It's been 25 years since Miss Saigon's original production made its debut in London. To celebrate the occasion, a Gala performance took place at the Prince Edward Theatre in London. Those of us who couldn't be there to see stars Lea Salonga, Jonathan Pryce and Simon Bowman take the stage to celebrate the musical aren't out of luck though. The half-hour video showcasing the gala's finale has been put online for our viewing pleasure. Check it out below...
What a great finale! The video puts Lea Salonga back into the role of Kim (kind of) as she sings "The Movie in my Mind" and "Last Night of the World." Both performances show off her incredible vocals, and there's a bit of humor worked into "Last Night of the World," when Salonga and Simon Bowman were joined by the current Miss Saigon stars Eva Noblezada and Alistair Brammer. Things took a turn for the surreal when the couples switched partners. Looks like they were having a lot of fun with that performance. The same can certainly be said for Jonathan Pryce's amazing "American Dream" performance with current Engineer Jon Jon Briones. The whole finale seems like the perfect sequence to elevate the mood at the gala as the event closed out.
Hopefully the full 25th Anniversary Gala will air on TV and/or be put on DVD at some point, much in the way the Les Miserables did with their own Anniversary Concert a few years back. In the meantime, if you want to hear the full production, BBC Radio 2 currently has the full three-hour event available to listen to on their site for the next six days. It's pretty fantastic, to say the least.
Set during the Vietnam War, Miss Saigon tells the story of a Vietnamese prostitute who falls for an American GI not long before Saigon fell. The musical opened in September of 1989 at the Theatre Royal in London. It opened on Broadway in 1991 and has played in other parts of the globe in the years that have followed, all leading up to a 2014 West End revival. The story is based on Madame Butterfly, with music from Claude-Michele Schonberg, lyrics by Alain Boubill and Richard Maltby, Jr., and the book by. Schonberg and Boublil, who collaborated together on Les Miserables as well.
The above video isn't the only recent demonstration that Lea Salonga is still a sensation. Just yesterday, we shared the viral video of Salonga performing Aladdin's "A Whole New World" with IL Divo. Check that out here.
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