If you don't immediately know Lea Salonga's name, you most definitely know her voice.
The Filipina singer and actress has been one of musical theatre's biggest stars for over 25 years and is currently touring Australia as part of a national singing tour.
Yet she very nearly ended up down a different career path: that of a doctor.
Having started acting and singing at the young age of seven, Salonga was a 17-year-old pre-med student when – following an international talent search - she won the role of Kim in the debut production of Miss Saigon in London.
It was a part that not only changed her life, but changed the lives of countless other musical theatre hopefuls who suddenly saw diversity presented on an international stage in way it hadn’t been before.
“I think it's a season by season thing,” Salonga says of diversity in musical theatre.
“You have a season like when Hamilton came up, but at the same time Allegiance was up there and then you had Deaf West doing Spring Awakening… it’s mind-blowing, I saw Hamilton twice.
Source: AAP
“So it was an incredibly diverse Broadway season, but that doesn't mean the next season is going to be as diverse.
“But I do laud producers who are brave enough to say ‘you know what, we just need to get the best people for this - so we will cast the best people for this. Period’.
“My stance on all of this casting stuff is if race is that uncredited character in a show - like it would be with a show like Porgy and Bess or The King and I where it's very clear you need to have Asians and the British - in a show like that - South Pacific as well is included in that - you have to cast it accurately: racially accurately. Miss Saigon is the same thing.
“But if it's a show like Les Mis where race isn't spoken of, where it doesn’t matter, then get the best people who can sing it and that’s it.”
" ... it was an incredibly diverse Broadway season, but that doesn't mean the next season is going to be as diverse."
Salonga won the 1990 Laurence Olivier Award for her role in Miss Saigon and went on to become the first woman of Asian descent to win a Tony Award.
And while her musical theatre career has spanned classics like Les Miserables and Grease, to a whole generation of people she’s known for something else: the singing voice of Jasmine in Disney’s mega-hit Aladdin.
“It started with The Little Mermaid then Beauty and the Beast and then we were the third one,” she says.
“I grew up having listened to Cinderella so I was very aware of what these songs can do - not so much for my career but they become these familiar things to so many kids and so many families in that people listen to these songs as children and then pass it on to their kids.
“So just realising how big Aladdin became and how big that song became, it’s just really amazing and it’s the gift that keeps on giving.”
Performing that song at the Oscars in 1993, she would go on to play a beloved Disney princess a second time in 1998 as the singing voice of Mulan.
Yet musicals are once again playing a big part in Hollywood, with La La Land set to be the favourite at this year’s Oscars - something she has mixed feelings on.
Source: The Feed
“Every movie musical is its own different monster, its own different creation.
“It depends on what the script called for and what the directors vision was. Like, if he was really specific about people who didn’t sing but needed to be seen in a musical then that’s all fine and good.
“Then you have something like Into The Woods where everyone is a musical theatre professional and you have people like James Corden, Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep, Lilla Crawford – you have all these people who actually have incredible voices.
“My view on movie musicals is you have to do justice to the script, whatever that vision happens to be.
“If you're supposed to be the every man or the every woman then you can't really be sounding like Meryl Streep would when she sings, because she’s a wonderful singer.
“You do what is demanded of the story.”
Lea Salonga plays at the Sydney Opera House on Friday, Feb 3 and Saturday, Feb 4 before dates in Melbourne at the Arts Centre on Tuesday, Feb 7 and Wednesday, Feb 8.
