SINGAPORE – There are divas - such as A-Mei, Jolin Tsai and the late Anita Mui - who wow audiences with their fast dance songs, popular ballads and formidable stage presence. And then there are divas like Tsai Chin, who really only needs her magnificent voice, her trusty golden microphone and band of musicians to blow you away.

It was a privilege just to witness the Taiwanese singer’s breathtaking performance in person. Sitting among a predominantly middle-aged audience at The Star Theatre last night (July 11), I felt goosebumps on my skin from the start, when the 57-year-old songstress began serenading her audience with covers of famous classics from her youth, such as Mystery Woman, First Love Girl and Waiting.

Tsai also did an excellent job performing her own, very moving renditions of tunes by the late Anita Mui, Teresa Teng and Feng Fei Fei; breathing life back into some of their classic hits, such as Intimate Lover, The Moon Represents My Heart and Applause.

One reason why I found the show so enjoyable – even though many of the songs she sang became popular before I was born – was the fact that Tsai stopped to introduce and give context to nearly every song on her set list before performing them. Knowing why certain songs were arranged a specific way, why we have to pay close attention to the lyrics of some songs, and why she chose to perform them at all, made each song come alive. It was as if I was listening to dozens of beautifully-written stories, told, of course, by a masterful storyteller.

I also loved how much Tsai herself had fun on stage. The singer praised herself generously (because, why be self-deprecating when you can acknowledge how awesome you are, right?) and told her crew to turn on the fan on stage so her dress could fly in the wind as she sang. She even made everyone in the audience sing along, before jokingly chiding them.

“Your voices are ... very weak,” she said before demanding that they sing the chorus to her song, Read You, again and again until she was satisfied.

At the end of the show, after she had gone through the most popular songs from her illustrious three-decade career, Tsai Chin told her audience that she no longer only sang with her voice, but with her life and soul and every fibre of her being – and that she would continue singing until she could no longer do so. If the audience’s reaction was anything to go by, I am certain that they, like me, will return to listen to her again until we no longer can.