It was the season opening show Saturday at the Annenberg Theater, so Rita Moreno had to make the show go on, like the trooper she is.

The Oscar, Tony, Emmy and Grammy award-winning singer-actress had a cold.

You could tell because even her talking voice was hoarser than when she sang for Bill Cosby on his recent “Mark Twain Prize” PBS special.

But this was a night of celebration. The Wells Fargo Foundation started the evening by donating $100,000 to the Palm Springs Art Museum’s children’s education program to enable 13,000-15,000 children to experience the museum and its art programs. Museum board chairman Harold Meyerman said the entire program, including busing and the training of 18-year-old docents, benefits 35,000 students.

Moreno and a stellar jazz trio performed a program reflecting her love of Broadway and her eclectic experiences since coming to New York from Puerto Rico at age 5.

She didn’t perform material from her Oscar-winning portrayal of Anita in “West Side Story.” Palm Desert resident Betty Wand dubbed "A Boy Like That" for Moreno on the film soundtrack because it was below her range, but Moreno sang "America" and "Quintet" and has sung “America” in other concerts. Moreno just chose to focus on favorite Broadway songs, such as Irving Berlin’s 1915 standard, “I Love A Piano,” and “My Ship” from the 1941 musical “Lady in the Dark” by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, and moments from her stage career.

Moreno donned castanets to perform the Spanish “Ararjuez” as a reminder of her beginnings as a Spanish dancer. She performed a passionate “Auguinaldo” to show how sensual Christmas songs from Puerto Rico can be, and she reprised “Brazil” with the same slow, sexy arrangement she sang on the PBS special for Cosby, her co-star on the children’s TV series “The Electric Company.”

Those were the three vocal highlights of the night. The comedic highlight was Moreno explaining how her Puerto Rican mother had trouble pronouncing her Js and Vs. When she met Rita’s Jewish fiancé, she asked, “Ju are a yu?”

An interesting prelude to two numbers from “Sunset Boulevard” was her anecdote that Andrew Lloyd Webber promised her the pivotal role of Norma Desmond before giving it to Faye Dunaway in the Los Angeles production. Webber then decided Dunaway didn’t have the voice for it and fired her, leading Dunaway to successfully sue Webber for breach of contract. Moreno finally got to be the first Latina to play the faded silent film star in a London production in 1996.

Moreno came to Hollywood in 1950 with dreams of being the next Elizabeth Taylor or Lana Turner. Instead, she got Indian and stereotypical Hispanic roles, a type casting she didn’t break until seven years after “West Side Story.”

Her performance Saturday reveals her to be a musical star in a class with Lena Horne or Diahann Carroll. But she distinguishes herself further by adding material from south of the border.