Starring: Narrated by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa
Distributor: Sharmill Films
Runtime: 88 mins. Reviewed in Dec 2021
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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A portrait of Australian opera singer, Marjorie Lawrence, her international career and success, as well as a life-changing illness.
When we are asked about Australian opera singers, we probably name Dame Nellie Melba and then move on to Dame Joan Sutherland. What about Marjorie Lawrence in between them? She began her successful career in the 1930s, in her 20s in Paris and the Metropolitan in New York, entertaining and charming world audiences.
Here is an opportunity for today’s Australians to learn something about Lawrence. For audiences who are of a certain vintage, she was well known. This reviewer remembers from school days the biographical film, Interrupted Melody, starring Eleanor Parker (Oscar-nominated for this performance) as Marjorie Lawrence, with Glenn Ford as her husband. This was the mid-1950s, MGM production, Cinemascope, colour – and we see glimpses of the trailer in this present film.
As the film opens, Parker meets Lawrence on the set of the mid-1950s version of television’s This Is Your Life. It is a happy Marjorie Lawrence, aged 50, feted for her life and career.
Then the narrative goes back to a straightforward chronology of her life. Lawrence was born in Deans Marsh, west of Melbourne, and grew up in the town of Winchelsea. Fortunately, there are numerous photos of Marjorie and her family so that her early years are brought to life, and some footage about children growing up in the country.
In many ways, Marjorie had something of a charmed life, winning the Sun-Aria Competition, recommended to Paris, expert singing teachers, audition and debut in Monte Carlo, performances in Paris and New York. In the background are a number of singing excerpts from her operatic career.
The talking heads in this film are interesting, Richard Davis, her biographer, Brian Olsen-Castle an Australian opera director and, later, Ita Buttrose, a strong connection because it was her father who ghosted Marjorie Lawrence’s bestselling autobiography, Interrupted Melody. Richard Davis calls his biography Wotan’s Daughter, highlighting the fact that in her early years, Lawrence specialised in roles from Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle, especially Brunnhilde (commenting that she had a robust frame) – even surprising the opera world by deciding not to lead her horse into Siegfried’s fire at the end of Gotterdammerung but, country woman that she was, riding her horse across the stage into the fire.
Lawrence had a triumphal return to Australia in 1939. During World War II she entertained troops in Australia and across the world. She sang at President Roosevelt’s fourth inauguration, was a friend of the president, met the Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth and the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, and was awarded American French and British honours.
Those who know what happened, unexpectedly, almost tragically, to Marjorie Lawrence will be amazed at how she coped with difficulties, responding heroically, leading a life well lived – and for others. Those who do not know what Interrupted Melody means, I recommend seeing this film to learn more about the life and career of Marjorie Lawrence.
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