Evita has always been, for me, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s most thrilling, least cloying musical, the one in which his score transcends melodic clichés and melodramatic impulses to provide real tension, beauty, and theatricality. The story of Eva Duarte Perón, Argentina’s controversial First Lady from 1946 until 1952, when she died in her early 30s—around the same age at which the even more iconic title character in Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar ended his time on earth—also feels distinctly timely right now, given its focus on the glamorous wife of a polarizing populist with dictatorial leanings.
Of course, our current president’s current spouse hasn’t made waves the way Evita‘s subject did, nor loomed as large in the eyes of both her husband’s supporters and his critics. And any 2019 staging of the show poses risks: Can its portrait of a poor but ambitious young woman who essentially slept her way to the top, thought by some to be sexist or simplistic even 40 years ago, fly in our post-#MeToo era? To quote from one of librettist/lyricist Tim Rice’s refrains, the answer is yes—at least, in the hands of a director who gets the nuances that Lloyd Webber and Rice, neither of whom are generally known for nuance, insert into their account of Eva’s rise and fall, and her relationship with military leader-turned-president Juan Perón.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★ review here.]
The new production of Evita at New York City Center has such a guide in Sammi Cannold, a young director who has cast two vibrantly gifted young women in the title role. Maia Reficco appears in the first few scenes as the very young Eva, then returns periodically after Solea Pfeiffer has stepped into the part, reflecting the wonder and doubt that linger for this superficially formidable figure as she navigates the position described by Che, the disenchanted revolutionary who serves as narrator, in “High Flying, Adored”: “Did you believe in your wildest moments/ All this would be yours…/ Don’t look down, it’s a long, long way to fall.”
However obvious some of Evita‘s ironies and contradictions may be, the shades of gray that Cannold and her leading players seek to unveil are not always easy to find. Lloyd Webber has divided several of his better-known female protagonists into swooning ingénues (The Phantom of the Opera, The Woman In White) and overreaching shrews (Sunset Boulevard), with Eva falling more into the latter camp. In the song “Good Night and Thank You,” Rice reaffirms this, following the young Eva as she hops from one lover to the next in her pursuit of fame and social standing in Buenos Aires. Once she hits the jackpot with Juan, their initial duet, the sinuous “I’d Be Surprisingly Good For You,” concludes with one of the most cynical lyrics ever sung on stage: Men and women alike, we’re informed, “rely on tricks they can try on their partner/ They’re hoping their lover will help them or keep them/ Support them, promote them/ Don’t blame them, you’re the same.”
But this Evita emphasizes the genuine affection that also exists between Eva and her powerful husband, and the misogyny and classism she faces as an upwardly mobile village girl, born out of wedlock. Emily Maltby and Valeria Solomonoff’s choreography—by turns exuberant, sexy and sinister as it traces the dynamics between lovers, workers and political and military honchos—becomes particularly menacing in “Buenos Aires”; as Reficco’s girlish Eva is tossed from one officer to the next, there’s less and less of a sense that the savvy social climber is in control.
Once Pfeiffer assumes the part, she brings to it a sense of hard-won, fragile elegance, underlined by a singing voice of exquisite color, tone and expressivity. There’s not a hint of the brass many have come to associate with Eva since Patti LuPone’s starmaking performance in the original Broadway cast, or the scrappiness Elaine Paige brought to her earlier on the West End. Pfeiffer’s shimmering soprano has previously been showcased in roles such as Maria in West Side Story and Guenevere in Camelot; she brings the same limpid warmth to Eva, accompanied by a gleaming belt, so that we feel both her strength and a pronounced tenderness. The latter is especially evident in scenes with Juan, who as played by Enrique Acevedo conveys both convincing brutishness and, where Eva is concerned, adoration.
As Che, Jason Gotay sings beautifully, though he lacks the dynamism the character requires and the sardonic edge it invites. In general, happily, there’s no lack of sparkle in this production, from Jason Sherwood multi-tiered, moving set design—Pfeiffer sings “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” atop what resembles an enormous layer cake, iced with bundles of flowers—to music director and conductor Kristen Blodgette’s vivid presentation of Lloyd Webber and David Cullen’s lush, percussive orchestrations.
If these collaborators share credit with Cannold for making this Evita seem fresh, Pfeiffer is its biggest revelation. I look forward to seeing and hearing her tackle other classic musical roles, and introduce new ones, in the near future.
Evita opened November 13, 2019, at City Center and runs through November 24. Tickets and information: nycitycenter.org
