DONT’ CRY FOR ME, I’M A DIVA
Evita is about Eva Perón, the tragic wife of Juan Perón, the former president of Argentina – but from the outset I saw a serious problem. There is nobody in the story with whom you empathise.
Eva had such ghastly values, I couldn’t see how to make an audience care about her. It took me what seemed like ages to come up with a solution but I vividly recall when and where I did. It was on a Saturday afternoon in Bristol in 1975, when I recalled having seen one of Judy Garland’s last-ever performances, back in 1969. Non-performance might be a more accurate description – Judy was an hour late on stage and the dinnertheatre crowd, fuelled by the cheap house champagne, was restless, to put it mildly.
As she stumbled through her signature song, Over The
Rainbow, the booing and whistling grew louder and louder. Her anthem was devouring her like a vulture on a battlefield. It was heartbreaking. If I could find an anthem for Eva and turn it on her like Over The
Rainbow had turned on Judy, it would unlock her story musically. That afternoon I wrote the tango melody of Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.
The choice of who to play Evita came down to three: Verity Anne Meldrum, Elaine Paige and an actress whose name I can’t remember. I was already strongly leaning towards Elaine. She was petite, brassy and sexy. Her chest voice seemed castiron, yet she could show real warmth and vulnerability.
In short, she had star quality. But I wanted to be doubly sure. After a dazzling rendition of Rainbow High, I asked her to sing Don’t Cry
For Me... one more time. ‘Oh, f***!’ she said eyes blazing. We knew then that we’d found our streetfighting Evita.