STREISAND DOES IT HER WAY

“THE BROADWAY ALBUM.” Barbra Streisand. Columbia.

Streisand doing theater songs--a perfectly good idea for an album. And she is right on the money when she simply deals with the material, as in “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man” (to a tasty harmonica obbligato by Stevie Wonder) and “Send in the Clowns.” A “Porgy and Bess” medley goes well, too. When Streisand puts herself in the service of a song, she makes it her own.

When the reverse occurs--disaster. For example, the album begins with a lengthy, partly spoken, partly sung scena in which Streisand pleads for the right to do this album her way, versus various male voices who declare that Middle America won’t get it.

The music here is Sondheim’s ironic “State of the Art,” from “Sunday in the Park With George.” Streisand, no ironist, turns it into a testimonial to her own artistic valor. You’ll never know what I went through to bring you these songs! A good way to spoil our appetite to hear them.

Nothing else on the album is that embarrassing, but the more complicated the arrangement, the more problematic the result. “If I Loved You,” for instance, is sweet and true, while a yoking of Sondheim’s “Pretty Women” (from “Sweeney Todd”) and “The Ladies Who Lunch” (from “Company”) seems an attempt to make a comment about women, without the comment.

Finally, a ridiculously overblown arrangement of “Somewhere” (from “West Side Story”) that calls to mind the transfiguration scene from “Cats,” complete with heavenly choir and ectoplasmic Philip Glass arpeggios--Streisand’s voice supplying the lasers.

“Barbra envisioned this song in an electronic setting and asked (arranger) David Foster to place it in a new environment: space,” explain Alan and Marilyn Bergman in their liner notes. “There’s a glimpse of infinity in it. Like this album.” Well, there are some nice things on it.