That’s what the distinguished Algerian baritone Dinh Gilly said to his wife, Cécile, who was teaching a talented but raw young Australian soprano, Marjorie Lawrence, in her Paris studio, c. 1929. And indeed, the excellent American mezzo Gladys Swarthout, recalling her most admired colleagues, later observed that “There was a wild quality in her voice that electrified me.” A major compilation (the first I know of) of this important soprano’s work has recently been released, as has a six-CD set extending Marston’s survey of the recordings of Lotte Lehmann. We’ll get a running start on these recordings today, PLUS: a follow-up on Wozzeck and the problems of Sprechgesang, together with the bibliographical references promised last time, AND a professional Conductor’s Lament over the current state of musical interpretation.

On the Dec. 21, 1935 Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Wagner’s Lohengrin, there’s a riveting five minutes late in Act 2. The moment always has some shock effect, as Ortrud interrupts the wedding procession into the cathedral with her contemptuous dismissal of Elsa and denunciation of her Swan Knight groom, and Elsa rises to the defense. Given choral and orchestral forces of professional grade and soloists of some vocal presence, Wagner has seen to that. But even heard out of context, there’s a special excitement here, a flaming, vaulting thrust to Ortrud’s attack, a firm nobility and purity to Elsa’s response, and a propulsive urgency in the conducting. The Ortrud is Marjorie Lawrence, singing just three days after her Met debut as the Walkūre Brünnhilde; the Elsa is Lotte Lehmann; the conductor is Artur Bodanzky.

Lawrence and Lehman shared the Met stage only briefly. This Elsa/Ortrud pairing and one other, Brūnnhilde and Sieglinde in Die Walküre, account for their scattering of joint appearances. But I am led to consider them together through a coincidence of recording discoveries—a recent four-disc compilation of Lawrence’s work—nearly all live—in Desiree Records’ Great Australian Voices series (GAV 010, very kindly passed along to me by Richard Dyer) and the new  Lehmann package mentioned above, this one comprising her 1927-’33 Odeon electricals. (An earlier Marston release covered her acousticals from 1912 to 1926—see my posts Lotte Lehmann and the Bonding of the Registers, Parts 1 and 2, 9/29/17 and 10/13/17.) Lehmann’s career was long and her studio recordings many; she is known to, and appropriately revered by, all opera lovers of historical inclination. Lawrence’s career was severely curtailed by polio, and she made relatively few commercial recordings. Any subliminal public awareness of her is probably due primarily to the movie based on her autobiographical memoir, Interrupted Melody.^(I) For the short span allotted her, however, there can be no doubt that she was a dramatic soprano of the first rank. She was also a rather different kind of “dramatic soprano” than we grew accustomed to from her time forward, or than we have any example of today.