Word: evita
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...Lloyd Webber's best score, but it is his most seamlessly and artfully constructed. There is a resemblance between this show and The Phantom of the Opera -- reclusive mad protagonist conceives passion for young member of opposite sex -- but that is merely plot. Musically, Sunset's real forebear is Evita. The angular, chromatic recitatives for Norma explicitly recall Eva Peron's egocentric ravings. If the music of the new show lacks Aspects' delicious subtleties and Phantom's gothic flamboyance, it still offers two of Lloyd Webber's best songs in With One Look and As If We Never Said Goodbye...
...disastrous Newsies notwithstanding, seems on the verge of turning its hegemonic attentions to live-action musicals: the studio has the splendid composer Danny Elfman (The Simpsons, Tim Burton's films) and Alan Menken, & Newsies' composer, each developing a new live-action movie musical, plus Oliver Stone in preproduction on Evita...
...play shows every side of Evita, the innocence, her fame and her infamy. The faltering direction of Evita's life becomes intimately tied to the decline of an Argentina blinded by idolworship of this actress/politician, a scenario frighteningly similar to America's love affair with Ronald Reagan...
...Evita also seems to fall short of the usual number of original and memorable melodies we expect from Webber and Rice. All of the melodies are repeated at least once, some as many as three times. Webber relies too heavily on "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," which opens both acts and also closes the show...
Webber plucks the emotional string of the audience throughout his musical. The audience mourns Evita's death by way of the nauseatingly high-pitched chorus of "Requiem Evita" (which sounds amazingly like Webber's own Requiem). We empathize with Evita's triumphs as she passes through the turbulent trials of her life. In a strange sense, we even admire Evita's fortitude despite our disgust at her betrayals of Argentina. This duality of feeling toward Evita is precisely what Webber wants us to experience...