Britney calls all the shots

Her singing was dominated by a backing track. Her moves were nothing special - defined by much strutting and stripper-like shimmying, with the minimum amount of acrobatics to prove her mettle as a dance-pop queen. Her physical form, still beautiful, didn't take one's breath away the way it did when she was 17.

But on the opening night of her Circus tour at the New Orleans Arena, Britney Spears, the mighty Aphrodite with the troublesome tawdry streak, nonetheless renewed her claim as one of the world's most adept manipulators of the public interest.

The intensely bespangled show - which sticks closely to the big top theme that also defined her latest album - featured a huge array of tricks and extra players, including jugglers, clowns, magicians, martial artists, acrobats and rings of fire. Somewhere in there was Spears herself, looking hearteningly happy as she took on the role of ring-mistress, clearly relishing the chance to prove herself healthy and in control.

The evening began with a performance by the Big Apple Circus that included a female acrobat who stumbled once on the beam, but got right up and performed a stunning back flip. The faux-pas wasn't staged, but might have been; Spears has similarly stumbled. This tour is her all-important comeback; if it fails, her career will effectively be over.

It will not fail. She will get back up on the beam. The director, Jamie King, has made sure of that. If your star is a bit unstable, the best solution is to surround her with a backing troupe that can step in when she fumbles. Much like her music, the Circus tour is all about added value. Instead of purchasing the coolest new beats and synth-pop augmentations, King and Spears signed up those experienced carny stars not only to fill in the gaps between numbers but enhance - distract from? - her own time onstage.

One constant challenge for Spears and her collaborators is how to adapt the soft-core erotica at the heart of her self-expression to the family audience that has somehow stuck with her since she left The All New Mickey Mouse Club. The circus motif proved ideal. Circuses are magical and creepy, home to pink-tutu wearing high-wire princesses and creepy bearded ladies, loved by children but famously run by flim flam artists and freaks. In the circus, Spears finds her perfect metaphor for her own life as the world's favourite fallen angel. This particular iteration of a theme (that Madonna and Christina Aguilera have also explored) neatly balanced the wholesome with the downright nasty; though its scenarios were obvious, they still worked well under Spears' command.

Most daring was a sequence that began with a video that showed masked interlopers borrowed from the Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut, who writhed about on divans as Spears mouthed the Marilyn Manson version of the Eurythmics song Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). Spears then emerged to re-enact the scene wearing two versions of a white-gold gymnast's leotard with her erogenous zones highlighted in black. She gave a lap dance to a clown; she was lifted aloft by a pair of acrobats and did some simulated heavy petting. In truth, nothing matched the raciest moments of Janet Jackson's last tour, but as mainstream erotica, it was effective.

This sequence wasn't quite as much fun, however, as the Bollywood version of Me Against the Music, based around some very well-choreographed group dancing, complete with Spears making mudras with her hands in a gorgeous green and gold harem pants ensemble. The night's take on Hot As Ice was also a kick, with Spears serving as an apt assistant to "the Misfit of Magic", Edward Alonzo.

One moment during the night did seem like a mistake. Spears disappeared several times during the set, to change costumes or allow her fellow performers a chance to show their skills. At one point, however, she didn't seem to resurface. Her backing singers awkwardly stood centre stage as her voice drifted forth, as if from beneath the stage.

Despite that first-night stumble and several numbers in which her dancing was no more than adequate, Spears can safely call this performance a success. She apparently has no interest in proving herself as a vocalist; Pink is a better acrobat, and her old friend Justin Timberlake is a far better dancer. But anyone who thinks her lacklustre would do well to remember what she really is: a burlesque performer, a carny's dream born a century or so too late to be fated to ply her art upon the midway, but able to fulfil the spectacle of blond ambition now.