Cabaret-by-the-Sea is a Valentine to the Monterey Peninsula.

For Barbara Brussell, cabaret isn’t about interpretation, or mini one-act plays that combine theater and music or capturing an underappreciated art form gone by.

“Cabaret is about discovering your own voice,” she says. For her that involves a perpetual soft glow indicative of 1930s classical Hollywood cinema and a voice capable of contorting to fit any theatrical occasion.

After spending most of her early years on the Monterey Peninsula, Brussell left for New York City in the early ’80s, where she ended up going back and forth between her native Los Angeles for over 20 years, performing constantly, from starring roles in Pirates of Penzance and The Baker’s Wife to The Fantasticks! and Fiddler on the Roof.

Ever since she was a child and her brother took her to see renowned cabaret performer Charles Aznavour, Brussell started developing her own interpretations of songs by Irving Berlin, Charles Strouse, Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim and other greats. In her 1999 cabaret show They Say It’s Wonderful, which ran for over a month at the now-defunct Eighty Eight’s in Greenwich Village, she made them her own.

“Cabaret usually tells stories in an original and personal way,” Brussell says. “A theme could be an individual composer, a biography or autobiographical.”

Brussell’s 2008 acclaimed cabaret show, Out of the Mouths of Babes: Women Who Dared, centered on female songwriters like Dorothy Fields and Dory Previn. Poignant quotes from women were integrated into the show, including an Ingrid Bergman zinger: “Happiness is good health and a bad memory.” In an enthusiastic review, New York Times music critic Stephen Holden wrote, “Brussell [is] most at home with pop-leaning art songs that fall outside conventional stylistic niches.”

Women Who Dared helped Brussell secure the 2008 Manhattan Association of Clubs and Cabaret Award for Best Major Female Vocalist. Nearly 10 years later, Brussell brought cabaret to Carmel. Last fall, she debuted “Cabaret-by-the-Sea” with fellow cabaret aficionado Mark Nadler. On Saturday, Brussell’s second iteration of “Cabaret-by-the-Sea,” It’s Time For A Love Song, is a Valentine-themed show featuring interpretations of love songs culled from the Great American Songbook, Broadway and beyond.

Pianist/composer George Peterson, bass/vocal coach Louis Lebherz, singer Wies Norberg and singer/director/music teacher Gina Welch accompany.

Barbara Brussell Valentine Cabaret Show: It’s Time For A Love Song 7:30pm Saturday, Feb. 11. Carl Cherry Center, Fourth and Guadalupe, Carmel. $25; $30/door (cash only). 869-8167,www.brownpapertickets.com