Music: Marjorie's Comeback

Just before the curtain rose on last week's performance of Tannhäuser at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera, a wheel chair was carefully pushed up to the wings. From it, with great gentleness, a husky stagehand and a medieval huntsman lifted the frail body of a bravely smiling diva, deposited her tenderly on the cushions of a shell-backed fairy-tale divan. Amid a crowd of pirouetting nymphs and satyrs the reclining diva, her blond hair sparkling with stage diamonds, was slowly wheeled on the stage.

She was Marjorie Lawrence, once the most glamorous of Metropolitan Sieglindes and...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!