POP MUSIC REVIEW : From Voice to Manner, Opening Night Just Right

Talk about drama.

Because of the laryngitis that forced the postponement of four concerts until next month, the big question at the opening of Barbra Streisand’s engagement at The Pond of Anaheim Thursday night wasn’t so much how the show would be but how the voice would be.

The answer came quickly.

As soon as she stepped through the curtain to sing a customized version of “Everything’s As If We Never Said Goodbye” from the musical “Sunset Boulevard,” the voice seemed rich and full.

Throughout the opening 50-minute half of the concert, she hit notes with the same dynamics and command that she had shown on earlier stops of her first concert tour in almost three decades.

There have been changes in material and dialogue since her triumphant return to live shows on New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas, but the central elements remain: It is a warm, witty and revealing evening.

Given an image sometimes characterized in the media as humorless and aloof, Streisand was particularly disarming early in the performance when she voiced surprise over media speculation that she hadn’t really been suffering from laryngitis.

In any case, from voice to manner, her opening night at The Pond was a gem.