very elderly opera goers, she is largely forgotten – a fate she does not deserve. There is plenty of convincing evidence in the form of personal recol- lections, contemporary criticism and sound recordings to prove beyond doubt that she is worthy of much wider recognition and a place among the greatest Wagner singers of all time. Equally compelling is just how inspiring Marjorie’s personal story is. She was not the first and will not be the last celebrity to fall victim to a crippling disease at the height of her career, but few have fallen from so high or climbed back so far. In her lifetime Marjorie’s indomitable spirit served as an inspiration to others suffering disease and injury, and there is no reason why it should not serve the same commendable purpose for all time.
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