Streisand fans count the cost of diva's concert

She may have been a funny girl once but punters were not laughing at the ticket prices for Barbra Streisand's next UK concert.

The cheapest tickets, which go on sale on Friday, have a face value of £100, while the best seats are officially available at £500. Yesterday, one independent agency was offering a small number of tickets for prices ranging from £375 to £850.

Streisand's one-off London gig, on 18 July, makes even the eye-watering prices charged by the likes of Madonna and the Rolling Stones seem cheap by comparison. But a spokesman for a 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 £1,600, you get some sort of context," he told the Evening Standard.

Now 65, Streisand is the music industry's biggest-selling female artist, and second only to Elvis Presley in the all-time charts, ahead of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. She has not performed in the UK since 1994, and seldom been seen on stage anywhere since the break-up of her marriage to the actor James Brolin in 1998.

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. Her London gig, to be held at the Millennium Dome, now called The O2, will include a 58-piece orchestra. She will perform old hits such as "The Way We Were", "Evergreen" and "People".

It will be the final gig in a European tour that takes in Vienna, Paris, Nice and her first ever gig in Ireland, on 14 July at Castletown House near Dublin. Some of the proceeds would go to the Barbra Streisand Foundation, which supports causes such as the environment, civil rights and disadvantaged youngsters.

Her tour is being organised by Concert Productions International (CPI), which also organised the Rolling Stones "A Bigger Bang" 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."

The star's reaction, according to her publicity people, was to exclaim: "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 at a gay bar in New York in 1960, Streisand has chalked up 13 multi-platinum albums, two Oscars, four Emmys, 10 Golden Globes and eight Grammys.

How much?

* THE ROLLING STONES

The best tickets for their Twickenham gig last year, cost £150, but were on sale for £575 on the web

* MADONNA

Prices for her 'Confessions on a Dance Floor' tour ranged from £80 to £160, plus a £13 booking fee

* BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Tickets to The Boss' gig at the Hammersmith Apollo last year were priced at £37.50. Touts were selling them for £150

* BILLY JOEL

Official prices ranged from £50 to £75 for his Wembley Arena gig last July.