Evita - Page 4
Evita
#75Evita
Posted: 3/13/12 at 6:19pm
While Evita the movie was really only a moderate commercial success, a LOT, if not most, of my non theatre friends associate it with Madonna--so as others said, I think the Petti connection is much more with certain Broadway people, not the general population (by any means--Patti who?)
Castle, thanks for your reply. I actually agree with you, although I think I do like the movie more than you overall, I do think Parker had a hard time choosing between how to present it. I guess I just saw your comment about it being an abortion as too harsh--to me that means an utter disaster. Stone would have been a worse choice I suspect (though maybe he'd surprise me)--as would the rumours back in the day of Ken Russell (although it probably would have been entertaining to watch).
I do find the concept album to be probably the most exciting of the recordings overall (RippedMan I believe it was just recently remastered so you can easily buy it 
), but a lot of it wouldn;'t work IMHO on stage. The Lady Has Potential (even with the insecticide stuff removed as it was for the film) would be I suspect a very hard song to make work on stage.
That said, I think Kay's orchestrations work better in a theatrical context (and Larry Fuller used many of his added rhythms to do some great choreography which often doesn';t get the credit it should). The concept album is much more like Jesus Christ Superstar, which I still think has never fully successfully worked on stage--Prince was smart to insist on the changes he did before he would direct it.
I don't mean to discredit the London cast at all, I think they're all fine performers--and I think it's a bit unfair that many people sorta forget even that Evita was a success in London with that cast first--just for some reason I find the recording itself lacks energy and is disappointing. Maybe it was recorded too early? Speaking of, did Prince and crew make any significant changes between London and the LA/NYC production? I guess I always think of the major changes made to Sunset Blvd between London and LA, buit I suppose it wasn't really the same situation.
holdyourbatboy
Stand-by Joined: 3/1/04
#76Evita
Posted: 3/13/12 at 7:40pm
I was there last night. ALERT to everyone reviewing bc they saw the London production. I also saw it in London, and the production has been somewhat RE-IMAGINED for Broadway. For the better. This is NOT a recreation of the London production.
I really enjoyed it last night. Visually, it is spectacular. It also now moves at the speed of a rocket ship. Staging was seamless and stunning - my favorite moment was probably the transition into the beginning of Buenos Aires... the set reveal got applause.
Loved Elena - and yes, she will be polarizing. Some people around me didn't get her.. she isn't Patti. To me she is completely dynamic and perfectly cast for the revival. They needed to break out of the Patti mold - and they did it. She is edgy and captivating and commands the stage. They need to work on her mic levels bc her voice is so unique.
Ricky is fun. No, he isn't a great actor. This isn't the Mandy Che - this is the audience's friend taking us on the journey with him. Personally, I loved seeing him. None of the intensity Mandy brought - but it worked for this production.
Loved Cerveris. Loved the choreography. This production is STYLE STYLE STYLE. Which FITS for Evita. Eyes, hair, mouth...etc - the show has a real "pop" feel - in a good way. No, I didn't get emotional at any point during the show bc of plot points/Eva's death. But I did have plenty of excitement and joy from the dazzling staging and Roger's performance.
#78Evita
Posted: 3/13/12 at 10:34pmI was watching the Broadwayworld video of the curtain call at the first preview and I noticed that many, many people were taking pictures and videos. I haven't been to NY in a few years, and I was wondering is that normal now in Broadway theatres? Is it acceptable behavior to take photos during the bows?
Coach Bob knew it all along: you've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed. You have to keep passing the open windows. (John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire)
#80Evita
Posted: 3/13/12 at 10:41pmMany people were taking pictures during the curtain call. The ushers were basically powerless to stop everyone. I don't think they anticipated that. Roman
"Noel [Coward] and I were in Paris once. Adjoining rooms, of course. One night, I felt mischievous, so I knocked on Noel's door, and he asked, 'Who is it?' I lowered my voice and said 'Hotel detective. Have you got a gentleman in your room?' He answered, 'Just a minute, I'll ask him.'" (Beatrice Lillie)
#81Evita
Posted: 3/13/12 at 10:55pm
Last night the media was there to photograph the curtain call so that's why you say probably 40 different flash bulbs going off at once- there were probably some audience members who joined in but that was mostly the press.
Eric- back to your coments on the London cast recording; I don't think it was really ever made readily available in the US and Canada and because the American cast recording came fairly fast on its heels and was so much more complete, few felt the need to track down the London disc.
The production didn't undergo major changes from London to New York but the tempos in London were much slower than what was heard on Broadway.
Updated On: 3/13/12 at 10:55 PM
roadmixer
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Auggie27
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/03
#83Evita
Posted: 3/14/12 at 8:11amI had the London recording, a one disc highlights. Paige disappointed slightly, only in comparison to Covington (the recurring motif in this thread). As noted, it seemed slowed down, and too staid and formal to those of us expecting a rock-infused sound. As for Paige, I was already a fan, having seen her in BILLY with Michael Crawford.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#84Evita
Posted: 3/14/12 at 12:08pmHave to disagree with the comments about the film Evita. There is a single weakness in the film, and that is Madonna's performance. It wasn't bad, she sang very well, but she just can't act. Alan Parker did a good a job as possible covering the weakness, and because of his directorial chops, he made what is, I think, one of the great film musicals. I'm thinking of Sondheim's comments when Sweeney Todd was made, regarding his general dislike of film musicals, and he mentioned West Side Story in particular. Parker is a master director, and his film of Evita reminded me of "The Wall". It was a visually powerful film, and considering that the lead was only so so, the emotions he produced were miraculous.
#85Evita
Posted: 3/14/12 at 1:49pm
discmen it is a matter of opiion. I love the show Evita and yet could not force myself to sit through The movie in it's entirety. Madonna destroyed the thing for me. Her bad acting and the score being made easier so her moderate singing ability could handle it.
I know they had to drop some of Evita's bitchiness in order to get the Argentine Government to allow them to film there. But the softening of Eva disturbed be as well.
Those Blocked: SueStorm. N2N Nate. Good riddence to stupid! Rad-Z, shill begone!
#86Evita
Posted: 3/14/12 at 2:12pm
I think the movie of EVITA suffers from a few things; the main being that its completely lipsynced and after a while there is just a disconnect between the music and the visuals and without the live element, the piece just loses a lot of what makes it interesting and exciting as theatre.
The softening of the Eva Peron character has been going on for a long time, certainly well before the film was made; I think Rice and Lloyd Webber, aside from feeling somewhat guilty that they based the musical on what was (though the only widely available biography of Eva Peron available in English at the time) a book that painted Eva in a fairly one note, negative light.
I also surmise that over the years, the massive economic and social success they have personally accumulated since they wrote EVITA as young and edgy artists, has played into their increased sympatheties to Peron's ambition.
Its a point of contention I have with the film and the revival, because I feel like the musical was originally written from a very negative Peron slant and unless they were to do a lot of re-writes, it doesn't very well lend itself to a more sympathetic interpretation, though including "You Must Love Me" and cutting a few of Eva's more demonstrative lyrical passages ("But your despicable class is dead; look who they are calling for now") for this staging certainly is a somewhat half baked attempt at just that.
In terms of Madonna's vocals; while they certainly aren't as exciting as a lot of her stage predecessors, I think even if Celine Dion had played the role they would have lowered a lot of the keys - placing theatrical music in 'conversational' keys has long been a practice for film - if for no other reason than its widely believed that if the audience can't understand the lyrics, they won't go with the film (and as others have pointed out there are several very high passages in EVITA that lyrically are almost indecipherable, regardless of who is singing them on stage).
Updated On: 3/14/12 at 02:12 PM
#87Evita
Posted: 3/14/12 at 2:20pm
While not amazing, I have no real issue with Madonna in the film. I always thought she did fine partly because she DOES seem capable of acting in her music videos--oddly. Speaking of, apparently David Fincher who largely made his name making some of her best music videos is a huge fan of musicals, has always wanted to make one, and was trying to be considered for Evita. Some have said the reason he won't work with Madonna anymore, is he was disappointed she didn't fight for him (if there's ANY truth there, I assume part of the reason is when the film would have gone into pre-production Fincher wasn't really an established name director).
Re the London cast album, the tempi ARE slowed down. I wonder if that's how they were played in the theatre, if they were sped up later, or what--that does add to the lack of energy. I do particularly like David Essex on it though (I guess he left the London run early on to be replaced by Gary Bond).
zelgo
Swing Joined: 3/14/12
#89Evita
Posted: 3/14/12 at 2:29pmEric, there are a couple of 'live' recordings of the original London production floating around out there. Have you ever heard any of them? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on it; but yes, it appears the tempos were that slow in the theatre. The tempos in this new revival are slower than the Broadway original as well, so I'm assuming this is how Webber prefers it played.
SFFrontRow
Broadway Star Joined: 3/19/05
#90Evita
Posted: 3/14/12 at 3:12pm
Just a question on Elena Roger, was the production in London really done in 2006? I checked out the different versions of the cast recordings on iTunes last night. Surprised that it took this long to get it over to B'way.
Also, listened to some samples of the original concept album. It struck me that the arrangements sounded more like JCS - very rock-ish and certainly a different take than the OBC recording (the only one I currently own). I also listened to some samples of the 2006 London revival with Elena Roger, she certainly has a MUCH different diction presentation than the OBC version. I have read that she performed it all phonetically and it just seemed a little off (like the right words were being sung with the emphasis put on odd syllables). Since I was only listening to samples, and it was SO LONG ago (2006), and I have read that she is more conversant in English now, I tend to dismiss this and look forward to her B'way performance.
Can anyone who has seen the current B'way production speak to the diction and syllabic (how is that for a word) empahsis?
Updated On: 3/14/12 at 03:12 PM
#91Evita
Posted: 3/14/12 at 3:30pm
Her accent is still thick, but I think outside of some of the passages that are difficult to understand regardless of who is singing (the afore mentioned passages in "Good Night and Thank You" for example) its much better than it was in London; though I think it wouldn't hurt for them to continue to work with her on it; American audiences are less forgiving of such things. Ricky Martin has a surprisingly thick accent not when he sings but when he speaks (and he speaks a lot in EVITA) and I actually found him more difficult to understand.
Jonwo
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/16/06
#92Evita
Posted: 3/14/12 at 3:43pm
The 2006 revival wasn't that successful in London which is probably why it has taken longer to come over compared to the usual 2-3 year transfer time. Unusually, Andrew Lloyd Webber isn't producing it, it's Hal Luftig and Scott Sanders.
Elena Roger has built up her resume with Piaf, Boeing Boeing and Passion. It's a shame Piaf didn't transfer to Broadway, she was very good in that. She's mentioned in an interview she'd like to play Norma Desmond when she's older.
#93Evita
Posted: 3/14/12 at 4:36pm
I remember the critics loving it, and being a bit surprised it didn't run at least two years, myself but I have even less success at predicting what will run in the West End than Broadway, so...
I've heard an audio of Elena's really stunning performance in the Donmar Passion (although that production, as Sondheim rightfully said, really seems to belong to Giorgio more than any other). Her diction did sound better than Evita's cast album, but she did have some questionable bits...
Speaking of accents--it makes sense for this production to largely use accents since the two stars have them anyway, even though I tend to subscribe to the belief of not using them when someone in a film or play is *meant* to be speaking their own language and we just hear it as English. But I know people go back and forth on that.
However, there have been two tours in North America in the past 15 or so years. I saw the more recent one (I think it was around 2003) and while the performances were not all brilliant, I found it thrilling to see the original production as restaged by Prince and Fuller together. However the earlier 20th Anniversary tour, which I did not see, but was apparently based on the original Prince staging with the original designs (though I believe he was too busy to do more than attend some rehearsals). At any rate, it stared Natalie Torro and Raul Esparza and according to Wiki and some other sites tried to place more emphasis on "latin themes", hence the casting. I wonder if anyone saw it and knows if they did accents?
MB,m I don't have any live recordings of the London production though I'd love to hear them--I've seen a few of the clips that they showed recently on that BBC West End Musicals special, and I believe the same footage has been on various ALW docus, but that's it. I have seen the easy to find footage of the Broadway production, and I think the tempos were similar to the American album, though I know ever since the days of Godard Lieberson's great cast albums that the tempo of tracks is often sped up.
In the notes Sondheim made about the WSS cast recording and sent to Bernstein who couldn't attend the sessions, which are published in full in that recent book, Sondheim mentions that Bernstein will not approve of Lieberson's decision to often take the instrumental bits especially sometimes at close to double their stage time, his reasoning being without the visuals, you have to keep the music more exciting. But I guess Evita didn't reflect that.
While I largely agree with the complaints of the movie, as I said I do overall enjoy it--I wonder if this production will lead to a decent BluRay release finally.
And yes, SFFrontrow, the concept album was very very much more in the JCS mode.
#94Evita
Posted: 3/14/12 at 5:12pm
"I wonder if anyone saw it and knows if they did accents?"
I saw the Raul Esparza/Natalie Toro tour (still got the Playbill). Only the 3 leads were cast as Latino -- Esparza, Toro, Raymond Jaramillo McLeod, and Eva alternate Ana Maria Andricain -- and there was no accents except for the Spanish pronunciation of Argentina. Thus, they sang "A new Arr-hen-tee-na" and "Don't cry for me, Arr-gen-tee-na," which was kind of annoying because otherwise they sang the entire time without an accent so it was jarring.
Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra
Salve, Salve Regina
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
O clemens O pia
Updated On: 3/14/12 at 05:12 PM
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra
Salve, Salve Regina
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
O clemens O pia
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