Marjorie at the movies

MARJORIE LAWRENCE ON STAGE!
The State has the honor to present the world-famous Dramatic Soprano in a magnificent setting…. and with special orchestra. Her Programme includes: Oh, Hall of Song (“Tannhauser”) Wagner; Ave Maria (Gounod); Impatience (Schubert); Danny Boy. Miss Lawrence will appear at the 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. de luxe sessions.
“ON THE SCREEN: “EAST SIDE OF HEAVEN,” Universal’s scintillating modern comedy of a baby who arrived before the wedding. With JOAN BLONDELL, MISCHA AUER, “SANDY” (Amazing baby star), Irene Hervey, Bing Crosby. Four big song hits (General Exhibition) (Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 11 August 1939, p. 2)

Lawrence’s promoter, Arthur Longden, had found an easy way to make up the shortfall for less-than-overwhelming box office receipts on the Sydney leg of her Australian tour. Greater Union had found a way to guarantee audiences for their new release. Lawrence would make two twenty-minute appearances a day, six days a week for two weeks. And Lawrence seemed quite happy about it. “This will give me an opportunity to sing to Australian people who could not afford to hear me in the Town Hall,” the Herald reported her as saying. “‘The musical experience will not be lowered,’ she added, ‘but I shall sing songs that I consider will interest an average Australian audience.’”[1]

Cultural hierarchy, the division of entertainments into “highbrow” and “lowbrow”, had long established itself in Australia. Antipodean culture was not afflicted by the bifurcation to the same extent as in America; there always seems to be some crossover of classes in operatic ventures in Australia up to this time. Even so, this is quite a departure from the norm. We have a highbrow artiste slumming it in a picture house - admittedly upmarket, but still…

The highbrow/lowbrow idea is present in Lawrence’s words, “The musical experience will not be lowered.” In other words, “Worry not! We shall not debase the currency.” But there is no sense that this is an attempt to give the masses some High Art. The opportunity is economic, not educational: people who couldn’t afford 2/- to attend her Town Hall recitals could now hear her down the road at Market Street. Lawrence’s reference to “an average Australian audience” might imply that they might prefer something lesser than the usual high standard of her repertoire. But it could also mean that she was aware that her audience was not the usual concert-going crowd, knowledgable about a wide repertoire and accustomed to particular demands.

Rather than dumb-down her programme, she adapted it. At the State she sang the following:

Dich teure Halle (Wagner, Tannhäuser)
Ave Maria (Gounod)
Ungelduld (Schubert)
Danny Boy (Weatherly)
Floods of Spring (Rachmaninov)
My Ain Folk (Trad.)

This was a representative selection of her repertoire and a good reflection of her recital programs: an aria, art songs, and popular songs, in the same ratios as the recitals. With the possible exception of the Rachmaninov, she had sung these works in her recitals (and she had sung another Rachmaninov song). There was no Brünnhilde’s Immolation from Götterdämmerung or the Final Scene from Salome, twenty-minute epics that are taxing to the unaccustomed. The programme was a précis of her long-form recitals, not a dumbed-down version for the uncultured.

Interestingly, in the reviews I have uncovered there are no comments that are remotely deprecatory. The Herald noted the warm welcome to her first appearance, and that “Miss Lawrence’s voice seemed to have been slightly amplified, and filled the large auditorium with a rich resonance.” There is no condescension to the venue or the audience; the comment about the venue is merely a technical one. The Daily Telegraph describes the lighting: pink and mauve for Wagner, a white spot for Ave Maria, pink for the Schubert, green for Danny Boy (of course), and pink for the Rachmaninov. The Telegraph also records that she worked with the Wurlitzer organ, the orchestra and the piano (which suggests an all-expense spared approach to scores and arrangements). [2] This is all description, not comment. From the public discourse there seems to have been no great cognitive dissonance between Marjorie Lawrence and Bing Crosby, between “Floods of Spring” and "Hang Your Heart on a Hickory Limb".

The idea emerging from my research is that cultural hierarchy did exist with regard to opera in Australia, but it was not as sharply delineated as in other places. Well into the twentieth century there was considerable interest in opera in all classes, and less condescension between musical forms; and I expect to find more evidence of this cross flow, appearing in different ways at different times and places.[3]

[1] SMH 9th August 1939, 17.
[2] SMH 12/8/39, 19; DT 12/8/39, 5.
[3] I expect to see the influence of European immigrants, eg people like Ladislav Noskowski, a reviewer for the Sydney Mail.