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Bernadette Peters Resplendent with the Pittsburgh Pops

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Silver, gold, and, yes, a gorgeous helping of brass.

We're not just talking about the bugle beads on Bernadette Peters' skin-tight, flesh colored gown but of the precious metals glinting off her voice last night during a spectacular 90- minute concert with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Pops at Heinz Hall. At 61, she is still in full command vocally, physically and emotionally, connecting with her rapt audience via song and patter in a program that ranged over the classic Broadway songbook, from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Rodgers and Hart to the composer she is most identified with, Stephen Sondheim.

Songs about love -- losing it, and finding strength from that loss -- bookended the evening, beginning with “No One is Alone" (from Sondheim's “Into the Woods") and ending with “Move On," her big number from “Sunday In the Park with George." Peters' rendition of “Some Enchanted Evening" -- that old standard from “South Pacific" usually some big male opera singer's star turn -- was a revelation, a woman's tender recall of the biggest moment of her life, “when you hear him laughing across a crowded room." As delivered by Peters, those old familiar lyrics seem new again..

Peggy Lee's “Fever," sung while lounging on top of a piano, was sexy but tongue-in- cheek. Other highlights, all of them from Sondheim -- “Johanna" “Not a Day Goes By," “Being Alive" --showcased Peters' ability to apply the most delicate phrasing to a song, and then, as it builds to a crescendo, belt it to the back row . A minor caveat: during a few of those big moments, her voice was occasionally drowned out by the orchestra's wall of sound, at least from where I was sitting (in the fifth row).

Her music director, Marvin Laird, was an able multi-tasker, providing liquid accompaniment on the piano while conducting the orchestra. Note to baby boomers: her drummer was -- I kid you not -- former “Mousketeer" Cubby O'Brien. He in no way resembles the little tyke he once was, but Peters looks ageless, all glowing ivory skin, burnished Pre-Raphaelite curls and that voice still mostly, as Sondheim once characterized it, “flawless."

Most of all, though, Peters seemed open, affectionate, comfortable in that gorgeous skin of hers, no more so, perhaps, when she finished the show with a lullaby she wrote herself, to her dog, which can be found on the CD accompanying her best-selling children's book, “Broadway Barks." Not only that, she returned to the stage after the show to take questions as part of the PSO Pops' Thursday night Q & A program, which was great fun. Peters lobbed queries on everything from her pets to old boyfriend Steve Martin to what she puts in her hair -- “old boyfriends," she joked.

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