The GRAMMY winner plans to continue to focus solely on studio recording and films
Part of the incredible draw of live music is the inherent dichotomy between the intensely vulnerable experience of a performer taking the stage to be watched, assessed and — now more often than ever — recorded by their audience. Barbra Streisand would no doubt agree.
The eight-time GRAMMY winner and 2011 MusiCares Person of the Year takes her art extremely seriously, but is open about what she calls the “exhausting” experience of planning and executing a large-scale show.
These days, she vastly prefers the experiences of studio recording and filming movies, pointing out the difference as being ” a private thing. I don’t care how I look … I’m not being judged at the moment,” in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
The singer has a new concert special debuting on Netflix this week, titled Barbra: The Music … The Mem’ries … The Magic! The film chronicles the Miami tour stop from her most recent run of shows — a tour which she has made abundantly clear will mark her last live performances ever.
“No, I would never do another show. It’s exhausting,” she lamented. “It’s just too vulnerable. It’s too hard for me. I wish I loved it. There are so many performers who perform practically the whole year, you know, 200 or 300 days a year. They love it. And I wish I felt that way.”
Streisand’s admission that performing live is such a profoundly nerve-wracking experience for her is far from a new revelation. The singer famously refrained from touring or performing for 27 years following a concert kerfuffle in New York’s Central Park in 1967 during which she forgot the lyrics to a song.
So what brought her back for this most recent round of shows?
“I actually did this last tour for a painting,” she reveals. “I’m a big fan of [Amedeo] Modigliani. There was a painting I wanted that I really had a save up for it. … I can’t work for money. I have to work for an object that I love, something I want to live with.”
As for her new special, which will premiere on Netflix on Nov. 22, Streisand wants fans to know they should expect honesty and authenticity.
“I try to inhabit each song, you know, as an actress,” she said. “I try to think of the whole [special] as the producer-director.”
Eurythmics To Release Studio Catalog On Vinyl
Courtesy by: GRAMMYs
