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The result of a visit to Argentina in February 1974 by Tim Rice, and the subsequent reunion with Lloyd Webber – their first collaboration since the double-album of Superstar was unleashed upon a largely unimpressed British public in October 1970 – is Evita, the story of Juan Peron’s first wife, Eva.

Like its predecessor, Evita began life as a two-record set embracing all manner of popular music styles. Like Superstar, it had already produced a smash-hit single, ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’, which, much to the delight of Tim Rice, would have people ‘walking into the theatre whistling the tune’.

There are over 100 cover versions of Argentina, which was written “on the spot”, says Rice, “and which neither of us thought would be a hit. After all who wants to buy a song about a country you’ve hardly even heard of?”

Dispensing with the non-too-happy prefix ‘rock’, Rice and Lloyd Webber simply called Evita an opera, with the infinitely varied score reflecting the increasing maturity of their composition.

The £400,000 musical directed by Harold Prince opened at the Prince Edward (formerly Casino) Theatre on June 21st 1978 amid unprecedented publicity, as a joint production between the authors and Robert Stigwood.

As Rice wrote in his introduction to their own book about Evita, “mere words from critics hold no terror for me”.

Lloyd Webber re-vamped much of the orchestrations for Evita, so making suitably ethnic his and Rice’s study of Eva Peron, “easily the most unpleasant character about whom I have written”, says Lloyd Webber, “except perhaps Peron himself”.

John Coldstream
From the Original London Production Programme