Great Voice, Great Gambit

*** 1/2; BARBRA STREISAND, “The Concert” ( Columbia )

This was the year’s real “hell freezes over” tour. No longer so eager to abandon her most natural conquest, Streisand used her first tour in a quarter-century to triumphantly reconnect with the Show Tune, her set list of dozens of songs drawing mostly from the musical theater but now centered around a new “book”--Barbra.

The autobiographical structure can be creaky in this two-CD set, recorded chiefly in New York (there’s also an HBO-based home video of her Anaheim stint). Spoken segments with the diva recounting her history to imaginary therapists are very much on the shticky side.

But it’s hard to argue with the reminiscing gambit when it allows her a hook to include great songs of an old vintage and youthful tone she might not otherwise consider relevant.

The set choices remain thoroughly smart, with the few pop singles mixed among the stage tunes strong enough to pass as showstoppers, and more obscure numbers (like the exquisite “Lazy Afternoon”) picked over signature songs for some slots.

If finally all the scripted personal asides seem more come-on than true self-revelation, then you’re left with an unsurpassed voice--a vulnerability inset in its bold endowment--that says everything it needs to about Streisand, and plenty about the way we were in the last gasps of Broadway’s nationally galvanizing golden hours. That’s not like buttah; it’s pure gold.