Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1979 rock opera begins with a death. 33 year-old Evita Perón’s (Katerina McCrimmon), coffin rests high on a mound of flowers above Argentine mourners who revered her as a saint. But the lamentations are interrupted by Che (Omar Lopez-Cepero), who sees Evita as a master manipulator.
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| Che (Omar Lopez-Cepero) and the cast of Evita Phot credit: Phillip Hamer |
Given the nickname "Evita" as a term of endearment, the conflicting narratives of Eva Perón’s legacy continue to persist because her rise from the slums of Argentina to the country’s first lady remain iconically universal. The events of Eva’s life are primarily told and not shown, with Rice and Lloyd Webber laying out the opposing accounts before us -- the hero of the working classes vs. the social-climbing tart despised by the elite, letting us walk away to come to our own conclusions.
