Marjorie Florence Lawrence (1907 – 1979) was a dramatic soprano born on 17 February 1907 at Dean’s Marsh. She was fifth of six children of William Lawrence, butcher and fiddler, and his wife Elizabeth, nee Smith, church organist, who died when Marjorie was 2.
From the age of 10 she was a regular soloist. Her musical tastes were refined by the local Anglican parson and gramophone records of Nellie Melba and Clara Butt. At 18, she left for Melbourne in search of work, paying Ivor Boustead to train her voice. She was soon forced back home due to lack of money but continued to perform. She entered the vocal sections at Royal South Street Society, but it was her win at the 1928 Sun Aria in Geelong that led to the launch of her career.
[an aside… the Sun Aria competition began in 1924 in Ballarat and Geelong, spreading to Sydney and Canberra in 1934 and 1936 respectively, but it was the Ballarat based competition that survived to become the Hearld Sun Aria Competition that we know today]
Marjorie travelled to France and boarded with a local family to acquire the language and manners and learned her craft from Cecile Gilly who extended the upper range of her voice. In January 1932 Lawrence made her debut as Elisabeth in Tannhauser at Monte Carlo; her performance was acclaimed by critics as comparable with those of Chaliapin and Caruso. She then went on to become the leading soprano at the Paris Opera.
She also performed six seasons with the New York Metropolitan Opera, mostly in Wagnerian leads and enchanted audiences far and wide. Some quotes on her performance include ‘unselfconscious pathos’ ‘intimate poetry’ ‘superb range’ ‘rich in vocal splendor’ and her timbre was known to have a certain exciting wildness. She disdained the temperamental hauteur of prima donnas and met people with informal warmth.
A sudden attach of poliomyelitis in 1941 left her almost completely paralyzed in both legs. She continued to perform in chairs and wheeled platforms, often designed by her husband, Osteopath and Christian Scientist, Thomas King. Lawrence made many trips back to Australia and always kept her promise to perform first at Winchelsea, in the Globe Theatre which was built for her in 1927 by Marjorie’s family. She also did extensive tours to entertain troops in Australia, occupied Europe and Vietnam, and sang at Buckingham Palace and the White House.
In summer she ran opera workshops and sponsored children’s opera at her home Harmony Range, Hot Springs, Arkansas. Grateful students established the Marjorie Lawrence Lincoln Endowment Fund for handicapped people attending performances of ‘the Met’ at the Lincoln Centre, New York.
Marjorie died of heart failure on January 13, 1979, at St Vincent’s Hosptial, Little Rock, Arkansas. During her life, she received she received the cross of the Legion d’honneur (1946) for her work in France and was also appointed C.B.E. in 1976.
