Award-winning Disney and Broadway star Lea Salonga is revealing that her Catholic past informs her approach to Christmas ahead of her performance in a PBS-televised holiday program.
“As someone that grew up Catholic, I was raised to believe that Christmas was a season of, above all else, hope and love,” the Filipina actress and singer told Our Sunday Visitor. “The years have not diminished that at all for me. If anything, the older I get, the more hopeful I need to be, if only for the sake of generations to come.”
The 52 year old is perhaps most famous for singing as Princess Jasmine and Fa Mulan in the 1992 and 1998 Disney movies “Aladdin” and “Mulan” as well as starring in the musical “Miss Saigon” in London’s West End and on Broadway.
In multiple past interviews, Salonga shared that, early on in her career, God sent her a sign during Mass to continue to use her gifts at a time when she was considering quitting show business. The sign came during a homily on the biblical parable about a master who entrusts his “talents,” or money, to servants who either use or hide them.
“I’m not particularly religious anymore, but I do still believe in a higher power,” Salonga told Our Sunday Visitor. “My life and career seem to continue to be guided by an unseen hand, taking me to where I need to be at that moment in time.”
“I don’t take any of my borrowed talents for granted and try to share what I have with a grateful heart, thankful to be chosen to do what it is I do, and try to empower others to do the same just by doing it,” she added.
Salonga made her comments ahead of her performance in “Season of Light: Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir,” a 90-minute Christmas celebration that will premiere on television and online on Dec. 12 at 8 p.m. ET on PBS and Dec. 17 at 8 p.m. ET on BYUtv.
A celebration of Christ’s birth
The 20th annual concert features both Salonga and the English actor Sir David Suchet. The pre-recorded performance will include everything from Christmas carols and an emotional World War II-era song performed by Salonga in Tagalog to an inspirational story told by Suchet of English stockbroker Sir Nicholas Winton, who saved hundreds of endangered Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia ahead of World War II. At the end, his son makes a surprise appearance — and shares life lessons he learned from his father.
A cast of 500 people including The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, Bells at Temple Square, and Gabriel Trumpet Ensemble performed the recorded program in front of live audiences last year at the Conference Center at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, which is associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
During the entire performance, Salonga wears a cross necklace and comments on the story of Christ’s birth.
“The Christmas story reminds us that if we’re with family, we’re home,” she tells the audience during a concert full of singing and dancing by adults and children alike. “That’s how it was for the Holy Family in Bethlehem on that first blessed, holy night.”
At another point, she urges that the Nativity story means something special to women and, in particular, mothers.
“Mary is not just another character in the Bible,” Salonga stresses. “She is a mother, a first-time mother with a unique role and responsibility. I still remember my feelings when I learned I was expecting a daughter.”
“Christmas, for us, includes thinking about new life coming into the world and nurturing the next generation,” she adds. “It’s the story we all share as women.”
The peace and joy of Christmas
If viewers take away one thing from watching the program, Salonga hopes that they feel a “sense of peace and joy the Christmas season brings,” she told Our Sunday Visitor.
“The music in this particular special brings such a sense of that, and getting to perform it last year was such a blast!” she exclaimed.
During a Q&A in London on Nov. 5, Salonga expressed gratitude for being a part of the performance.
“It’s a presentation that is clearly filled with a lot of love from every department, including the high-fiving children, the music selected, the stories shared — definitely it is a highlight of my own career,” she said, adding that she is “thankful to have been a part of something so wonderful.”
