Broadway Her Way

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

PERFORMER: BARBRA STREISAND

ALBUM: BACK TO BROADWAY

LABEL: COLUMBIA

THE BOTTOM LINE: The singer follows up her smash 1985 album of show tunes with / an even smarter, sharper collection.

Barbra Streisand doesn't sing, she emotes. She ascends octaves with the zeal of a new initiate in a 12-step program. She deconstructs melodies and remakes them in her own image (she once asked Stephen Sondheim to rewrite Send in the Clowns). She tends to avoid singing one note when three or eight will do. All her emotions are bigger than life -- bigger than the afterlife if you include On a Clear Day You Can See Forever -- and every sentiment seems to end in multiple exclamation marks.

In other words, Streisand and Broadway are a perfect match. She launched her career in 1962 with a debut in the musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale and springboarded to the movies after her starring role in 1964's Funny Girl. In 1985 she scored an enormous success with The Broadway Album, a collection of songs by such composers as Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein. Her non-Broadway hits have never been very credible, and they've proved to have the shelf life of sugary foodstuffs on convenience-store shelves. It's hard to listen to You Don't Bring Me Flowers, her 1977 duet with Neil Diamond, without thinking of eight-track tapes and the Carter Administration.

Back to Broadway is full of songs that are crafted to stand the test of time -- and to some extent already have. Streisand's voice glides through Johnny Mandel's elegant orchestration of Some Enchanted Evening like a glamorous tourist passing through the lobby of a grand hotel. She follows that up with a no-frills version of Everybody Says Don't (from Anyone Can Whistle) performed as an unabashed, up-with-people showstopper. When Streisand hollers, "I insist on miracles, if you do them/ Miracles -- nothing to them!" a listener is compelled to believe that this amazing woman -- who has won a trunkful of Oscars, Tonys and Grammys -- knows a thing or two about forging one's own destiny.

If this album has a failing, it's that Streisand's song selection is a bit too classic and safe. She includes two songs from Guys and Dolls despite the fact that she did one from that show on her first Broadway album. She closes with a tune from Sunday in the Park with George despite the fact that her first album started off with a song from that show. Back to Broadway's idea of adventure seems to be the inclusion of two Andrew Lloyd Webber songs from his yet-to-open musical adaptation of the film Sunset Boulevard. There's also a version of Webber's song The Music of the Night from The Phantom of the Opera, $ recast as a duet between Streisand and Michael Crawford. Three Webber songs is four too many.

There's a lot more of Broadway that Streisand could and should explore. It would have been a welcome touch to include selections from more adventurous productions such as the jazzy Jelly's Last Jam or maybe the AIDS musical Falsettos. Streisand's return to Broadway leaves one hungry for yet another album, a three-peat. Perhaps this is just her early theater training showing through: Always leave them wanting more.