{"id":105,"date":"2008-04-22T23:47:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-23T03:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/clients.chrisvanpatten.com\/theatreaficionado.com\/2008\/04\/where-in-the-world-is-lee-venora.html"},"modified":"2010-10-29T02:57:57","modified_gmt":"2010-10-29T06:57:57","slug":"where-in-the-world-is-lee-venora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/?p=105","title":{"rendered":"Where in the World is Lee Venora&#8230;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I listen to my ipod shuffle, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lee_Venora\">Lee Venora<\/a>&#8216;s renditions of various songs from the Lincoln Center revivals of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kismet_%28musical%29\">Kismet<\/a> <\/em>and <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_King_and_I\">The King and I<\/a> <\/em>keep popping up.<em> <\/em>I begin to wonder whatever happened to her. Her voice is a thrilling and grand operatic lyric soprano that just somehow manages to surpass that of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Doretta_Morrow\">Doretta Morrow<\/a> (being a remarkable singer herself, no disrespect is intended), the singing actress that originated the roles of Marsinah and Tuptim. Hearing Venora take on the final ascending line of &#8220;My Lord and Master&#8221; is nothing short of breathtaking; or listening to how she takes the final solo reprise of &#8220;And This is My Beloved&#8221; and completely makes you forget anyone else ever in existence ever sang that song.<\/p>\n<p>Her musical theatre record credits aren&#8217;t many: she recorded these two albums, the OBCR of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kean_%28musical%29\">Kean<\/a> <\/em>(on which she sings &#8220;Willow, Willow, Willow&#8221;, Wright and Forrest&#8217;s haunting musical setting of <em>Othello&#8217;s <\/em>&#8220;Willow Song&#8221;) and as Carrie on a studio cast album of <em>Carousel, <\/em>with Alfred Drake and Patrice Munsel in the leads. (The latter has never been released on CD). There&#8217;s also an easy-listening album of <em>Show Boat, <\/em>but I wonder if anyone&#8217;s ever heard that. My searches online are coming up with absolutely nothing, except that she has sung the role of Mimi in <em>La Boheme <\/em>and was also a soloist on various classical recordings, most notably Leonard Bernstein&#8217;s <em>Mahler&#8217;s Symphonies<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I listen to my ipod shuffle, Lee Venora&#8216;s renditions of various songs from the Lincoln Center revivals of Kismet and The King and I keep popping up. I begin to wonder whatever happened to her. Her voice is a thrilling and grand operatic lyric soprano that just somehow manages to surpass that of Doretta &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/?p=105\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Where in the World is Lee Venora&#8230;?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1729,1645,1730,1731],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-kean","tag-kismet","tag-lee-venora","tag-the-king-and-i"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2870,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions\/2870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatreaficionado.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}