FRAMED New York Times review at the Carlyle. PHOTO FROM Fletcher HC
Fellow singer Ogie Alcasid once joked in one of Lea Salonga’s local concerts that the Tony award winner had come a long way—“From Broadway Centrum to Broadway!”
In the 1980s, Salonga was among many starry-eyed teenagers who vied for attention in German Moreno’s afternoon youth show, “That’s Entertainment,” aired from the Broadway Centrum studio in Quezon City.
That she managed to rise above “That’s Entertainment” (not to mention another 1980s cult schlock fest, “Ninja Kids”) was a testament to her almost incredible gift, matched with an iron will, as illustrated in the mega-production “Miss Saigon” on the West End and Broadway.
‘Formidable’
These are the same personal qualities highlighted in a recent New York Times review.
In the prestigious paper’s May 25 issue, Stephen Holden wrote a rave review about Salonga’s performance in a three-week concert series at the Café Carlyle that ends tomorrow.
Holden described Salonga as “a performer whose formidable talent is matched by her unstoppable drive and keen intelligence.”
The Filipina’s third outing at the Carlyle, dubbed “Back to Before,” is a tribute to her idols Barbra Streisand and Ella Fitzgerald. Holden reported, “As Broadway divas go, [Salonga] is a cut above most.”
Holden said Salonga’s rendition of standards (for instance, “The Song Is You,” “Manhattan,” “How Long Has This Been Going On”) “[was] delivered with an almost machinelike perfection.”
Unapologetic
The critic said Salonga’s “unusually strong and focused interpretation” of “Greatest Love of All” (Whitney Houston’s early hit) was apt because its “message of unapologetic self-reliance resonated with (Salonga’s) show business biography.”
Holden, however, noted that, in treading gentler terrain like the lullaby “I Won’t Mind” or Stephen Sondheim’s oeuvre, Salonga “demonstrated her comfort in a more intimate, psychologically subtle mode.”
The piece was titled, “Serenely indomitable, whatever the challenge.”