Educated at St Laurence's, Ovingham, he won a scholarship to Christian Brothers' College, passed his Intermediate and Leaving examinations, necessary for admission to university, but chose to enter the office of G. R. Annells,[6] accountant and amateur cricketer.
At school he was a champion handballer and played in the top cricket and football teams (his brother John Leslie Power, born 1896, was similarly gifted, and a great scholar as well).
With encouragement from Mrs Quesnel, his singing teacher at the Elder Conservatorium, he entered the Sun Aria contest in 1924 and not only won the prize, but was advised by the adjudicator, Alfred Hill, to make opera his profession.
At the close of this series and an appearance at the Royal Apollo Club in Sydney, a wealthy admirer (later revealed as his uncle Fred Tennant[a]) offered to underwrite his further education in Milan, no small undertaking, as winners of Elder Scholarships would attest.
In 1932 he signed a contract with the "San Carlo Grand Opera Company"[14] touring the Dutch East Indies and the Orient with a repertoire of 16 operas, but after six months of four or five performances a week in sweltering climates, he cut short his tour and headed back to Australia, arriving in Adelaide in time for Christmas.
He had a reunion dinner with his old St Laurence's Church choir,[18] then left for Melbourne, sailing by the SS Mariposa for San Francisco on 7 March 1934.
[19] Laurence and Annunciata Garrotto (1907–1998), prima donna of the San Carlo company, shared the concert stage in Omaha, Nebraska, and were well received.
[21] He made headlines when Arnoldo Georgewski, playing Faust to basso Nino Ruisi's Mephistopheles, suddenly lost his voice.