Evita

Introduction

Evita the musical (1976) created by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice is a crucial part of musical theatre history. A Pop-rock, mega-musical based on the true events of the Argentine revolution, its aftermath and overall, Eva Perón’s influence during this time.

The Real Eva Perón  

The Musical is set against the backdrop of the 1943 Argentine Revolution and the protagonist of the story: Eva Perón is heavily based on the real life figure of the same name. The revolution was a military coup that overthrew the President of Argentina. This marked the end of an era of authoritarian rule and began the rise of Perónism, the support of Juan Domingo Perón.

At the time that the musical was released, Britain did not know that much about Eva Perón and yet, the British and American public became enthralled by her story. (Runciman 2024) “She was very little known in this country, she is known now because of your musical.” This depiction of a controversial political figure left audiences and critics split. (Walsh 89/97) “Some critics raised the question of whether Rice and Lloyd Webber had somehow glamorised Eva Perón and, in doing so, celebrated fascism.” This was exactly the point of the show, the true Eva Perón was heavily glamourised, her dazzling demeanour was her entire political approach. Therefore, Rice and Webber were not fictionalising her, but reflecting on the qualities that made her so problematic, despite Eva’s controversial politics, the people saw her as this wonderful celebrity and idolised her because of her character.

The concept album

After the success of the concept album Jesus Christ Superstar (JCS), Rice and Lloyd Webber decided to use the same strategy with Evita. Rather than producing the musical on stage first and waiting for reviews to bring audiences in, they recorded the full score and released it as an album before the musical had begun to make it’s way into the theatre. This approach was a huge success, ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’ rose to number one in the UK resulting in an eager fanbase prior to the show’s debut. The song became popular independently outside of the show’s context improving the musicals overall ticket sales and exposure.

Evita’s big screen debut and her ‘Maddonafication’

1996 saw the release of the film version of Evita, starring Madonna as the title role Eva Perón. The decision to cast a pop superstar was particularly significant as Evita, in its entirety, is a story of how political figures use celebrity culture to benefit their campaigns. Using a global icon such as Madonna for this role reflected the plot and reinforced the plot’s central storyline, using fame to manipulate and influence the public.

It is easy to find similarities between Madonna and Eva Perón, both use their ‘rags to riches’ storyline to relate to their ‘fans’ and both had the strong urge to become successful film stars. Prior to Evita, Madonna’s film career had contained limited successes, her films Swept away and Shanghai dreams did not fulfil the dream she had in mind. However, Evita marked a turning point in her career, grossing $141 million dollars in the box office. (Abbassi, Lutjens 2002) “Madonna is a star-commodity, a contemporary, cultural product that is aggressively circulated in the entertainment market.” Madonna’s involvement in Evita can be seen as a key factor in attracting a wider audience, including non-theatre goers who would not have thought to watch the film otherwise. 

“Once Evita Madonnified as a female superstar, Madonna and Evita seem to become a perfect match in ambition, manipulation and celebrity.” Madonna’s best selling album ‘The immaculate collection’ sold over 3.9 million copies in the UK compared to the original Evita album selling just 300,000. The success of this film proves how sometimes, star casting can act as a bridge between theatre and pop culture, there is no doubt that Madonna fans went to see the film just for her and after, possibly walked away as musical theatre fans.

Broadway’s British Invasion and the Mega musical

A mega musical can be defined as ‘Larger than life visual and aura spectacles (that) dazzle audiences, (…) through-composed popular operas (…) where set design, choreography and special effects are at least as important as the music.’ (Everett, 2008) The late 1970’s-80’s marked the new trend, and more specifically, the trend that Evita inspired according to Bial and Brigardener in 2024. “Evita (…) launched the so-called British Invasion, the period of great transition in the history of musical theatre, where for the first time the chief location of new musical production occurred outside of New York City and the United States appeared most often associated with the rise of the mega musical.” This changed Musical history forever, the West End was no longer specifically inundated with transfers from Broadway and as a result, Broadway began a new obsession with the British musical.

Although Evita is not set in the UK, its success allowed for the Americanisation and internationalism of British musical theatre, writers of British born stories such as Blood Brothers (1983) and Billy Elliott (2005) would now extend overseas to a wider audience. The newly founded Mega Musical allowed for the emergence of a new wave of larger-scale musicals such as Les Miserables (1980) and Miss Saigon (1989). Both of these shows fit the mega musical form, mesmerizing set pieces, expansive and emotional storylines and predominantly sung through scores. Although we cannot minimize these shows’ creations down to the existence of Evita, it was a very significant contributor to the popularisation of this style of show, and its success created a commercial appeal for the new form of Musical Theatre.

Revivals time periods and history

There are notable similarities between Margaret Thatcher and Eva Perón, particularly their prominence as women with political power and their presence in a media-heavy society. Thatcher’s takeaway from Evita is not what creator Lloyd Webber had anticipated, “I cannot imagine any intelligent person going to Evita and coming away with anything but the idea that she was a fairly grisly piece of work.” Thatcher’s words can be interpreted as her being inspired, but also that she had analysed the similarities between the two. Although Thatcher and Eva Perón had a mixed public opinion, they were both women who wanted power in a male-orientated world and had to work hard to reach their goal. The contrast between Thatcher’s response from the musical and Lloyd Webber’s initial intention only further highlights the show’s interesting ability to evoke conflicting responses, even perhaps inspiring viewers about how to get what they want.

Shortly after Evita’s success on Broadway in 1979, the Falklands war broke out in April 1982, a fight over the ownership of the Falkland islands between Argentina and Britain. “The BBC refused to play the former number 1 ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’ during the conflict.” The song had attracted an entirely new meaning, it became a pub anthem that people would chant sarcastically as Britain clung to its overseas territory. Similarly, Walsh (89/97) states “Lloyd Webber felt that the turning point for Evita came with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979. The heightened awareness of the evils of totalitarianism, whether of the fascist or communist variety, brought people into the theatre.” Both of these examples prove how relevant the musical was to a contemporary audience and the parallels that they could draw to modern life.

Evita’s relevance continues, the West End has recently staged a revival in 2025-26 directed by Jamie Lloyd and after its huge success, has been granted a Broadway transfer. The story is still clearly very relevant and draws implicit parallels with current themes. The new adaptation of the musical had no fear in likening the story to the modern day. During and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, political leaders relied more on media representation to shape the public’s view of them, something that Eva Perón utilises successfully. The boundaries between celebrity and politician are blurring over time, a precise example of this was when politicians Nigel Farage and Matt Hancock appeared on the TV show ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’ which explicitly defines them as celebrities and not political figures. These developments echo the themes of Evita and prove that although the media has changed, the way that public figures manipulate it still remains. On this TV show, these controversial figures were shown as charming and understandable. This is directly reflected through Evita and specifically the 2026 revival, allowing audiences a theatrical lens to observe the similarities in our modern day and how we are still being brainwashed to aid political exploitation.

‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’

It would be impossible to talk about Evita without discussing ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’, this song is a pivotal moment within the show as well as a standalone pop song that is known internationally beyond the context of the musical. This song perfectly encapsulates what the story of Evita is about. “Eva Perón uses politics as a perilous form of mass entertainment and that is what links her with the musical as a genre, as this theatrical form also plays a high risk game of literally seeking to be applauded by as many different people as possible”. (Gordon, Jubin and Taylor 2016) ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’ operates as a performance within a performance (as the lyrics are supposed to be exaggerative and manipulative tactics, she is not telling the truth), her speech relies on audience interaction and plays on public appeal as does the show it is within.

In Jamie Lloyd’s production of Evita, this part of the musical differed from previous adaptations. Eva was situated on the theatre’s external balcony, performing to a non-paying audience that would gather outside while a live filmed version was being broadcasted on a screen in the auditorium. This serves as a metaphor that Eva prioritises her public perception over the exclusivity of the paying audience inside. In the musical this is the same, she wants the people of Argentina to adore her, she does not pay heed to the aristocrats that judge her for her working class upbringing.

This artistic choice also allowed spectators to film and share the performance via social media as phones and recording are not permitted inside the auditorium, granting free promotion for the show. The use of multimedia visualises the separation of Eva’s real life and the persona that she exudes, seeing the constructed part of her campaign in contrast with the ‘behind the scenes’ story that we follow throughout the plot. This format of ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’ represents the direct address and personable qualities that Eva had while predominantly isolating the audience through a screen, this juxtaposing approach highlights her faux sincerity and performance. I have linked a side by side comparison of Rachel Zegler’s performance and what it looked like both inside and out of the auditorium to highlight this point.

Conclusion

Evita achieved great international commercial success that impacted the future of Musical theatre. Many of the creative and production tactics used to further Evita’s future are strategies that have been employed by Musical theatre creatives after the breakthroughs that Evita accomplished, including:

• The release of a concept album.
• Having a predominantly sung through score.
• The incorporation of historical, public figures.
• The utilisation of star-casting.

Although Evita was not the first musical to employ these features, it contributed to the popularity and therefore, made these characteristics more commercialised. As a result, subsequent productions that employed these tactics were not met with such scepticism that Evita had encountered.

The success of Evita, along with JCS (1970) and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (1973) was the pivotal moment that gave Lloyd Webber and Rice their prosperous careers. These musicals enabled the production of later works- CATS (1981), Starlight Express (1984), The Phantom of the Opera (1986) (etc.). Ultimately, Evita remains a substantial and eminent piece of theatre that shaped the mega-musical that we are familiar with today and also continues to be a relevant cautionary-tale and social commentary on political performance and the way that the public perceives it in both a historical and contemporary setting.

Bibliography

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