Pop Music Review : Found: One Voice, New Vision

Talk about surprises.

Who ever figured Barbra Streisand as David Letterman?

In a jab at conspiracy theorists who speculated that laryngitis wasn’t the real reason she postponed the first four of her six shows at the Pond of Anaheim, Streisand came up Thursday night with a good-natured Top 10 list.

Among her sarcastic reasons for postponing the shows until next month:

No. 10--”I’ve always wanted to spend four hot, muggy days in Anaheim in the middle of July.”

No. 7--”I had to stay home and wait for the cable guy.”

No. 4--”They were having a shoe sale at Nordstrom.”

No. 1--”Every time I started to drive here, I got sidetracked and went to Disneyland instead.” (See F10 for full list)

The sequence, which came early in the two-hour performance, was typical of the surprises that have made Streisand’s first concert tour in almost three decades such a disarming and revealing affair.

Ironic, isn’t it?

Streisand, the most acclaimed pop singer of her generation, spends virtually her entire professional life closed up in recording studios and/or on soundstages so that she can make sure the final product comes as close as possible to her perfectionist instincts.

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Then she finally returns to the concert stage, where she has to simply be herself each night, and ends up with what is arguably the most fulfilling and rewarding accomplishment of her career: a show that is as warm and engaging as it is stylish and smart.

Talk about drama.

It was hard to tell Thursday who was the most nervous: the singer or her fans, which included such celebrities as producer Ray Stark, tennis pro Andre Agassi and former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart.

Virginia Watts, 42, had been worried all day that Streisand would have a relapse and cancel the show . . . or decide after a few songs that her voice wasn’t perfect and then stop the proceedings.

“My girlfriend and I are from Denver and we just have tickets for tonight,” she said.

“Denver?” another woman said, overhearing the conversation. “We came from Buffalo, N.Y., because my sister who lives out here got tickets.”

The answers about the state of The Voice came quickly.

As soon as she stepped through the curtain of the living room set, Streisand began singing a customized version of “As If We Never Said Goodbye” from “Sunset Boulevard”--and the voice sounded full and rich.

There were points in the show when Streisand’s voice, backed by a 64-piece orchestra conducted by Marvin Hamlisch, sounded a tad husky, but it responded marvelously during the evening’s most demanding passages.

Yet the singing alone isn’t what has made this tour such a commanding affair. The chief strength is Streisand’s creative vision.

Rather than a safe, sure-to-please “greatest hits” parade, Streisand chose songs purposefully--sidestepping signature numbers, in some cases, to make room for compositions that enabled her to reflect on matters ranging from relationships to social concerns.

It all came together so marvelously in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve at the MGM Grand Garden arena that most performers would have stuck by the same script as they took to the road.

But Streisand has rethought and reshaped the production each step of the way, making changes both subtle and fundamental.

The first half of the show--employing a trilevel set resembling the living room of a Colonial mansion--remained focused on her childhood daydreams, including scenes of Marlon Brando projected on an overhead screen as she explains that he was her first show-biz hero. There also was a lighthearted scene involving imaginary conversations with a psychiatrist about relationships.

After intermission, Streisand employed more film footage as she sang two of her biggest hits, “The Way We Were” and “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” followed by more personal songs, including one dedicated to her son, Jason, and “Happy Days Are Here Again,” a celebration of social optimism.

As Streisand sang “Happy Days,” the song that has been identified with her for three decades, photos of President Clinton, Nelson Mandela and other sociopolitical figures flashed on the overhead screen.

In a pointed aside, she criticized the media for belittling Hollywood personalities when they talk about politics. She said she’s proud of an industry that can touch people around the world with films about such serious issues as the Holocaust and AIDS.

The biggest addition to the show since Las Vegas is a 10-minute “Yentl” sequence--a masterfully staged affair climaxed by Streisand doing a duet with her vocal from a scene in the film.

The sequence proved the most crowd-pleasing of the show. When the audience stood in ovation, however, one sensed that it was for more than the music. It was also in admiration of the independence and determination Streisand has shown over the years in such pursuits as film directing.

Another significant change from Vegas involves the ending of the concert.

In the New Year’s Eve show, Streisand closed with “For All We Know,” a melancholy song about the possibility of two people never meeting again.

Given the fact that Streisand has said she will never tour again and the strong feeling of her fans, it’s marvelous theater. She performs the song while walking back up the living room sets that she descended at the start of the show.

As the tour progressed, however, Streisand felt that ending was too downbeat. In a Detroit interview with The Times, she said that she felt guilty leaving her fans on such a note--especially on those nights when the audience is unusually responsive.

So she came back Thursday--as she has done in other cities--for an encore of the more uplifting “Somewhere,” from “West Side Story.”

It’s not as chilling theatrically, but the audience’s mood does brighten considerably.

How doubly ironic--and revealing.

After all these years of being pictured in the press as domineering and aloof, Streisand the performer proves to really be just a softy.

* Barbra Streisand appears tonight, July 18, 20, 22 and 24 at the Pond of Anaheim, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim. 8 p.m. $50-$350. (714) 704-2500.

Barbra’s Top 10 List

Barbra Streisand’s Top 10 Reasons for Postponing Four Concerts at the Anaheim Pond:

10: I’ve always wanted to spend four hot, muggy days in Anaheim in the middle of July.

9: I was trying to help work out Dan Rostenkowski’s plea bargain.

8: I didn’t realize it would take a whole week to dust all this furniture (that makes up her stage set).

7: I had to stay home and wait for the cable guy.

6: I hurt my voice yelling, “Yabba-dabba-doo!”

5: I wanted to add a new item to my line of concert souvenirs: Barbra Streisand tongue depressors.

4: They were having a shoe sale at Nordstrom.

3: I thought my concert tour needed more publicity.

2: It took me three days to read Dan Quayle’s new book--and four days to correct the spelling.

1: Every time I started to drive here, I got sidetracked and went to Disneyland instead.