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She may have been a funny girl once, but punters were not laughing at the ticket prices for Barbra Streisand's upcoming British concert.
The cheapest tickets, which will go on sale on Friday, have a face value of £100 ($270), while the best seats are officially available at £500.
On Monday, one independent agency was offering a small number of early tickets for prices ranging from £375 to £850.
Streisand's one-off London gig, on July 18, makes even the eye-watering prices charged by the likes of Madonna and the Rolling Stones seem cheap by comparison.
But a spokesman for the star defended the high prices. "Seeing Barbra Streisand in concert is a pretty momentous occasion that ranks up there with seeing Sinatra or Elvis. If you think that FA Cup final tickets are going for £1600, you get some sort of context," he told the London Evening Standard.
At 65, Streisand is the music industry's biggest-selling female artist, second only to Elvis Presley in the all-time charts, ahead of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
She has not performed in Britain since 1994, and seldom been seen on stage anywhere since the break-up in 1998 of her marriage to the actor James Brolin.
According to her manager, Martin Erlichman, last year's US tour, her first in six years, broke box office records in 14 of the 16 venues she played. In the other two, she already held the record.
The London gig, which will be held at the Millennium Dome, now called the O2 venue, will include a 58-piece orchestra. She will perform old hits like The Way We Were, Evergreen, People and Don't Rain On My Parade.
It will be the last gig in a five-stop European tour, which will begin in Vienna on June 21, then take in Paris, Nice, and Castletown House, Dublin, on July 14, her first concert in Ireland.
Some of the proceeds would go to the Barbra Streisand Foundation, which supports causes like the environment, civil rights and disadvantaged youngsters.
The tour is being organised by Concert Productions International, which also organised the Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang tour, Genesis' North American tour, and the Who's world tour. CPI's founder, Michael Cohl said: "It is an amazing show - a once-in-a-lifetime experience not to be missed."
Streisand is reported to have exclaimed: "What a joy it will be to perform in so many wonderful countries for the first time. I can't wait to experience these different audiences and different cultures."
In a career that began with a club act at a gay bar in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, in 1960, Streisand has chalked up gold, 30 platinum and 13 multi-platinum albums to her credit, plus two Oscars, four Emmys, 10 Golden Globes and eight Grammys.
She won the best actress Oscar in 1969 for Funny Girl, followed by the best original song award for A Star is Born, in 1977. After an eight-year break from acting she made her comeback opposite Dustin Hoffman in the comedy Meet The Fockers.
- INDEPENDENT
