The final CD is largely for Lawrence compleatists and documentarians—alternate versions from various dates, interviews and reminiscences. It does give us those first Melbourne recordings from the time of her competition victories, as well as selections from a 1966 return to Melbourne that shows her no longer up to a steady “Du bist der Lenz,” but able to pull herself together for some old song favorites. As with any voice, prime-year imperfections tend to become magnified later on. In Lawrence’s case, these included little intonational contretemps, a habit of bumping into some notes from slightly below (which sometimes sounds like an intentional “styling” quirk, but often not) and a predilection for excessive portamento (ditto—there’s a late Danny Boy here that spends more time on the way to and from notes than on any one of them, yet the voice sounds solid and beautiful). If she was, even at her best, in command of controlled softer dynamics toward the top of her range, I haven’t yet encountered an example. It is of course impossible that the trauma of polio and her subsequent wheelchair-bound status did not leave an imprint that registered in Marjorie Lawrence’s voice, and impossible for us know what path her career would have taken for the fifteen or so years beyond the disease’s onset that she could reasonably have been expected to maintain her standing as a world-class dramatic soprano. But what this generous offering, despite its gaps, seems to show is that her voice was substantially intact as to range, strength, and quality well into the 1950s, and that her temperament and communicative instincts were unimpaired, too.
More’s the pity, then, that more restorative care could not have been taken with these recordings, which sound like ungroomed dubs from their often dim or noisy sources. As suggested above, the Met Götterdämmerung and San Francisco Carmen act have circulated in better-sounding complete form, as has the Rio Parsifal (on Marston 53003-2—Kipnis as Gurnemanz!). That Rio Holländer is around, too, though I haven’t heard it. Still, what we have here is our best representation yet of the art of Marjorie Lawrence. That’s an automatic recommendation.
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As promised last time, here is a list of the bibliographical references drawn on for my last post, Kentridge Clobbers Berg, followed by commentary on some of the points raised therein.
Berg, Alban: Wozzeck, piano vocal score, reduction by Franz Heinrich Klein. Universal Edition, Vienna, 1931, 1958.
Boulez, Pierre: Analysis and Interpretation of “Wozzeck”—essay accompanying recording of the opera, CBS Masterworks, 1968.
Goldmann, A. J.: It’s “Salome.” But With Puppets. New York Times, Jan. 25, 2020.
Kerman, Joseph: Opera as Drama. Alfred A. Knopf, N.Y., 1956.
Perle, George: The Operas of Alban Berg, Vol. 1/Wozzeck. Univ. of California Press, 1980. (N. B.: This volume contains, in addition to Perle’s historical account and musicological analysis, Berg’s essay The Preparation and Staging of “Wozzeck” (1930, trans. uncredited), and the complete text of Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck in Paul Landau’s edition, which was Berg’s basis for his libretto (in German only).
Wikipedia: The Scream. Entry on Edvard Munch’s painting, with illustrations.
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And further to that subject, Will Crutchfield has sent along the observation that the many small-note options present in the jam-packed piano/vocal score are not present in either the autograph or the printed full score. It leaves us to assume that, inasmuch as the piano/vocal reduction was not published till 1931, they were added as the composer encountered reality in the form of singers’ actual capabilities in early rehearsal and performance situations.