It’s been a long time since a woman last headlined a major Waikiki showroom. Lani Misalucha fills that niche with her new show at the Magic of Polynesia Showroom in the Holiday Inn Waikiki Beachcomber Resort.

Hawaii has seen Misalucha before. She was here as a featured guest of the Society of Seven for a weekend show at the Hawaii Theatre in 2006. This time she’s a Waikiki headliner — and a good one.

She opens with an operatic number that segues into a powerful revival of "Queen of the Night." From there she delivers solid showroom renditions of classic pop hits and stretches out with a series of impressions: Britney Spears, Tina Turner, Celine Dion and "the ultimate diva of the universe," Diana Ross.

Oldies like "You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me" and "This Will Be," and a short medley of ABBA hits add variety.

The stage has been beautifully made over for Misalucha, and she adds to the visual elements of the show with her costume changes. "Gown changes" describes most of them, but she makes several smaller costume changes and adjustments onstage. The most notable onstage switch comes when she follows "Con Te Partiro" with a headbanging salute to Queen that pairs "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "We Are the Champions." With instrumental support from Robert Shinoda (guitar), Garin Poliahu (drums), Mark Tanouye (bass) and Michael Grande (keyboards), she pulls off the radical transition from modern opera to classic rock.

Misalucha also gets solid support from her backup singers, Starr Kalahiki and Christina Souza, who get a well-deserved showcase number of their own.

Waikiki being Waikiki, it’s inevitable the show would include its share of standard showroom material. There’s the basic "Where are you from?" segment ("How many people are here from China? How many from Japan? How many from Korea?") and the search for people who are celebrating something. There are also two crowd-participation numbers; one involves singing, the other, dancing. Neither seems intended to embarrass audience members, and no one is pulled up on stage and then pressured to perform.

One more thing: Hawaii residents who think of Misalucha as a "Filipino singer" should think of her instead as a female counterpart to the Society of Seven. Yes, her career as an entertainer began in the Philippines in the 1990s, but there were no Tagalog or Ilocano songs in the show on the Dec. 20 opening night, and no Tagalog or "Taglish" (Tagalog with random English words and phrases) dialogue.

Instead, there’s an imaginative medley in which a 5th Dimension hit, "If I Could Reach You," blossoms into an expansive rendition of "I Will Always Love You," and three Donna Summer hits for an encore.