Babs Says Goodbye to Concerts With Stellar Retrospective

September 28 -- NEW YORK — In a perfect world Barbra Streisand would have concluded her limited stage career with one last, free blowout in Central Park — the most fitting way to thank the minions who have worshipped her for nearly four decades.

But as she closes the performing aspect of her career, there is no such magnanimity. Rather, Streisand offered four obscenely priced farewell concerts — two at the Staples Center in Los Angeles last week and two at Madison Square Garden this week, which cost fans $375 for a so-so seat upstairs and a mind-numbing $2,500 down front.

Yet on Wednesday, at the first of the New York shows, there was not a hint of grumbling about the record-breaking cost or the $90 sweatshirts on sale at the many souvenir stands. Rather the mood was one of joy, admiration, and much obvious emotion for many fans. Even the big celebrities on hand (and there were many) seemed awestruck.

And who could blame them? Aside from how beautifully Streisand sounded and how comfortably she interacted with fans, the show itself was an absolute history lesson in modern popular music. While her commercial successes have mostly been about show tunes, lite-rock dabblings, and pop love songs, she can be a stellar torch singer whose jazzy, bluesy arrangements on this night, were unequaled.

For years her real life mirrored her movies with storied relationships that always ended badly and dramatically. The angst was good for her music, but not so great otherwise.

The Streisand onstage now has finally landed the right guy — the gorgeous and nice James Brolin — along with an obvious serenity that now defines her. In turn, these peaceful, happy shows are a world apart from her previous limited engagements, with their underlying tension and high anxiety. How unfortunate then that she has chosen to stop just as she attains a completely new approach to life.

There is, of course, no middle ground with Streisand. She is either loved or loathed. But even those who squirm at her adult-contemporary schmaltz and obsessive perfectionism can't argue with her stats: The Oscar-Grammy-Emmy-Tony-winning Streisand is among the longest-running, best-selling musical artists of all time, with a voice that is clearly among the most important of the last century.