Lea Salonga: Sun & moon sharing her sky

(Conclusion)

She is a symphony of God’s benevolence, a mother’s faith, a father’s high standards and a husband’s steadfast support

Lea Salonga, the most internationally-acclaimed Filipino vocal artist, has a wellspring from where she draws the emotion that intensifies her performances.

“You have to experience a lot of life in order to sing about it,” she tells us.

So, from which experiences does she draw the raw emotion that accompanies most of her songs?

“Again, from the blanks that people tend to fill,” Lea replies. Seriously.

“People fill in the blanks, thinking it’s one thing — but it’s not. There’s not a human being on earth who knows everything about me. Not even my mother,” she asserts and when her mother Ligaya gives her a surprised look, Lea quips, “Well, I don’t know everything about her either!”

“There are things about everybody in my life that I don’t know. There’s always a little bit of mystery for each of them. There are things I don’t know about my brother, there are things that I don’t always know about my husband and there are things my husband doesn’t know about me, either. If you put together a group of people, then you’ll be able to paint a more complete picture of me. For instance, my husband doesn’t know what I’m like in the coaching room,” she laughs. Lea is a passionate coach in The Voice of the Philippines, where she mentors aspiring singers in the televised competition and gets to compete at the same time with the other coaches (Apl.de.ap, Sarah Geronimo and Bamboo).

“I enjoy getting to mentor people on The Voice, even if it’s not for a full year, it’s only for the lifetime of the show. But it’s like all of a sudden, here are 14 people that trust you and I have to trust them, and these are the people who I’m absolutely passionate and crazy about,” she shares, saying mentoring aspiring singers is her way of giving back and paying it forward.

“I got that passion for mentoring and coaching from my mother,” she reveals, recalling how Ligaya went door-to-door in Raon selling her then nine-year-old daughter’s singles when the established recording companies turned them down.

She also has that spirit of competitiveness that’s all her own.

“I don’t like losing,” she declares. So she works at it.

* * *

Thirty-four years after she recorded her first single, and 25 years after the hit musical Miss Saigon that emblazoned her name on the world’s marquee of world-class performers, Lea Salonga is still on a roll.

A recent Aliw Lifetime Achievement awardee, Lea remembers her very first Aliw Award. “It was 1980, I was nine and it was the first award I ever got (for Best Child Performer). I ran to the stage. I left my brother behind. My mom instructed him to escort me but I left him in the dust. I ran and I received the award. When I went back to my seat, he was crying because I left him behind.”

She also remembers how the Laurence Olivier she received for portraying “Kim” in Miss Saigon opened a whole new world for her. She received the Olivier for Best Actress in a Musical for Miss Saigon in 1989, her first award from an international body.

Lea and daughter Nicole on PeopleAsia magazine’s May 2007 issue; Lea is one of PeopleAsia magazine’s People of the Year, a prestigious award reserved for only the best and the brightest in their fields.

“It was the one I didn’t think I would win. The competition was tough and it was people like Elaine Page, Judy Kuhn — these were people whose voice I loved and  respected and I was a fan of the both of them. So when my name was called up the stage, Gerard was just screaming, he was so happy. It was a nail-biter. We were holding hands waiting for the award and then we heard my name and we both just exploded out of our feet!”

* * *

And now, for the other, perhaps brighter, glow that lights her sky. Lea and husband Rob Chien were married on Jan. 10, 2004 in Los Angeles. The marriage is blessed with an eight-year-old daughter Nicole.

Their marriage has endured like a Broadway hit because he understood from the start that her career and her personal life were like sun and moon. One basked in the light of the other. She needed them both.

“My husband said it really nicely and he said this early in our relationship. He said, ‘Honey, you are in the position to inspire people, why would I want to take this away from you? Why would I want to make you stop doing what you’re doing given what you do? It’s like, ‘I married the right guy!’ And he gets it.”

Despite her passion to succeed and her competitiveness, Lea will turn down a singing or acting engagement abroad if it would mean spending more than six months away from her family. Rob’s work is flexible so he gets to spend time with her abroad, as he did during the 25th anniversary gala of Miss Saigon in London this year.

“I’m glad that he has a much more fluid schedule and he can do a lot of things remotely so it’s nice and that’s the kind of ideal scenario that we’re not apart for too long, three or four weeks probably is the max we do. We’ve been together for more than 11 years.”

But since Nicole is in school, she cannot just take time off to be with her parents.  Learning from her own mother’s example — Ligaya says she would have missed Lea’s talent for singing if she were not a hands-on mother —  Lea wants quantity as well as quality time with Nicole.

When she gets an offer to perform abroad, Lea, who endorses Philip Stein watches, asks herself, “Is it worth it?”

“My daughter is eight, she’s active in school, it would be unfair to her to leave her from six months to a year to do a show. My agent knows how I feel about this. If it’s while my daughter is on vacation, March, April, May, that’s okay. My work is just at night and during the day there are all these museums and all these things that we can do together and that’s manageable. But to leave her for six months…” Lea shakes her head. “I’m glad I was there for her First Communion and I was there when she had a big school production, taking pictures and being the typical parent.”

Perhaps Lea’s secret to her work-life balance is that she makes time for what is essential. Time for herself (she goes to Facial Care Centre, she works out and makes sure she gets enough sleep every day), for her loved ones, for her career, for her country.

“I don’t know if I could wish for anything more for either my professional or personal life and there seems to be a balance between the two.”

Sun and moon sharing the sky. She has been blessed.

PeopleAsia magazine May 2007 cover credits: Photography by Xander Angeles of Edge of Light • Styling by Ferdi Salvador

• Makeup and hairstyling by Steven Doloso

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