Liza Minnelli

They were on her side. The audience rose and started yelling “bravo” as soon as she hit the stage, before she even started singing with those vocal cords the surgeon scraped or dancing on that hip the docs had replaced. But it was not going to be a sure thing for Liza Minnelli, you could tell that right away.

The first tune was taken way too slow, giving herself plenty of leeway, exploring how it was going to be with the strings and brasses up there, belting it as of old after a while, about how it made her happy to make you happy, eating up the spotlight in her sequined pants suit, flashing the mighty Minnelli peepers.

“My Ship,” the old Gertrude Lawrence vehicle, seemed to have a hoarse and husky wind washing its sails, but in “The Man I Love,” the big notes, the ones spelled l-o-v-e, came up on deck and saluted at the proper time. The applause was warm and relieved at the end, with many more bravos. “Thank you,” she sobbed, and you knew she was home.

Minnelli next paid tribute to a great American woman, not Martha Graham, not Georgia O’Keefe, but “Sara Lee” and her banana cake. It was a Sophie Tucker-styke venture, sly and almost bawdy, and that mood spread as she did Charles Aznavour’s “Sailor Boys,” about a jilted older woman who gives sexual shelter to the young seamen arriving in port. She sneered and snarled on this one, curling her lip as she invited the lovely boys to come sail with her.

Three young men in black the Cortes Alexander Trio, joined her for a medley of “Crazy Rhythm” and “Fascinating Rhythm” while she danced about in a jaunty pink hat as thy sang, avioding every noted the songwriters had written. Another strange song, “I Love a Violin” by Kay Thompson, closed the bumpy first half on the customary triumphant Minnelli note.

Everything was pretty much all right after intermission, as Minnelli’s great narrative gift took charge. Closing the Kander annd Ebb medley with “Maybe This Time,” she stopped the music just before the last phrase, saying “that note is not going to be good enough,” gulping down some water, and nailing it big time: “Maybe this time, I’ll win!”

Oh, it was a kick in the heart when she did that, the poor little waif stabbing the air with her little fist, victorious! And she drove the spike in further with a three-banger medley from her new album, “Gently.” Dressed 1920’s style in a fur-trimmed white satin wrapper, she sang three grand ballads, “It Had to Be You,” Peggy Lee’s “Some Cats Know,” and Embraceable You,” the phrasing tense and compelling, the voice assured.

Two coldly comforting songs of hope, “The World Goes Round” and “The Day After That,” offered solace in the age of AIDS; “New York, New York” brought back what it was like before everybody moved out here or died.

The curtain fell. Many standing Os and encores ensued. At last Madame Gutsy, who had already sung 24 numbers, silenced the band and began “You Made Me Love You” with nothing but her own voice to work with, pointing to “my family,” the audience, to let them know who the love target was. She didn’t miss a single thrilling note, and when it was over, you had to say that she herself could be called a song of triumph.

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