*** 1/2 AUDRA McDONALD, “How Glory Goes,” Nonesuch

Wrapped in richly brocaded orchestrations by the best in the business, the 14 songs on “How Glory Goes” make you believe Broadway has a future as well as a past. Why? Audra McDonald, that’s why.

McDonald’s new collection (due Tuesday) offers some reassurance to those who couldn’t get the hang of “Way Back to Paradise,” McDonald’s 1998 debut album. That one featured spiky, tricky rhythms and daunting melodies by, among others, Adam Guettel (“Floyd Collins”) and Michael John LaChiusa (“Marie Christine,” the forthcoming “Wild Party”). The new album leans instead on some nicely chosen standards, five co-written by Harold Arlen.

Yet McDonald’s career is like a series of bridges, spanning opera and Broadway, traditionalism and modernism, the so-called “art song” and Tin Pan Alley. On “How Glory Goes” she blends the familiar with the seductively contemporary. The moving title song comes from Guettel’s “Floyd Collins.” Guettel co-wrote another highlight, the short, sharp, bittersweet post-relationship query “Was That You?” Sung with a glancing touch by McDonald, it proves that she’s one killer soprano who knows when to take it easy. McDonald makes her Southern California concert debut on March 11 at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.