POP MUSIC REVIEW : Streisand Stage Return a Lustrous Vegas Event : Her performance is like a one-woman Broadway show, employing autobiographical music and stories at the MGM Grand.

There was a magical moment during Barbra Streisand’s landmark concert here Saturday night when the noted perfectionist . . . goofed.

She got mixed up on the words to her own song, the 1976 hit “Evergreen.”

It was dramatic because one reason Streisand avoided formal concerts for 22 years was stage fright--the inability to re-shoot or re-record the way you can in studios.

Because the miscue Saturday was projected on a huge closed-circuit video screen, even those in the most remote areas of the MGM Grand Hotel’s 13,000-seat Grand Garden arena could see the startled look on Streisand’s face as she realized her error.

But rather than freeze, she smiled sheepishly and joked, “And it’s my own song.”

She then resumed the song, singing with the confidence and grace that characterized the rest of the evening’s performance.

In Friday’s opening show in the two-night stand, you could sense at times a nervousness and hesitation in Streisand’s manner.

On Saturday, she was radiant and relaxed, bolstered partly, she explained later, by the far more enthusiastic response from a star-studded crowd that included Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Gregory Peck, Jay Leno and Mel Gibson.

“Tonight was the way I hoped it would be,” Streisand said at her hotel suite reception after the show. “Everything felt right.”

Yet, she said, she still wasn’t ready to commit to a tour.

One of the arguments against it, she said: two movies that she wants to make. On the other hand, she’s clearly proud of this production and would like to see it become a television special.

The plan was to tape the Friday and Saturday concerts, but she canceled that aspect last week because she felt the nine cameras required would interfere with audience sight lines.

Another factor that no doubt will be on the side of at least a short tour will be the memories of these two nights.

No one walks away from a critical and commercial triumph this spectacular. Each concert grossed more than $6 million, thus twice doubling the previous record for a U.S. pop event.

Rather than simply a “greatest hits” run-through, the production was scripted along the autobiographical lines of a one-woman Broadway show.

She employed music and stories to reflect on such matters as childhood dreams, relationships, family ties and social responsibilities.

It was, in many ways, the tale of a survivor--reflecting both the independence that has long been a part of her public image as well as the insecurities of the private person.

“I don’t know why I am frightened,” she sang in the opening number, performing on a set resembling an elegant trilevel tea room in a Colonial mansion and backed by a 64-piece orchestra.

A customized version of the song “Everything’s As If We Never Said Goodbye,” from “Sunset Boulevard,” served as a statement of reacquaintance to her fans.

The version conveyed her anxiety about performing live, yet acknowledged the thrill of again being in front of an audience.

She then took us back to the days of her Brooklyn childhood when she fell in love with movies and music. In an especially effective moment, she shared the fantasy of singing with Marlon Brando in “Guys and Dolls.”

Through special effects, she even assumed Jean Simmons’ role in a clip from the film that was shown on the video screen as she sang along on the song “I’ll Know.”

Moving on to the adult years and the search for love, she alternated songs--from “What Is This Thing Called Love?” to “The Man That Got Away”--with humorous, mock conversations about the affairs of the heart.

After intermission, she sang two of her biggest ‘70s hits, “The Way We Were” and “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”--while wearing a striking white tux jacket over a floor-length skirt highlighted by a dramatic slit.

It’s a suit, she said, patterned after the one she wore at an inauguration gala--a suit that was attacked by a woman in a newspaper column as sending the message that even a strong, successful woman has to play the femme fatale role.

Just as Streisand mentioned the column a voice cried out from the audience, “Barbra, don’t listen to that woman.”

It was Mike Myers, of “Saturday Night Live” and “Wayne’s World,” in the guise of his wickedly funny alter ego, Linda Richman.

She’s the Long Island housewife-turned cable-access talk-show hostess with a Streisand obsession. She describes Streisand’s every physical feature as being “like buttah” and “something to die for.”

Richman then joined Streisand onstage, injecting the show with a liberating sense of fun as Streisand delighted in mimicking Richman’s exaggerated enthusiasm.

In the closing segment, the singer-actress dedicated songs of youthful innocence--including “Someday My Prince Will Come”--to her goddaughter in the audience and a song of maternal love, “Not While I’m Around,” to her son Jason, who was also on hand.

The final moments were devoted to Streisand the activist. Rather than rhetoric, however, she simply expressed the social optimism she feels with a stirring rendition of “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

The formal part of the show was so seamless--from Marvin Hamlisch’s rich, inventive musical direction and conducting to Marc Brickman’s dramatic lighting--that the encore seemed anti-climactic, especially the hotel jokes that offered little of the purposefulness of the rest of the evening.

Going back on the road, Streisand also needs to rethink the use of the TelePrompTers, which were visible to much of the audience.

It’s fine to use them as security blankets while singing or delivering skits (even Mick Jagger does), but it breaks the intimacy of the show when she even has her expressions of appreciation flash on them.

In the end, however, it wasn’t the TelePrompTers or hotel jokes that fans were talking about after the show. It was how Streisand combined in these two hours all that she has learned as an artist.

Drawing upon her experience in movies and music, Streisand injected the production with a director’s sense of atmosphere and occasion, an actress’s feel for character and intimacy and a singer’s vocal beauty and command.