I have neglected to mention that this summer, I saw the same production of Aida three times in the same week, as well as a production of Singing in the Rain that was only worth seeing once. And, as much as I enjoy the local theatre, I wish I could take more trips to big cities to see more Broadway-quality productions.
So, I was very excited to hear that Lea Salonga was performing at BYU.
Who is that? you may be asking yourself. She is probably more familiar to you than you might think. She is the singing voice of Princess Jasmine in Aladdin, as well as Mulan. Additionally, she was the original Kim in Miss Saigon, and the first Asian Fantine and Eponine in Les Miserables. In fact, she has appeared on both of the Les Miz specials that have aired on PBS. You could think of her as the Filipina Kristin Chenoweth, if that helps you. She ranks up there with Ming Na and Keiko Agena in terms of Asian/Asian American entertainer heroines of mine.
But I didn't decide until the last minute that I wanted to go, so I went alone. I bought my ticket online 2 hours before the show started and just stayed at work until it was time to go over to the HFAC where the show was.
The show was AWESOME! She sang some of my favorite Broadway songs, from "On the Street Where You Live," from My Fair Lady, to "I Dreamed a Dream," from Les Miz, to "For Good," from Wicked, and even a little Sondheim.
But she didn't stop there. She sang the songs she sang in Disney movies and invited an audience member to sing the part of Aladdin in "A Whole New World." She sang a song in Tagalog, and covered the Beatles and Lady Gaga (in English).
At that performance, BYUtv was filming a segment for a show called "The Song That Changed My Life." For that segment, she sang "On My Own," also from Les Miserables. In high school, this was probably my favorite Broadway song, and her performance was so incredible. Neither of these is the reason I had tears in my eyes. I became very conscious of the fact that they were filming, and my throat got dry, like I needed to cough. While I held it in for the entire song, my eyes started to water.
Some other thoughts I had about the performance:
- I had awesome seats. I think I was 10th row, dead center. The problem (that I often forget) with me being in the center of an audience is that I am shorter than just about everybody, and, invariably, someone really tall will come sit down in front of me just before the performance starts, blocking my view. That was exactly what happened. The seating was tiered, but this guy had to be 6'3" or something, with a head the size of my brother Danny's.
I have added this picture of a doll to give some perspective. Imagine the cake part is actually someone's head, and that the doll is the part of Lea that was not blocked by the aforementioned head when I was sitting tall in my seat. There has got to be a better way to arrange seating. If they had a box to check that asked if you were under 5' and would have trouble seeing, I would happily check that box and be moved further away in order to be able to see.
- I have never seen so many Asians in together in Provo before. Where do they go the rest of the time?
- While I think, in this case, she definitely deserved it, people at BYU are not very discriminating in who or what they will give a standing ovation.
- There were a lot of older people in the audience who seemed really confused by "Poker Face." As I was trying to leave for home, I waited while a car full of these same people backed out of their space an inch at a time, and then made a 50-point turn.
