At the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Monday, May 25. Continues tonight, May 26

They might occupy opposite ends of the generational spectrum—she’s 29, he’s 88—but the idea of Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett sharing an album, an Austin City Limits appearance, and now a concert tour is far from bizarre. For Bennett, who’s beginning to show signs of physical frailty and vocal deterioration, it’s a chance to go out on top, playing to sold-out houses in the company of one of this era’s biggest stars. For Gaga, it’s an opportunity to relax a little, learn the subtleties of stagecraft from a master entertainer, and—no small matter for one who lives to perform—position herself for an ongoing career once her brand of mild shock and extreme spectacle loses its allure.

It’s a win-win situation. And then there’s the simple fact that, beyond their shared New York Italian roots, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta and Anthony Dominick Benedetto seem to like each other quite a lot. The sheer charm of their rapport went a long way toward masking some aesthetic and structural problems in their presentation.

The biggest of these, of course, is that Gaga is no jazz singer. She’s got a voice, sure, and on Monday she showed that she can survive without Auto-Tune and other electronic aids. At points, such as her reading of Cole Porter’s “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye”, she even suggested that she might someday become an effective torch-song stylist, or at least an assured Broadway belter. For now, though, she has a hard time turning her stadium-bred flamboyance down to the point where she can convey real intimacy; she often hits her notes too hard or slides off into adenoidal stridency.

Of course, it’s hard to be subtle when you’re wearing six-inch heels and a gown and wig that look like they were designed by Elsa the Snow Queen for Frederick’s of Hollywood.

This listener was initially worried about Bennett’s voice, too: he didn’t so much sing the introductory “Anything Goes” as bark it, a problem that resurfaced on other up-tempo numbers. But he remains one of the great ballad stylists, and on this victory lap he used the slow tunes to remind the adoring crowd to live, love, and be kind. Michel Legrand’s “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” was especially apt, both as inspirational message (“If we can try with every day to make it better as it grows/With any luck, then I suppose/The music never ends”) and as commentary on the Gaga-Bennett partnership. Bennett brought similar depth to “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”, a tune more often associated with his friend and rival Frank Sinatra, and his own signature number “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”, which prompted one of many standing ovations.

Those are sad songs, but there was hilarity, too, especially when Gaga slyly substituted “do the horizontal” for “do the Continental” in Jerome Kern’s “I Won’t Dance”. Later on, Bennett got her back by referencing her recent “I’m horny and I need a cocktail” flap. That he said he “read it in the paper” rather than on Instagram added to the joke’s pervy-grandpa flavour, but everyone, Gaga included, laughed it off.

The night ended with a celebratory take on Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” in which—finally—all nine musicians on-stage performed together. Before that, the instrumentalists had been divided into Bennett’s veteran quartet and Gaga’s much younger quintet, with the latter standing idle for almost three-quarters of the show. That was an odd choice: if you’re going to pay nine musicians, why not replicate the expanded arrangements featured on Bennett and Gaga’s Grammy-winning Cheek to Cheek album?

There’s an upside to the current format, though: it gave listeners ample opportunity to luxuriate in the genius of Bennett’s drummer, former Count Basie sideman Harold Jones, a whisper-soft stylist who also swings like mad. Even when Bennett and Gaga’s shtick got thick, Jones helped keep the music sublime.