Concert review: A Nightingale Sings

Lani is truly a ‘Derivative Diva’

Lani Misalucha is more ape than nightingale – or, sticking to the avian metaphor, singers are often subjected to more mynah than nightingale. If ever her career fails to take flight, she can doubtlessly sell thousands of fake Whitney Houston CDs all over Southeast Asia. In the light of the recent Miss Earth pageant, she should be crowned Miss Photocopy (powder not ink).

That above is less an insult than a salute to her astounding capacity to mimic other artists. At her concert A Nightingale Sings, she copied "divas" past and current, local and foreign: Zsa Zsa Padilla, Jaya, Pilita Corrales, Katy de la Cruz, Kuh Ledesma, Barbra Streisand, Toni Braxton and Whitney Houston. So good a mimic was she that we weren’t sure if we were at the hallowed Cultural Center and not at a nightclub watching a gay impersonator.

Her gift is uncanny. She cloned the "divine diva" (redundant title) Zsa Zsa Padilla down to the last detail, from her nasal tones to her aspirated T’s and P’s. She was also a credible Pilita Corrales. Asia’s Queen of Song never arched her back so low nor hit a note so high. Her specialty, however, was clearly Whitney Houston. Viewed from Balcony II, she was Whitney Houston: looks, voice, mannerism, and style. Her rendition of Streisand was not so convincing–where the nails? the self-conscious flick of the bangs? the rubbery contortions of lower lip? – but she broke the last note of Some Good Things Never Last the way "Babs" would have. One wonders how she would have rendered Mariah Carey (with wonder bra and asthmatic wheezes?). Or Celine Dion (with prosthetic chin and in androgynous suits?). Should the fake-CD enterprise fail, she has the glamorous alternative of singing in "Forbidden Broadway," although in these anthrax-ridden times, Broadway is forbidden.

Ms. Misalucha is already known as the "Reclining Diva." She should be given another title: the Derivative Diva. For parts of the concert produced a sense of deja vu. Consider:

1. Ms. Misalucha steps out of a birdcage that resembles a prop from a music video of Jaya’s.

2. Of all operatic arias to sing, she chooses Nessun Dorma, a song that Aretha Franklin sang at her VH-1 diva concert last year.

3. She speaks to disembodied voices (Jon Santos’s and Aga Muhlach’s) and complains that people mispronounce her name, a feature of Streisand’s last two concerts and, indeed, her entire career ("My friend Liza has the Z. I’m Streisand with an S, like sand on the beach").

That is not to say that the concert was bad. On the contrary, it was probably one of the best shows of the year. It at the very least raised questions, for instance, about the dialectics of "high art" and "low art" (giant loudspeakers hung in front of Hernando Ocampo’s Genesis, an operatic aria sung with the aid of amplifiers), the codes of the diva cult (Ms. Misalucha’s five costume changes, her belting contest with Kuh Ledesma in Tell Him – a number, it must be said, that always induces gay members in the audience to tumultuous applause), and the "liminal" nature of imitation (travesty of tribute? artistic bankruptcy or playful "postmodern depthlessness"?).

As entertainment, the concert was great expectations consummated, the performers being among the best: the PPO conducted by Gerald Salonga, the Madrigal Singers, Tony Maigue, Ramon Acoymo, and Kuh Ledesma. And then there is Lani Misalucha herself. Her rendition of I Have Nothing sounds impeccably like Whitney Houston’s plakang-plaka, as they say, it is not a version; it is a copy.

"Ay, there’s the rub," Ms. Misalucha’s gift of mimicry ironically gets in the way of her singing. It isn’t that she sings recycled material, it is that she adds too little of herself to the songs she covers. Singers used to be called interpreters. It did’t matter that they were singing songs older than they were or songs other singers had recorded. Originality was in the interpretation – the singer’s personal signature. A diva must have a voice of her own, just as a goddess is a mistress of something, be it a virtue or a vice (or just parrots and mynahs). At the moment, Ms. Misalucha is more Helen of the many voices than Hera, Queen of Olympus, and is, in pedestrian terms, about as original as a fax machine. (How different is she, it is tempting to ask, from the next boy band mouthing a Bee Gees or even Aga Muhlach attempting a Michael Jackson?)

But as Helen’s was the face that launched a thousand ships, so Ms. Misalucha’s is the voice that can delight a thousand ears, as it did at the Cultural Center, as it does everywhere she performs. It is a remarkable instrument, strong without being strident, high without being shrill. It is resonant and incredibly plastic, capable of many shades and textures, able to sustain tortuous passages with ease and even panache. Her performance reminded me of what a composer had written for the jacket of a singer’s first album: "Did you ever hear Helen Morgan sing? Were you ever at the theater when Fanny Brice clowned in her classic comedic way or when Beatrice Lillie deliciously poked fun at all sham and pomp? Have you heard our top vocalists ‘belt,’ ‘whisper’ or sing with that steady and urgent beat behind them? Have you ever seen a painting by Modigliani? If you have, do not think the above has been ballooned out of proportion."

That was the great Harold Arlen introducing Barbra Streisand 40 years ago. He could very well be describing Lani Misalucha. When this woman of many voices finds her own singular voice, the annals of Philippine popular music would be felicitous. For now, let us heed Harold Arlen’s words: "Keep listening, keep watching. And please remember, I told you so."