Staged Right: The Creation of Evita The Musical

Fascinating!  https://youtu.be/wivRS9LHSN0?si=seiZb8P0O3Pmq_Bj

I was puzzled by Julie Covington's refusal to continue on with the role of Evita. Even when she initially decided to undertake a 1989 Australian production, she backed out at the last minute.  I was surprised that both Patti LuPone and Elaine Paige shared similar "trials" with their alternates.    Both ladies ffaced a media onslaught and obviously had difficulties with the vocal demands of the role.  I had the "experience" of seeing Elena Roger in the second preview of Evita in 2012.  While her acting was okay, her singing was decidedly underwhelming. 

Jay Lerner-Z said: "Thank you.

Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's own political views are abhorrent to me, so I'm not sure I would trust their judgement on Eva Perón anyway. Whatever about politics, there is definitely a misogynist element to this show. Sure, it has a woman as the main character, but it shames and treats her like a prostitute using her body to climb the ladder. Seems a little unfair, seeing as how it was her husband who passed on an STD which killed her. The same one which killed his FIRST wife. His womanizing is not shamed, or even mentioned. Sad."

Is it me, or do you just hate the British.

And as far as EVITA is concerned, you can't really fault Lloyd Webber and Rice for her characterization, because at that point in time all the information available about Eva Peron was less than flattering but there is quite a bit of truth in that she did what she had to in her quest to get to where she did. 

SANTA Evita is the oxymoron of oxymorons. 

Updated On: 11/6/23 at 02:08 PM

Jay Lerner-Z said: "It's just you. I do not hate the British."

Ahhh, there it is....

I remember ALW saying as a white, English man, couldn't write this show today. 

BETTY22 said: "I remember ALW saying as a white, English man, couldn't write this show today."

He said it in an interview earlier this year, but it's not true. Whatever problems Here Lies Love is facing, there is no widespread condemnation of the fact that it was written by white men (I'm sure you can find isolated complaints about it, of course). 

More geographically on the nose, I don't think anyone has condemned LaChiusa for writing book, lyrics, and music for a show about a woman from Argentina.

Jay Lerner-Z said: "Thank you.

Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's own political views are abhorrent to me, so I'm not sure I would trust their judgement on Eva Perón anyway. Whatever about politics, there is definitely a misogynist element to this show. Sure, it has a woman as the main character, but it shames and treats her like a prostitute using her body to climb the ladder. Seems a little unfair, seeing as how it was her husband who passed on an STD which killed her. The same one which killed his FIRST wife. His womanizing is not shamed, or even mentioned. Sad."

She died of breast cancer.

 

My understanding is she died from cervical cancer, brought on by an undiagnosed and untreated STD. Juan Perón's first wife Aurelia died of the same cause in the late 1930s. Very sad. His third wife, Isabel, is still alive to this day. Quite a contrast.

If people could pivot back to the featured players.. Elaine.. Patti...all that.  It would be much appreciated.

Evita's lineage is Basque (the region along the northern border of Spain and southern France)
Argentina is largely a population made up of Italian and German immigrants. IMO, "European" describes the population more so than "Hispanic".
Argentines don't speak Spanish. They speak Castellano (not to be confused with Spanish Castilian). Castellano utilizes the archaic vosotros form of speech. Accents fall on different syllables. For example, if you want to say, "Leave me be!" in Spanish, you would say, "DEjame" (with the accent on the first syllable). In Castellano, you would say, deJAme vos" (with the accent on the second syllable).
Another fun fact: "che" is not a person's name. It's a vocative expression similar to, "buddy", "man", "gurl", etc. It's mostly used only in Argentina (very few other SA countries) and unlike other Hispanic words, it's neither masculine nor feminine. "Che" can be used to capture the attention of both men and women, equally.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara earned the nickname due to his fondness for, and over-abundant use of the expression.
Another fun fact: After Evita's death, Peron's third wife, Isabel, became the first female president of any country following Peron's death in 1974.
I was a foreign exchange student to Argentina in 1975. Isabel Peron was president while I was living there. There were *many* comparisons made between Isabel and Evita, both positive and negative.
I discovered the white concept album for Evita while browsing in a record store shortly after I returned to the US. I was both very surprised that it existed ...and also disappointed.

Just caught this last night as I was going down a YouTube hole. Very interesting episode and up to date to include the recent “revival”.

What did you not like about Alan Parker's direction? I loved it. He made a movie, not a screen version of the stage show. Which is always good. Cinematic. Expansive. Not like Susan Stroman's Producers movie. Not awful and completely clueless about musical potency like Tom Hooper.