Is Streisand Changing the Tides? : Pop music: Her Vegas concerts and the success of her recent recordings seem to mark a renewed interest in her long-neglected singing career.

When the rumors began a month ago that Barbra Streisand might perform live at the soon-to-open MGM Grand Hotel, Casino & Theme Park in Las Vegas, the hotel began receiving telephone inquiries numbering in the thousands each week.

Then on Wednesday, when the hotel announced that Streisand will, indeed, give two concerts--one on New Year’s Eve and a second on New Year’s Day--a deluge of fans flooded the Grand’s switchboard with an estimated 13,000 calls.

Based on that kind of interest, Richard Sturm, the Grand’s senior vice president of marketing and entertainment, expects the 30,000 tickets for the two performances will sell out “in very short time” when they go on sale Sunday, despite prices ranging from a “low” of $100 to $1,000 per seat.

Streisand will be paid $20 million for the two shows, according to several reports. The Streisand camp would not comment on those reports and had no official explanation about why she chose to do the shows.

“She just does what she wants to do,” said a Streisand associate.

Sources close to the star believe she has lately been considering taking to the road again, continuing what appears to be a renewed interest in her music career after years of moviemaking. In 1991, following a six-year hiatus from the music studio, she released a four-disc set and her current recording, “Back to Broadway,” has sold nearly 1.5 million copies.

For Streisand, widely regarded as the most celebrated female singer of the modern pop era, the Vegas performances will be the first concerts for which she has been paid to perform since she opened the Las Vegas International Hotel in 1969.

That hotel, now the Las Vegas Hilton, was built by businessman Kirk Kerkorian, who built the original MGM Grand (now Bally’s) and is the financier behind the new MGM Grand. Streisand’s only other live performances in the intervening years have been for environmental or political causes. She sang for President Clinton during televised inaugural festivities in January.

Sturm said the concert “just seemed to be the right timing--the fact that we’re building the largest hotel in the world, the nearness of New Year’s Eve and Streisand’s own interest in performing. We thought there was no more preeminent entertainer in the world.”

Whatever the cost, the announcement of Streisand’s concerts and the resulting media attention will surely have its public relations benefits.

Streisand will perform in the 15,000-seat MGM Grand Garden, a multi-use arena, which is one of three at the $1-billion, 5,005-room hotel that is scheduled to open officially on Dec. 18.

The concerts will be videotaped by Smith-Hemion Productions for a yet-to-be-determined use. According to a report by Daily Variety columnist Army Archerd, Marvin Hamlisch will be Streisand’s music director conducting a 62-piece orchestra.

Archerd also reported that Frank Sinatra will headline New Year’s week in the hotel’s Grand Theatre, a 1,700-seat facility. Sturm said he could not comment one way or the other on that report. But he did confirm that, in addition to Streisand that week, there would be big-name performers playing the Grand Theatre, as well as in a third showroom, the 650-seat Hollywood Theatre.

Tickets go on sale at 9 a.m. Sunday morning by telephone only. The numbers are (800) 929-1111 or (702) 891-7777.