Reflection

It's fitting that from seeing Judy Kuhn in Fiddler on the Roof the other week, I saw the other guy vying for Michael Ball's affections, and her herself a Disney Legend - last night (Saturday 13th July 2019), the one and only Lea Salonga was doing a concert in Manchester. NO WAY was I missing this!!

For those of who don't know Salonga, she is the singing voice of not just 1, but 2 Disney princesses: Jasmine and Mulan (my favourite Disney movie since I was a kid!).
She was also the original Kim in Miss Saigon, has played both Eponine and Fantine in Les Mis (as she says, the Boubil/Schonberg Dead-Girl trio), and most recently played Erzulie, Goddess of Love in the 2018 Tony winning revival of Once On This Island.

This was originally meant to take place at the Bridgewater Hall in February, buuuuut then Salonga had her skiing accident, and so it was postponed until July. But as Salonga herself said Britain in July is whole lot better in July than it is in February (despite the typical summer here).

That was in fact one of the many quips she came up with - anyone who has seen Salonga knows she DOES have a sense of humour. It showed in a lot of chat sections, not just the moments when she was also inspiring - and that's coming from a 27 year old Caucasian northerner - let alone the boundless Pinoys in the audience.
Going back to her sense of humour, the classic example was her apologising to all the parents in the audience for putting Let It Go back in their brains before singing it, just as it had come out!

Salonga of course sang all the expected ones, from Reflection and I'd Give My Life For You, to a mashup of I Dream A Dream and On My Own (fitting in a bittersweet way, as the original Les Mis closed today while the Queens converts to the Sondheim theatre with the newer production taking its place) and The Human Heart from Once On This Island.

She also sang a selection of other musical material, Hercules' Go The Distance from Company's Another Hundred People, to Anastasia's Journey To The Past. Plus, she took to pop music as well, including Whitney Housten's The Greatest Love of All, to an arrangement of One Direction's Story of My Life.

My personal highlight was her rendition of Hamilton's Burn - anyone else think she would have been a shoe-in for Eliza if the Ham-monster had opened 10 years ago?

The final highlight HAS to be her duet of A Whole New World. For this, she picked a random guest from the audience. The very lucky man was called Mark - and Sir, you were NOT BAD AT ALL!

If you're either in York on 18th July or London on 21st July (she's doing 2 shows) then GO!!! Salonga's grace made this concert different to others I've seen such as Bernadette Peters. Plus her tone is just as perfect as ever! Not one to miss!