Through the Years with Bernadette Peters

Boston audiences will get a special New Year's Eve treat on Tuesday when Peters returns to Symphony Hall for her 11th appearance with the Pops, on this occasion with her musical director Joseph Thalken conducting the orchestra for her portion of the concert. To check on the availability of remaining tickets, click here.

In any of her recent concert appearances – last August in London where she played at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and in October in New York when she returned to Carnegie Hall for the first time in 30 years – she was said to be in terrific form. And while the world has changed many times over since her first appearance with the Pops, she appears not to have. At 76, she looks many years younger having maintained what critic Stephen Holden described as her cupid-bow lips, piles of frizzy curls and Vargas girl figure. The reference to legendary artist Alberto Vargas is no accident. For the cover of her first solo album in 1980, she went to the artist to persuade him to paint the album's cover art. The 84-year-old looked at her and said, "You ARE a Vargas girl," and painted the cover.

Nor has her voice – a distinctive, husky soprano – dimmed, whether belting out a show-stopper like "Some People" or all but whispering "Send in the Clowns." Put simply, she has panache – that unique blend of charisma, talent, wit, intelligence, humanity, and just plain-old show biz savvy that few performers possess, nevermind maintain for six decades. When film director James Ivory was casting "Slaves of New York," an adaptation of Tama Janowitz's stories set in the 1980s, he auditioned numerous actresses to play the film's lead, "but out of 100 girls, there was not a single one with Miss Peters's originality."

It was her uniqueness that made her a star when she appeared in "Dames at Sea," a gentle satire of Ruby Keeler-Busby Berkeley Depression-era musicals that led many to compare her to Betty Boop, the delightful, saucy cartoon character from that period. Since getting the original cast album of that show, Peters has been a constant in my life and I've seen her numerous times in five-plus decades. Here are some of the most memorable moments: