On Tuesday's opening night of her "Circus" tour at the New Orleans Arena, Britney Spears, enewed her claim as one of the world's most attractive and talented female artists. The show, in her home state of Louisiana, marked the pop star’s long-awaited return to the stage: she ditched her Onyx Hotel Tour (which supported 2003’s In the Zone) in June 2004 after suffering a knee injury on the set of “Outrageous” video and only took the stage a handful of times since, most notably in 2007, when she performed a few poorly received nightclub gigs billed as the M+Ms.

Powering through a 90-minute show that integrated her impetuous teenhits with the more mature material from the albums she released after a very public breakdown that made her a constant in the tabloids, the Louisiana native flashed her famous smile at the fans, mostly female, by the way.

Dressed as a sexy ringmaster, directing a colorful cast that included jugglers, acrobats, and martial arts dancers, Britney treated a nearly sold-out crowd to, as the Associated Press describes it,  "a tightly choreographed, if perfunctory" performance full of Big Top-style razzle-dazzle.

Spears started the show with the title track to her new CD, "Circus," then went right into "Piece of Me," which she performed largely from a cage, part of the elaborate, grandiose stage backdrops.

It’s only over the past year, that Spears' life and career has rebounded. Her "Circus" CD, released in December, has already sold more than 1.3 million copies, and she's had two hits off the CD, the No. 1 "Womanizer" and the top five "Circus."