Marjorie Lawrence

Marjorie Florence Lawrence CBE (17 February 1907 – 13 January 1979) was an Australian dramatic soprano, particularly noted as an interpreter of Richard Wagner's operas. She was the first Metropolitan Opera soprano to perform the immolation scene in Götterdämmerung by riding her horse into the flames as Wagner had intended. She was afflicted by polio from 1941. Lawrence later served on the faculty of the School of Music at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

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.

Lawrence was born at Deans Marsh, 135 km (84 mi) southwest of Melbourne. She was the fifth of six children of William Lawrence, the local butcher, and Elizabeth (née Smith) Lawrence, church organist. Her mother died when Lawrence was two and she was raised by her father's mother. Lawrence attended local schools, joined the choir at St Pauls Church of England and was a soloist by age ten. Her interest in opera was sparked by gramophone records of Nellie Melba and Clara Butt. She won a number of vocal competitions when aged in her teens, and at the age of 18 she travelled to Melbourne for work. She received voice lessons from Ivor Boustead but had to return home due to financial hardship. Lawrence failed to gain a place at the Royal South Street competitions in Ballarat but went on to win the Sun Aria at Geelong in 1928. Australian baritone John Brownlee advised her to study in Paris with Cécile Gilly. Lawrence boarded with a French family and, under Gilly's tuition, was able to extend her voice's upper range.

In January 1932, Lawrence made her operatic debut in Monte Carlo as Elisabeth in Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser. On 25 February 1933, she made her first appearance at the Opera Garnier in Paris, singing 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 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. 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 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".

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".

In 1939 it was announced she would play Dame Nellie Melba in the film The Life of Melba for Australia's Cinesound Productions. However the film never materialised due to the war.