By Alex Low
When Lea Salonga walked onto the stage, she was met with thunderous applause from the audience. “But I haven’t done anything yet,” she joked. While the remark was wittily modest, it wasn’t necessarily the whole truth either. After all, the Broadway and Disney legend has left an indelible mark on the entertainment industry, long known as the “Pride of the Philippines” across an illustrious career spanning theatre, film and beyond.
But this particular programme at Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS was as much a celebration of family as it was of Salonga’s extraordinary career. Joining her on stage was her younger brother, Gerard Salonga, Resident Conductor of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO), who took the baton for all the performances over the three-day programme. The pairing added a dimension to an otherwise grand concert, with the siblings’ shared musical history woven into the evening.
From Disney To Broadway
From the opening Lea Salonga Overture, the concert moved through a catalogue of songs that have become closely associated with her, alongside selections that offered glimpses into the breadth of her musical identity. The Disney Princess Medley was an early highlight, bringing together “Part of Your World,” “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” “Home” and “Colors of the Wind.”
Yet hearing Salonga perform “Reflection” and “A Whole New World” carried an added resonance: she is, after all, the singing voice behind both Mulan and Jasmine, two characters whose songs have become inseparable from generations of Disney audiences.
Her Broadway legacy was equally well represented. Selections from Miss Saigon, Les Misérables, Wicked, Company, Sweeney Todd and Gypsy allowed Salonga to revisit very different corners of her theatrical career. “I Dreamed a Dream,” “Being Alive” and “Defying Gravity” demonstrated not only the precision of her voice, but the interpretive range that has sustained her across four decades on stage.
A Segue Into Pop
The surprises, however, were just as memorable. A spirited rendition of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” saw Salonga step outside the musical-theatre repertoire, while a recollection of watching Saturday Night Fever with Gerard and their mother offered a charming glimpse into the memories behind the performance.
By the final stretch, the evening had gathered enough momentum to feel less like a retrospective and more like a celebration of everything Salonga can do. And if the audience needed one last reminder, she delivered it with an electrifying cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” ending the concert not with a farewell to the past, but with an invitation to keep moving.
