Romance Agrees With Streisand

In the first step of a dramatic, four-night, two-city farewell tour, Barbra Streisand wasn’t as artistically sure-footed Wednesday at Staples Center as she was in her landmark 1994 concerts, but she was more personal and revealing. All in all, it wasn’t a bad trade-off.

“It’s not easy . . . to let anyone see the sentimental side of me,” she sang at one point in the show, but she found a way to reveal that side at times--and those moments gave the evening its heartbeat.

During the two-hour performance, Streisand, who is taping the shows for a television special next year (but didn’t allow newspaper photographers in the arena), took us on a retrospective of her career. The journey led all the way back to 1955, when, as a teenager, she went into a New York studio with her mother to see how her voice sounded on record.

As presented in a staged re-creation of the event (in which Lauren Frost played the young Streisand), that informal session was when she first flashed her celebrated independence by defiantly singing “You’ll Never Know” her way rather than following the advice of the studio’s instructor-musician.

Moving on, Streisand, wearing a formal copper pantsuit, traced her early club appearances. She showcased her ability to convey equally effectively the torch-like intimacy of “Cry Me a River” and the big-band bravado of “Lover, Come Back to Me.” And her voice, one of the true wonders of the pop world when used with restraint, still handled the tunes effortlessly. The sound, at least on the floor near the stage, was exceptionally clear.

Given her battery of albums, Streisand could have kept the retrospective going (and she did touch on the movie years), but she had more in mind than her public past. In the evening’s most daring sequences, Streisand shared some crucial private moments.

There is much in the show that is reminiscent of her seven-city 1994 tour--including, unfortunately, obscenely high ticket prices (ranging from $150 to $2,500). This one is also tightly scripted, with the lyrics and comments between songs readied on TelePrompTers to help combat her long-standing fear of forgetting the words.

The big difference is an acknowledgment of the fundamental change in her life since 1994: finding love.

On the earlier tour, she addressed romance, but from a distance. She wove songs about relationships into a generic sequence that touched on sexual awakening, heartbreak and lingering optimism. It wasn’t so much her story as everyone’s. She even spoke afterward in an interview about how she had pretty much given up on romance in her own life.

But she met actor James Brolin in 1996, and everything changed--and this time some of the evening’s love songs were clearly her story. It was a celebration as open and sentimental as a wedding reception--and that was OK.

She even sang a song, “I Dreamed of You,” that she commissioned for her wedding (with lyrics by Ann Hampton Callaway, based on a melody Streisand and Brolin heard in Ireland). The feeling of a reception was underscored by the presence of Brolin in the front row, surrounded by many of Streisand’s famous friends. She even called out affectionately to some of them, from actors John Travolta and Kevin Spacey to musicians Burt Bacharach and Neil Diamond.

The tour, which included a second show Thursday at Staples before it will conclude this coming Wednesday and Thursday at New York’s Madison Square Garden, is an adaptation of Streisand’s millennium show last New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas.

That show is documented in Streisand’s new, two-disc album, “Timeless,” which was released Tuesday. Some of the elements from the Vegas show were left out of the touring version because they are tied too closely to the millennium celebration.

But another piece, too, should have been dropped--a skit in which Streisand and her friend Shirley MacLaine, who is shown on videotape, banter about what the millennium was like 1,000 years ago. The second half of the show also unfolded too casually, in contrast to the steady, dynamic flow of the 1994 tour and the opening half of this show.

The weakest moment was the anonymous disco styling of 1979’s “The Main Event/Fight,” which was probably the most forgettable hit Streisand ever had.

Things picked up considerably when she started getting more personal, first in the wedding toast with “I Dreamed of You,” accompanied by a video screen display of some home photos of her and Brolin.

The show’s pace then accelerated as Streisand--backed on a pyramid-shaped set by a 60-odd-piece orchestra conducted by Bill Ross--went into the evening’s home stretch.

She delivered a sweeping rendition of one of her signature songs, “Happy Days Are Here Again,” a tender reading of the bittersweet “Don’t Like Goodbyes” and, eventually, the uplifting “Somewhere,” which she also used as a closer on the 1994 tour.

In some ways, that Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim song from “West Side Story” is the perfect way to say good night, but Streisand again wanted to give the show a more personal tone. Returning for the encore, she again focused on relationships, with “The Music That Makes Me Dance” and “My Man” from her “Funny Girl” period, and finally, her trademark “People.”

It was a stirring closing, one that made you regret that Streisand, 58, didn’t devote more time over the years to live performances. She brings an intelligence and taste to the stage that no one else in mainstream pop music approaches.

There are many other singers with exquisite voices, including Whitney Houston and Celine Dion, but their shows, by contrast, usually seem arbitrary and amateurish.

Long plagued by stage fright, Streisand even seemed relaxed and playful much of the night, frequently engaging in spontaneous small talk with the audience. But then, who doesn’t have fun at their wedding reception?