According to a Tony-winning two-time Disney princess, performing with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square is hard to describe.
“I don’t know that I have the right word for it,” Lea Salonga said, “but it is quite something to be surrounded by that sound.”
And she said she’s been having great fun at the rehearsals — because she is not a member of the choir. Longtime director Mack Wilberg is “not always the nicest person,” Salonga said, “but he’s been nice to me. I can’t complain.”
What? The director of the Tabernacle Choir, the world-renowned performing troupe of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, isn’t nice?
“He’s a taskmaster to get as excellent a performance as he can out of 300 or so people,” Salonga said with a laugh. (The choir has 360 members.) “He’s got to do what he’s got to do. … Actually, I take pleasure in watching how a group of people are being rehearsed. And that’s actually a blessing to have someone as strict as him at the helm.”
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sir David Suchet joins The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square at this year's Christmas concert at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Dec. 15, 2022.
Sir David Suchet, that narrator of this year’s live Christmas program, said he, too, greatly enjoyed “just watching and listening to that choir and the orchestra, and watching Mack working with them. It was one of the greatest memories for me onstage. It’s wonderful. [Choir members] are so committed.”
Salonga, a native of the Philippines, won a Tony for her performance on Broadway in “Miss Saigon” and also starred in “Les Miserables.” She was also the singing voice of not one but two Disney princesses — Jasmine in “Aladdin” and the title character in “Mulan.”
Suchet, meanwhile, has a long list of credits stretching back to 1970. He is perhaps best known for his role as detective Hercule Poirot in 70 episodes of the TV series “Poirot” from 1989 to 2013.
“I’ve spent 53 years as an actor,” he said, “and most of my 53 years, surprisingly enough, has not been doing Poirot.”
Suchet has performed in theaters in the United Kingdom and around the world “with great companies like the Royal Shakespeare Company, where I was a member for 16 years. So classically trained actor coming from the United Kingdom into this space, the first thing is terror.”
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square sing during Thursday's Christmas concert at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Dec. 15, 2022.
He said he’s used to performing in front of audiences of 600 to 1,000. And to him, the 21.000-seat Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City seemed like “a football (soccer) stadium.” But he found the venue to be “very friendly. And so although this is terrifying, initially, you gradually let the space warm you up. … And then you find yourself working with people who are so used to doing this that you feel safe, and once you feel safe, then you can perform.”
Salonga echoed those thoughts. She said it “wasn’t that intimidating” to walk into the Conference Center for rehearsals, although it’s “quite an overwhelming sight. … But once there was an audience and once I saw that this place was full, the energy changes. The temperature changes, and it’s like — wow.”
Salonga and Suchet performed with the choir on Thursday, with additional performances scheduled for Friday and Saturday nights. The three concerts will be edited into next year’s edition of “Christmas With the Tabernacle Choir,” which will air nationally on PBS in December 2023. The program has generally been PBS’ top-rated holiday special since it began airing nationally in 2004.
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Broadway singer and actress Lea Salonga joins The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square at this year’s Christmas concert at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Dec. 15, 2022.
Wilberg had nothing but praise for Salonga and Suchet. He said Salonga “not only has a beautiful voice, but I have found that she’s really a fine musician in every sense of the word.” He said she has a “great ear … fantastic pitch” and quickly made adjustments as needed during the rehearsals.
And, he added, “I cannot think of anyone who could have told the story of Nicholas Winton as Sir David did.”
In addition to the holiday music, Suchet narrates the story of Sir Nicholas Winton, who saved hundreds of Jewish children from the Nazis during World War II. And the humanitarian’s son, Nick Winton, appears onstage toward the end of the Christmas program.
“This is a story with a call to action,” the younger Winton said. “And that helps sustain me because trying to fill my father’s shoes is not possible. So my small part is to help bring the story to people who haven’t heard it with the message that that could have been any one of us. We just have to get off the couch and do something instead of complaining.
“I guess that’s what sustains me through the blind terror,” he added, “of standing in front of so many people in such a highly charged emotional environment.”
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Broadway singer and actress Lea Salonga joins The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square at this year's Christmas concert at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Dec. 15, 2022.
He is not a performer, and he leaned on Suchet during Thursday’s performance. “Sir David has been very kind in mentoring me,” Winton noted, “and said, ‘I’ll worry for both of us. You just look at me and talk to me.’ And it made it something I can cope with.”
Suchet said the first time he read the script he “couldn’t get through it, because I found myself becoming emotional. … I have lost relatives in Auschwitz myself. I know my own history, my own past, and this is a message that needs to go out and people need to know about what Nicholas Winton did.”
“The takeaway is that there is still goodness in the world,” Salonga said. “And that there are still good people who are willing to stick their necks out for other people.”
This year marks a return to regular Christmas concerts in a packed Conference Center. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 concert was canceled (PBS aired highlights of previous shows in 2021), and the 2021 concert, which is airing this holiday season, was filmed in a largely empty Conference Center.
