Veteran singer-actress Barbra Streisand announced on Wednesday that she will give four final concerts in September; two in Los Angeles and two in New York, then bid goodbye to her career as a public performer, reported Reuters.
Streisand, 58, who has acknowledged a lifelong struggle with anxiety over live appearances, "has chosen to conclude her public performance career in the two cities most closely associated with her work," her manager, Martin Erlichman said in a statement.
She will give two farewell concerts on Sept. 20 and 21, and two more on Sept. 27 and 28.
Tickets will go on sale on July 30 for the Los Angeles concerts and on July 31 for the New York engagements.
No information about prices was immediately available, but prices are expected to resemble those of her last concert.
Streisand reportedly received $5 million for a sold-out millennium eve concert she gave at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.
"She thought that the performance in Las Vegas would be her last one, but there were so many pressures ... from fans and others for her to conclude her career in New York and L.A.," said her publicist Dick Guttman.
However, her decision will not stop the ardent democrat from performing on August 17 at a star-studded fun-raising concert for the Democratic Party in Los Angeles immediately following Vice President Al Gore’s nomination for president.
For that show, to be held at the Shrine Auditorium, Streisand will share the bill with numerous performers, but "she will be singing the last three songs of the night," said Guttman.
Streisand, born in Brooklyn, currently resides near Los Angeles in the swank, oceanside city of Malibu.
The Grammy-winning entertainer has performed infrequently in public since the mid-1960s. Prior to a pair of New Year's 1993-94 concerts and a six-city concert tour in the spring and early summer of '94, Streisand had not performed live for pay in 27 years, Guttman said.
"She acknowledged when she returned in '93 that she was overcoming a fear of public performance," he said.
Other notable Streisand appearances in recent years included a performance at President Clinton's first inaugural ball in January 1993 and a 1996 political benefit that raised $4 million for his reelection campaign.
Although not always popular with critics, and reputed to be arrogant and sometimes difficult with co-workers, Streisand's music won a devoted fan base, and her aversion to live performances has not hurt her commercially.
With 42 gold-certified albums to her credit, she ranks as the biggest-selling female recording artist of all time, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
Streisand also won fame as a film actress, making her movie debut in the Oscar-winning role as vaudeville comedienne Fanny Brice in the 1968's Funny Girl. She has gone on to star in nearly 20 pictures and lately has concentrated on her work as a film and TV producer—albawaba.com.
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