Photo Flash: First Look at EVITA's Stars - Ricky Martin, Elena Roger & Michael Cerveris; Previews Start March 12 — Page 3

Her voice is great. Her diction is much better now than it was when they recorded the OLC.

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Juan Peroni?
Sounds like he should be twirling pizzas somewhere.

None of the concerns mentioned above worry me as much as Rob Ashford's involvement.

Brantley was not crazy about this production.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/theater/03evit.html

I wonder if Isherwood will review it for Broadway, like with Sister Act.

In this clip, not ony does LuPone hit every note flawlessly and with reckless abandon, she exhibits quite a bit of feistiness. I love her little growl. This was thrilling to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxNPZisSYAc&NR=1

I agreed with Brantley's review of EVITA in London and hope a lot is different in this production; I especially agree with what he wrote about the treatment of the character of Eva Peron, who in this revival is sort of canonized, which is a lot less fun than the bitch Hal Prince had in mind in the original production

Updated On: 6/18/20 at 03:25 PM

I can't disagree strongly enough with the notion that LuPone played Eva as a one-dimensional bitch.

I've actually read that Eva was softened for the original New York production from London where she was portrayed as a real monster (you get a glimpse of this in the clips of Elaine Paige in the role on Youtube).

I understand the desire to try to make Eva seem fully dimensional, but my issue with how the character of Eva is 'softened' in this vision, is that the musical, as originally written really does 'villianize' Eva Peron to a large degree, and there isn't really a satisfying way around that.

Webber and Rice at least partly wrote the original EVITA as an allegory over the political unrest in British politics in the 1970s under Margaret Thatcher (an equally ambitious loved/despised political woman)

The musical (though unaccredited) is largely based on information from a biography called "The Woman with the Whip" published in 1952 by Mary Main. There are countless things in the biography, from the story of Eva leaving at 15 with Magaldi, to her throwing out Peron's mistress to the details from the Rainbow Tour that all stem from this specific biography.

Many of these things have since been debunked, but the book and the musical as written are too sewn up with the fabric of this version of the myth that they didn't leave much room for revision in interpretation.

The London production tried to get around some of Eva's villany, by simply ignoring the lyrics, even as Che sang them, often to truly bizarre affect. I remember in "The Money Kept Rolling In" as Che sang about Eva skimming money off for expenses and adding it to her own Swiss Bank accounts, Ashford and Grandage had Elena Roger hugging children or some such saintly nonsense.

They also added the song for the film "You Must Love Me" which Brantley pegged in his review correctly as feeling like a late night last minute limp plea for some kind of human sympathy for this character who for the last 90 minutes has systematically clawed her way over men, the aristocracy, the military and Che Guevara in her desire for power.

Honestly, the only solution if they wanted to paint a more sympathethic portrayal of Eva Peron that would work, I think, is for Tim Rice to re-write some of his lyrics.

But why should they do that? And why should they apologize for the anger filtered through/towards the character as they wrote the musical as disillusioned young men in their 20s?

Part of the appeal of Evita for me has always been in its enigmatic quality. "Oh My daughter. Oh My Son. Understand what I have done" has always been something of an unanswerable plea, that I'm not sure is worth trying to really answer in the musical itself.

Well there has to be a reason why they didn't continue with Covington? Please enlighten me - because I really don't know the story.

And Paige sounds a heck of a lot better in that clip than from what I've heard of Roger.

Wow, interesting!

Here's the article that Covington talks about her reasons for not doing EVITA on stage.
Covington interview

I imagine the QUEEN OF HEARTS documentary (as well as the radio program Andrew Lloyd Webber heard about the Perons on the BBC -- which was apparently the very first inspiration for the idea of a musical) were both at least heavily inspired by information in Main's biography. Written shortly after Peron's death, it was really the only substantial biography (in English) about Eva Peron until the late 70s when the musical created a new public interest in her.

Double post...

Updated On: 10/30/11 at 10:39 AM