Maria Lea Carmen Imutan Salonga, KLD (born February 22, 1971), known as Lea Salonga (), is a Filipina singer and actress best known for her roles in musical theatre, for supplying the singing voices of two Disney Princesses, and as a recording artist and television performer. At age 18, she originated the lead role of Kim in the musical Miss Saigon, first in the West End and then on Broadway, winning the Olivier and Theatre World Awards, and becoming the first Asian woman to win a Tony Award. Salonga is the first Filipino artist to sign with an international record label (Atlantic Records in 1993). She is also the first Philippine-based artist to have received a major album release and distribution deal in the United States, and one of the best-selling Filipino artists of all time, having sold over 19 million copies of her albums worldwide.

Maria Lea Carmen Imutan Salonga was born at Medical Center Manila in Ermita, Manila, to Feliciano Genuino Salonga, a naval Rear admiral and shipping company owner (1929-2016), and his wife, Maria Ligaya Alcantara, nee Imutan. She spent the first six years of her childhood in Angeles City before moving to Manila. Her brother, Gerard Salonga, is a conductor.  She made her professional debut in 1978 at the age of seven in the musical The King and I with Repertory Philippines. She played the title role in Annie in 1980 and appeared in other productions such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, The Rose T, The Goodbye Girl (1982), Paper Moon (1983) and The Fantasticks (1988). In 1981, she recorded her first album, Small Voice, which was certified gold in the Philippines. In 1985, she and her brother took part in the eighth Metro Manila Popular Music Festival as the interpreters for the song entry titled "Musika, Lata, Sipol at La La La" which was composed by Tess Concepcion.  During the 1980s, Salonga also had several television projects through GMA Radio Television Arts where she worked as a child actor and teen idol. After the success of her first album, from 1983 to 1985, she hosted her own musical television show, Love, Lea, and was a member of the cast of German Moreno's teen variety show That's Entertainment. She acted in films, which included the family-oriented Tropang Bulilit, Like Father, Like Son, Ninja Kids, Captain Barbell and Pik Pak Boom. As a young performer, Salonga received a Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS) award nomination for Best Child Actress, and three Aliw Awards for best child performer in 1980, 1981 and 1982. She released her second album, Lea, in 1988.  She also opened for, and performed with, international acts such as Menudo and Stevie Wonder in their concerts in Manila in 1985 and in 1988, respectively.  She finished her secondary education in 1988 at the O. B. Montessori Center in Greenhills, San Juan, Metro Manila, where she was a Bergamo 1 Student and an active participant in school productions. She also attended the University of the Philippines College of Music's extension program aimed at training musically talented children in music and stage movement. A college freshman studying biology at the Ateneo de Manila University when she auditioned for Miss Saigon, she intended to have a medical career. Later, in between jobs in New York, she took two courses at Fordham University's Lincoln Center.  In 1989 Salonga was selected to play Kim in the debut production of the musical Miss Saigon in London. Unable to find a strong enough East Asian actress/singer in the United Kingdom, the producers scoured many countries looking for the lead. For her audition, the then 17-year-old Salonga chose to sing Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg's "On My Own" from Les Miserables and was later asked to sing "Sun and Moon", impressing the audition panel. Salonga has sometimes credited "On My Own" as the starting point of her international career. She competed for the role with childhood friend and fellow Repertory Philippines performer Monique Wilson. Salonga won the lead role, while Wilson was named her understudy and given the role of the bar girl Mimi.  For her performance as Kim, Salonga won the 1990 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Musical. When Miss Saigon opened on Broadway in 1991, she again played the role of Kim, winning the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World Awards and becoming the first woman of Asian descent to win a Tony Award. In 1993 and 1996, she returned to play Kim on Broadway. In 1999, she was invited back to London to close the West End production, and in 2001, at the age of 29 and after finishing the Manila run of the musical, Salonga returned to Broadway to close that production.  In 1990, Salonga performed in a homecoming concert in Manila entitled A Miss Called Lea. She also received a Presidential Award of Merit from President Corazon Aquino. In 1991, she was named as one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. In 1992, she performed the singing voice of Princess Jasmine in Disney's animated film Aladdin.  In 1993, Salonga played the role of Eponine in the Broadway production of Les Miserables. She performed the song "A Whole New World" from Aladdin with Brad Kane at the 65th Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, where the song won an Oscar, having already won a Golden Globe Award. That same year, she released her self-titled international debut album with Atlantic Records, which had modest sales in the US but went platinum in the Philippines and sold 3 million copies worldwide. In 1994, Salonga played in various musical theatre productions in the Philippines and Singapore, such as Sandy in Grease, Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and the Witch in Into the Woods.  Back in the US in 1995, Salonga played the role of Geri Riordan, an 18-year-old adopted Vietnamese American child in the Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie Redwood Curtain, which starred John Lithgow and Jeff Daniels. She then flew back to the Philippines to star with Filipino matinee idol Aga Muhlach in the critically acclaimed film Sana Maulit Muli, which gave her a second Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS) award nomination, this time for Best Actress. She played the role of Eponine in the 10th anniversary production of Les Mis called Les Miserables: The Dream Cast in Concert at London's Royal Albert Hall.  In 1996, Salonga was in Les Miserables once again as Eponine in the London production of the musical, then continued on to perform the role in the musical's US national tour. In the Philippines in 1999, and again in 2000, she played Sonia Walsk in They're Playing Our Song.

Answer the following question by taking a quote from the article: Which part did she play in Les Mis?
In 1996, Salonga was in Les Miserables once again as Eponine in the London production of the musical,