Streisand Puts Off 4 Out of 6 O.C. Shows

Barbra Streisand on Thursday postponed three more of her concerts at The Pond of Anaheim but said she will sing there Thursday and June 4 as scheduled. People with tickets for the four postponed shows will get to hear her in July.

As thousands of fans checked their calendars to see just when their tickets would be honored, the singer--still suffering from viral tracheolaryngitis--said she felt “terrible that these postponements may cause severe scheduling problems for so many who have waited for so long for me to perform live.”

The new schedule would mean that her final concert of the tour--which she has said will be her last ever--will take place at The Pond.

Tickets for the postponed shows will be honored July 18, 20, 22 and 24 respectively, after she has completed her announced itinerary with concerts in San Jose and New York City.

The tour, her first in nearly three decades, was to have stopped at The Pond on Wednesday for six shows, one every other night through June 4. Late Tuesday night, promoters revealed her illness, announced that the first show was off and left the fate of the other shows hanging.

After nerve-wracked fans jammed phone lines to The Pond all day Wednesday and Thursday, Streisand announced that shows tonight, Sunday and Tuesday also would be rescheduled.

The news was upsetting to some, but not all. Rachel Brooks, a theater manager from Illinois who had flown in for the concert, said Thursday that she was “very disappointed.

“Part of it is having flown all the way out here. Part of it is not knowing if I can come back when her concert is rescheduled. It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. I am not sure if I will have it again.”

But for Tony Harrison, a plumber from Ojai, the postponement works out fine. Harrison said he has a ticket to see the Eagles at Irvine Meadows on Saturday. He had planned to spend the night in Orange County, then drive back to Ojai to pick up friends for Streisand’s show in Anaheim on Sunday.

Now, instead of having to spend six hours on the road, he won’t have to come back to Orange County until July 22. “Plus,” he said, “the weather will be nicer in July.”

According to Streisand’s manager, Marty Erlichman, the singer, who has had laryngitis for nearly a week, hoped to be well enough to begin the Anaheim shows tonight. But her doctors advised her to stay off the stage until Thursday.

Speculation had been that any postponed shows would be made up after shows in San Jose on June 7 and 9 and before the June 20 start of Streisand’s run at New York’s Madison Square Garden. But when it became necessary to move four Anaheim shows, that plan became impossible because Streisand refuses to perform on consecutive nights, and because of the time needed to move her elaborate stage sets.

If needed, refunds for the postponed shows will be made at point of purchase beginning Tuesday.

Streisand has been resting at her Beverly Hills home. “She’s under medication, and she has been ordered to maintain strict voice rest,” one of her spokesmen said Wednesday. “That means no talking at all, and obviously no singing.”

The first news of her illness came as a shock to ticket holders who woke up Wednesday morning fully expecting to hear Streisand that night, only to read newspaper announcements that the concert was in limbo.