WINNIPEG - Fans of Canuck songstress Sarah Slean had a glimpse of the singer's multiple personalities last night, during a well-received Mother's Day show at Burton Cummings Theatre.

At the fore was the acoustically inclined cabaret cutie whose career has come to be characterized by a certain brand of artsy piano-pop, and who sought inspiration for her latest album by immersing herself in Paris's Bohemian scene for seven months.

But Slean -- an engaging, if slightly precious performer -- also let us meet the moody balladeers, feisty ingenues and brazen divas who've been inspiring (and populating) her songs for years.

A tiny slip of a thing clad in a shimmery white cocktail dress -- "We dressed up for you this evening, but unfortunately I don't own an iron," she quipped -- Slean began mixing things up right from the start, opening with the rootsy lament California, a rumination on a past love.

She followed with Eliot, the first track from her 2002 breakthrough Night Bugs, and a song that could've easily been written for Tom Waits in his early nightclub years, if Waits was capable (then, or ever) of the same soaring, operatic high notes as Slean.

From her new disc The Baroness, Slean showcased the debut single Get Home -- a ballad about "the lying, cheating jerk in your life," as she put it -- and after kicking off her high heels, proved herself equally adept at haunting sad songs (No Place at All), borderline rockers (So Many Miles), show-stopping arias (When Another Midnight), and even Gypsy-inspired folk-romps (a drastically reworked Lucky Me).

Given that she's cut from the same cloth as alt-popsters Tori Amos and Fiona Apple, it's no surprise that Slean has a tendency to skew towards the overly theatrical, or to indulge in too-cutesy flourishes (who else could get away with dedicating a tune to Dostoevsky?).

But when the results are as thrilling as the poignant vulnerability of Please Be Good to Me, the spooky urgency of Closer, or the oddball charm of her breakthrough hit Sweet Ones, we'll happily indulge Slean -- and all her many musical alter egos.

Toronto troubadour Royal Wood (who also played guitar with Slean's band) opened with a half-hour set of lovingly-rendered folk-pop and wistful boho-balladry, scoring an audience singalong with a sweet tribute he wrote to his friend's grandparents, and applause for his kooky jazz-piano version of the Oompa Loompa song from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.