. Evita

Evita.

Evita is a musical production, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. It concentrates on the life of Argentine political leader Eva Perón, the second wife of Argentinian president Juan Perón. The story follows Evita's early life, rise to power, charity work, and eventual death.

Evita began as a rock opera concept album released in 1976. Its success led to productions in London's West End in 1978, and on Broadway a year later, both of which enjoyed considerable success. A major 1996 film of the musical was made, starring Madonna and Antonio Banderas. The musical was revived in London in 2006. Evita has been given numerous professional tours and worldwide productions, and numerous cast albums have been recorded.

In 1972, Robert Stigwood proposed that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice develop a new musical version of Peter Pan, but they abandoned the project. Rice then heard a radio play about Eva Duarte de Perón and approached Lloyd Webber with an idea for a musical collaboration based on her life. The more Rice investigated Eva Perón, going so far as to travel to Buenos Aires to research her life, the more fascinated he became by the woman; he even named his first daughter after her. The idea of writing a score including tangos, paso dobles, and similar Latin flavours intrigued Lloyd Webber, but he ultimately rejected the idea. Lloyd Webber decided instead to collaborate with Alan Ayckbourn on Jeeves, a traditional Rodgers and Hart-style musical based on the P.G. Wodehouse character, which proved to be a critical and commercial failure. Chastened, Lloyd Webber returned to Rice, and they began developing Rice's proposed musical. The authors of the 1996 book Evita: The Real Life of Eva Perón claim that the musical was based on Mary Main's biography The Woman with the Whip, which was extremely critical of Eva Perón. Though Rice praised the Main biography, it was never officially credited as source material. Rice suggested that they create a character known as Ché to serve as a narrator and Greek chorus. It was not his intention to base him on Che Guevara, but when Harold Prince later became involved with the project, he insisted that the actors portraying Ché use Guevara as a role model. In the 1996 film adaptation, the character returned to his more anonymous roots.

As they previously had done with Superstar, the songwriting team decided to record Evita as an album musical and selected newcomer Julie Covington to sing the title role. Released in 1976, the two-disc set included Paul Jones as Juan Perón, Colm Wilkinson as Ché, Barbara Dickson as Perón's mistress, and Tony Christie as Agustín Magaldi. Lloyd Webber and conductor Anthony Bowles presented the musical at the second Sydmonton Festival before making the recording with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Prior to its release, they played it for Harold Prince and invited him to become involved with the eventual staging. Prince agreed, commenting, "Any opera that begins with a funeral can't be all bad", but he advised them that he could not take on any new commitments for the next two years.

In Britain