Lea Salonga in Concert

Lea Salonga in Concert
Cannon Hill Anglican College Auditorium, Brisbane. Sunday 26 July 2015,

It’s not every day a Broadway star and a Disney Princess performs in Brisbane, so it’s not surprising that the audience were waiting with anticipation for superstar songstress Lea Salonga to step on to the stage.

Lea Salonga has had an illustrious career as a musical theatre and recording artist. Originallystarring in the lead role of Kim in the musical Miss Saigon, for which she won Olivier and Tony awards, she was also the first Asian actress to play the roles of Eponine and Fantine in the musical Les Misérables on Broadway. Salonga has also provided the singing voice of not one, but two Disney Princess, Jasmine in Aladdin and Fa Mulan.

Lea Salonga is somewhat of an entertainment icon in the Philippines, where she has had several hits with Filipino pop songs, and been a judge on the hugely popular The Voice of The Philippines. So it isn’t surprising that ninety percent of the audience were made up of devoted Filipino fans.

Her concert repertoire was a carefully selected mix of pop songs, music theatre, Disney and jazz numbers, and from the moment she opened her concert with the jazz classic Feeling Good, to her encore of the poignant Back to Before from the musical Ragtime, she had the audience well and truly in the palm of her hand.

She has such amazing control over her powerful soprano voice which easily allows her to showcase a wide variety of material.

Salonga got to show off her musical versatility with a jazzy bossa-nova version of "On The Street Where You Live" (My Fair Lady) and a solo version of the duet "For Good" (Wicked); and she certainly gave Whitney a run for her money with a more controlled version of the pop ballad "The Greatest Love of All".

With her relaxed patter we got a glimpse of Lea's life, her childhood and how she was introduced into musicals, and her now famous audition for Miss Saigon at age seventeen.

Accompanied by an incredibly gifted four-piece band, whose clever arrangements gave the musical backing a much fuller sound, Salonga received numerous standing ovations during the evening, most notably after "I’d Give My Life for You" from Miss Saigon, and her renditions of the Les Miserables classics "I Dreamed A Dream" and "On My Own".

During one of her Disney moments, the audience got to hear the full length version of "Reflections" from Mulan, which she recorded before it was edited down for the actual film. Then one lucky male audience member got to duet with ‘Princess Jasmine’ on A Whole New World from the animated film Aladdin, which sent the audience wild and once again brought them to their feet.

You could have heard a pin drop during one of the most moving moments in the show with Salonga’s emotional performance of "Still Hurting" from The Last Five Years.

After her Australian tour, Lea will begin rehearsals in September for her much awaited return to Broadway in the new musical Allegiance with George Takei, which tells the story of a Japanese-American family forced into an internment camp during World War II.

Lea Salonga in Concert was indeed a rare treat for Brisbane audiences to experience her sing live and to listen to stories about her life. She was indeed the epitome of class and talent all the way.

Paul Dellit

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