Lani’s high-wire balancing act simply dazzling

LANI Misalucha helps viewers retrace their romantic roots.

She came, she sang and she conquered—not just the disparate musical genres she tackled, but also the stratospheric notes she dared to scale in her intimate, two-night Valentine concert, “Love Catcher,” at Resorts World’s Newport Performing Arts Theater last weekend.

For singers who aren’t as musically gifted, the high-wire balancing act that Lani Misalucha demonstrated in her show was nothing short of dazzling and, well, dumbfounding.

After all, which other songstress in this music-loving country can pull off singing Adele’s “Hello” and the Andrew Lloyd Webber show tune, “As If We Never Said Goodbye” (from “Sunset Boulevard”), one moment and the 1918 Puccini aria, “O Mio Babbino Caro” (from the opera, “Gianni Schicchi”), the next?

Lani’s show-stopping numbers came and went with appropriate froth and flourish. With the terrific threesome of Mel Torre, Anna Graham and Krina Cayabyab of Baihana backing her up, Lani went to town with her smashing revivals of “Let It Go” (from “Frozen”) and “Ababa Boogie” (“Katy!”), cleverly interpolated with Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” and Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”

If you’re looking for spiels that are better-delivered, go watch the concerts of Martin Nievera or Gary Valenciano, instead—Lani’s performing chops (and pipes) are better suited for singing, not chatting. However, you won’t care about how tentative she delivers them when you hear her exceptional rendition of James Ingram’s “Just Once.”

It was hard not to get bowled over when she sang “The Circle of Life” (from “The Lion King”), her a cappella collaboration with the Philippine Madrigal Singers, with as much proficient gusto as she did “La Vie en Rose,” “Besame Mucho” and “Il Mio Cuore Va,” the Italian incarnation of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”

But Lani didn’t just aim to impress—her warmth and energy were palpable as she interacted with the happy crowd. She wanted viewers to sing, dance (via Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” and “How Will I Know?”), share the limelight with her, and reminisce about the loves they lost and rediscovered.

And which better songs to help you retrace your romantic roots with than the warm and lived-in duets of the ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s: Lionel Richie and Diana Ross’ “Endless Love,” Ingram and Patti Austin’s “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?,” Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin’s “Separate Lives,” the popular Sharon Cuneta-Gabby Concepcion cover of Lani Hall’s “Come What May,” and Josh Groban and Lara Fabian’s “Broken Vow”—each as distinctively and stirringly rendered as the next.

At 46, Lani is a woman at the top of her performing gifts. She’s a seasoned singer who knows only too well that a performer’s vocal power and flashy bravado aren’t enough to sustain viewers’ interest and attention.

So, she did more than just proficiently hit the soaring notes of Natalie Cole’s “Someone that I Used to Love” and “Starting Over Again” and her signature single, “Bukas na Lang Kita Mamahalin”—she performed their melodic ebbs and flows with all the soul she could muster.

When she sang her spellbinding cover of “Ikaw Lang ang Mamahalin,” the night’s best-rendered number, Lani made sure that the audience would leave the concert hall bearing a part of her heart!