The concert diva Celeste Legaspi

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BY GAY ACE DOMINGO

There is certainly more to singer-actress Celeste Legaspi than playing playing Ninang Cathy in the Donnie Pangilinan-Belle Mariano series, “Can’t Buy Me Love.” For more than five decades now, Celeste has enjoyed uninterrupted success as a performer on TV, stage, film, recording and concerts, and as an advocate of Filipino music and artists.

Being the daughter of National Artist for Visual Arts Cesar Legaspi and coloratura soprano Vitaliana Kalugdan, Celeste or Maricelle as she is nicknamed, certainly has art in her genes.

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Yet before her 20s, she contemplated on a career in nursing. That would all change when she received a call from composer Willy Cruz inviting her to join the singing group The Ambivalent Crowd. “I had just been given permission by my parents to take a break from my studies because I was disillusioned with the nursing course I was enrolled in,” Celeste recalled in a story she posted on Facebook.

The Ambivalent Crowd was a singing group that became popular in the 1970s through their hit records and well-attended live concerts. Celeste said, “Suddenly we were performing for bigger and bigger audiences. I was sooo far away from nursing and enjoying every minute.”

Celeste’s stint in The Ambivalent Crowd would introduce her to unique show concepts such as singing on a circle rake stage and donning multi-colored outfits for one act and then wearing all-white designer gowns and suits for the next. “I thought it was really cool. We were just kids and we were turning out stuff like that.”

When Celeste inevitably embarked on a solo career, her own shows and concerts, were – naturally – imaginative spectacles that displayed her amazing singing and mesmerized the audience.

For instance, in 1978, to herald the re-launch of the Manila Hotel, Celeste was invited to perform for a special show called “Manila As Time Goes By.” She collaborated with a brilliant team that included director Leo Rialp, writer Nestor Torre, and three outstanding creatives that would later become National Artists: musical director Ryan Cayabyab, choreographer Alice Reyes and set designer Salvador Bernal. To mark the changing of the eras, Celeste transformed from a 1920s suffragette (a woman seeking the right to vote) to a Carnival Queen (pre-war beauty queen), to a cabaret singer, to 1950s movie studio star Nida Blanca (with singer Hajji Alejandro as dancing partner Nestor de Villa). The finale was a performance of an original song composed for the hotel’s celebration.

“It was a great success with sold-out performances, a recorded soundtrack on vinyl plus added shows and rave reviews!” Celeste enthused.

For a subsequent Manila Hotel show, “Manila Manila Ngayon at Kailanman,” Celeste outdid herself with nine costume changes to chronicle the transformation of the Filipina from shy lass to sassy Pinay, thus also showing the development of the Filipino terno.

“I was a most willing performer with the idea of director Leo Rialp!” the singer recalled.

She continued, “The number quickly metamorphoses into different musical idioms as the years go by. The costumes start with a full Maria Clara with parasol and me doing shy fluttering lashes. In a blink of the eye I changed into eight other ternos! Some were half-ternos. some were full ternos. One had flowered butterfly sleeve; the other had sexy bugle beads ; one was dark violet with gold peacock shaped decorations; one was black lace, until finally there was Salvador Bernal’s take on a futuristic terno as the music reached its crescendo ending with me belting and sashaying away!”

Many nights were spent figuring out how to mount these seamlessly, leading to arguments within the production. “Oooh, it was very difficult to accomplish! Tempers went fast out the window. Nagalit si Leo kay Badong. Nainis ako kay Mr. C (Ryan Cayabyab) kasi ang hirap ng areglo,” Celeste revealed. “But when we opened and the audience was screaming and clapping bravos, we all loved each other again.”

Celeste’s major concerts in the 1980s were, likewise, marked by fabulous concepts that remain iconic to this day. For her “Komiks Konsiyerto” show, she dressed up as Darna for a number with Nanette Inventor and Mitch Valdes, and in a cowgirl outfit for a number with screen villains Max Alvarado and Dencio Padilla, and… no less than Action King, Fernando Poe, Jr. (FPJ).

For her “Celeste Sine, Sine” show in 1986, she paid tribute to Philippine cinema. No one else but a Celeste Legaspi could have gathered the biggest actors and performers of the time.

Celeste recounted, “We had Edu Manzano as a lech film director and Nanette Inventor as the ultra strict censors Board head and me as an aspiring film starlet in a sketch. I did a duet with THE Nora Aunor. We sang Florante’s ‘Handog.’

“Then we did this great sketch with the FPJ appearing on the huge screen and I’m talking to him standing on the stage and Max Alvarado, Dencio Padilla and Paquito Diaz would come to kidnap me and of course ‘Da King’ will get angry and shoot them from the screen and we had pyrotechnics on stage na binabaril sila. Ah! It was wonderful! Que sooo much fun!”

“Celeste Sine Sine” was capped with a Willy Cruz love song duet with Basil Valdez, and an OPM song entitled “Larawan” with Celeste singing a duet with herself on the big screen. “I believe we did that much earlier than Natalie Cole singing with her dad Nat on screen,” said Celeste.

The singer-actress still performs in shows and concerts; one of the biggest ones she did recently was 2017’s “Celeste: A Tribute Concert” at the Solaire Grand Ballroom.

Before the rise of big concerts that showed off flashy stuff, Celeste Legaspi pioneered in unique formats that were visual and auditory feasts, yet also touched the hearts of concertgoers. Happy Birthday concert diva, Miss Celeste!

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