Marie Osmond, yesterday and today

"It's been standing ovations almost every night," says Acton. "She hasn't worked in 10 years, and it's almost like the crowd is accepting her as a classical pop artist rather than a country artist. She's attracting crowds who know her from Broadway rather than country music.

"We weren't expecting that. There's another crowd who knows her from the 'Sound of Music' and 'The King and I."'

What would drive Marie Osmond back onto the road? After all, she can't need the money.

"I've got eight kids to send to college, babe," she replies with a laugh — apparently kidding, since her 14-year-old collector-doll company alone is a multimillion-dollar business ($80 million in sales the first six years, according to the Wall Street Journal).

The idea for the tour began early this year when her arranger, Jerry Williams, asked her to sing a song titled "Consider Me" on an album he was recording.

"He played it for me," Osmond recalls.

"It's a beautiful song. It's inspiration to (think about) a loved one or a friend or God, whatever it means to you. It was a catalyst to do my own concert. I had planned on doing my own music again. I got in the studio and had so much fun. It had been a while."

Christmas shows aren't new to Osmond. From 1994 to 1996, "Marie Osmond's The Magic of Christmas" show toured major venues in the United States, mostly in the East, and in the early '90s she toured with the Oak Ridge Boys' Christmas shows.

She hosted a TV Christmas special in 1986 and also co-hosted a TV Christmas special with her family in 1980. She also co-starred in a TV Christmas movie, "The Gift of Love," with actor Timothy Bottoms

For this year's tour, she borrowed musicians from other acts — Barry Manilow's drummer, backup singers for Madonna, Stevie Nicks and k.d. lang, and a "bass player who has done every motion picture you can name," she says. Together, they produce a Christmas concert whose direction is open to spontaneity. Ask her what songs she will perform in Salt Lake City, and Osmond says she doesn't know.

"We get lots of requests," she says. "It's not just standing up and doing Christmas song after Christmas song.... We gear our show to the audience."

She also warns audiences to be in their seats 15 minutes before the concert begins to see a slide show that is a walk down memory lane with Marie Osmond and her four decades of performing.

"It's been so much fun, more than I thought it would be," she says of the tour. "Two nights ago, one of the concert promoters said he had never seen (the audience) stand at intermission. Three nights ago the guy said, 'We want the concert next year."'