|  Author | Topic: EVITA "Live Update" (Read 13,173 times) |
Fran
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|  | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #45 on Jun 22, 2006, 6:47pm » | |
I'm very excited to read the reviews especially Snapefan's eye-witness account, and can't wait to go. However as money is tight and I will have to pay for 2 tickets, or my daughter will never speak to me again, what I would like to know is, how are the seats in the upper circle? Will I need binoculars to recognize Philip?
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Snapefan
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #46 on Jun 22, 2006, 10:53pm » | |
Hi Fran! The seats are not bad, actually quite good when compared to other theatres. I'm talking only about the view, because the legroom is very poor so if you are tall I guess you wouldn't want to sit there. But I don't have this kind of "problem" 
In absolute terms, though, I'm not sure they are worth the price...
They are quite expensive! I was in Row D of the upper circle, it was £20 that night but the full price is £40! I'd rather pay £55 and be a few feet from the stage than 40 up there!!!
Anyway, don't know about the seats further back in the circle, but from where I was seated I definitely didn't need binoculars in order to recognize him! I did spend most of the time looking through them though... 
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Snapefan
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #47 on Jun 22, 2006, 11:03pm » | |
Brilliant reviews!!! And the videos on the official site are great, thanks!
The Evening Standard had the review on page 3...The whole page, upper half a huge picture of Eva and Peron on the balcony (the one with him kissing her hand), and below that the review and a gorgeous pic of the aftershow party ( this one --> ![[image]](http://cache.gettyimages.com/xc/71266728.jpg?v=1&c=MS_GINS&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF19390335F8FA9CA92A6B0C356C8B3214EF559D 55AD35CA51490 "[image]") )
EDIT: hmm ok the link doesn't work but...go to Getty Images ( http://editorial.gettyimages.com/ ) and do a search for "Evita"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't put the links because...there are so many!
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Eli
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|  | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #48 on Jun 23, 2006, 5:21am » | |
Wow, following that GettyImages link was the best way to start my day!! I've hardly ever seen so many shots taken for a single event, I wonder whether the leads and creatives had any time left to enjoy the party. Well, looking at the smiles it seems they had a good time anyway. 
And more than ever I'm so glad PQ is so tall, so he never gets the watermark on his face. So sorry for you, Elena!
Thanks again! It can't get any better than that (well, it could, if only they lowered the ticket prices...)
Cheers,
Eli
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carolann
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #49 on Jun 23, 2006, 7:44am » | |
And the raves keep rollin’ in! From today’s MAIL :
"During the interval for EVITA, someone came up to me and declared : “This must feel like how it was discovering Barbra Streisand after FUNNY GIRL”.
It’s the kind of show-queen comment you expect at the first night of a big musical, but I knew what the guy meant. Elena Roger in the title role was giving everybody in the Adelphi Theatre on Wednesday night goosebumps. As this column already reported, Ms Roger has that rare thing you can’t define – but you know it when you see it : an Everest-sized dose of star quality. Even my 18 year-old son got her, and he liked Michael Grandage’s show too.
As the critic Michael Coveney noted in his review for Whatsonstage yesterday : “A sure test of a great show is that its second major production can compete with the impact of the first”.
I knew from the first preview that this EVITA was going to be a whopping hit. The effect of the positive reviews from daily paper critics has given the EVITA box office a bounce, and ticket receipts were up yesterday. But the big money should come rolling in on Monday after the Sunday reviews”.
The only thing I would add to Baz’s report is to bear in mind when booking that there is an Alternate Eva for 2 performances each week – and I’m not sure if a schedule has been announced as yet  Personally, I thought the Alternate was fine, but not particularly special in any way - as there seems to be no doubt that Ms Roger is!
And thanks so much for the Getty images link! Doesn’t Philip look like he’s having THE BEST time!!
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carolann
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #50 on Jun 24, 2006, 6:18am » | |
Great review from Variety - I don't think you have it already I thought I better post the full review rather than just the link, as it will probably soon become subscription only :
EVITA review by David Benedict, Variety, June 22.
As Sandy Wilson said in his 1953 musical "The Boy Friend," "Some people's one desire is to go to Buenos Aires." That's certainly the case with the heroine of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Evita." About 15 minutes into Michael Grandage's pulse-racing revival, the gloweringly lit, cracked plaster back wall flies out as Lloyd Webber's infectious fast samba "Buenos Aires" kicks in. Gone is Eva's peasant past; she's living for the future in the city of her dreams, thrillingly embodied by the entire company dancing as if their lives depended upon it. Such electrifying energy needs a source, and it's got it in triple-threat dynamo Elena Roger as Eva.
"What's new?" is her exultant, open-throated cry. Throwing herself joyously from partner to partner on Christopher Oram's monumental three-sided, balconied set, eyes flashing in determination, this isn't a question, it's a fearless challenge. What's new about the explosive number is that when she sings, "Put me down for a lifetime of success," not a soul in the auditorium is likely to disagree. It's also blindingly clear that Grandage's entire production team knows it. Yet they have the courage to ensure the show is not a star vehicle but a serious theatrical event.
The line between showmanship and shamelessness is dangerously thin. Most productions are so desperate to persuade auds they're having a good time that a button is put on every possible number; this one takes them out. There now are only three moments in this show where auds can applaud. This not only makes those climaxes truly deserving of roars of approval, it also means the story is forever being driven onward. In a sung-through musical with no book, that's crucial.
The resultant fluidity is the production's secret weapon. Applause stops the action, but feeding the energy of one scene ceaselessly into the next galvanizes Eva's trajectory and the growing political fervor. "Evita" wants to be an opera, but it's actually closer to an oratorio, in which scenes are set up and sung about rather than dramatized. Instead of plot, a narrator, Che (the marvelously relaxed, sardonic Matt Rawle) links scenes on a chronological journey through the life of the hick from the Latin American sticks whose naked ambition takes her to the top.
At first look, the rise to becoming a fascist dictator's wife wearing Christian Dior while the country starved looks like the classic rags-to-bitches story. Yet the strength of the show's conception is its intriguing ambivalence about her character, a juggling act that is the forefront of this revival.
The politics are never back-pedaled. Indeed, one of the simplest but biggest risks this production takes is in the "And the Money Kept Rolling In" number, in which wads of banknotes are distributed to the poor. Eva, however, isn't presented as some Robin Hood character. She spends the number looking radiant, not with concern, but at the brilliance of her own achievement. The effect is chilling, all the more so because the dancing around her is so invigorating.
Choreographer Rob Ashford, Lloyd Webber and dance arranger David ChaseDavid Chase have reconceived the score, the composer's most inventive, as Latin American, not just in rhythmic changes but in the whole tone. The show now has sounds of the accordion, of soft guitars and shimmering harp effects; the tango takes over as the musical motor.
Out goes the literal-mindedness that flattened the sober movie version; in comes imagination. The approach papers over cracks in the storytelling and provides more direct access to engaging, often contradictory emotions. Telling the story through dance frees up the possibility to present ideas in multiple ways at any given moment.
In "The Art of the Possible," the generals wittily use the tango as a lethal, formal tussle of power as they stalk each other and fight to get to the top. Halfway through "I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You," the number slows to a seriously smoldering tango in which Eva and Peron's teasing and threatening of each other is physically echoed by other pairs of dancers snaking themselves about. In that number, Philip Quast's full-voiced, mightily powerful Peron looks as if he could wolf down Roger's petite body as a quick snack. Yet seeing someone so tiny tame a man that big makes Eva seem even more dangerous.
Hal Prince's original production's most iconic moment was the staging of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" on the balcony at the Casa Rosada. Here, caught in Paule Constable's crossing of white searchlights above the crowd, Roger repeats the famous gestures of hands symmetrically aloft, but she makes the moment her own. "And as for fortune and as for fame" has a tigerishness in place of the expected "who me?" sweetness. She makes the line beat with controlled rage before bringing everything right down for the reprise, to highly moving effect.
In the final section, dying Eva is spun around on a hospital bed. Cleverly clustered choreography disguises her exit. Two people then lift the pillow, which unfolds into the political flag and is draped over the bed as the cast process past it like a body lying in state. Yet above them, Eva appears on the balcony again, looking down, beaming. She's engrossingly enigmatic to the last, but one thing's certain: She and Grandage's seamless production are going to dominate this stage and the West End musical for a seriously long time.
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Rose
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #51 on Jun 25, 2006, 5:26am » | |
 Thanks to everyone who was lucky enough to see the show for the great reviews and links. Through the little videos and pictures we can catch a glimpse of this wonderful show.
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PQG Team
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #52 on Jun 25, 2006, 5:58am » | |
<<Philip Quast's full-voiced, mightily powerful Peron looks as if he could wolf down Roger's petite body as a quick snack. >>
Lovely "Into The Woods" reference!
The one in today's Observer is also quite spot-on:
<<...in one of the whip-sharp dance scenes choreographed by Rob Ashford he picks Roger up in a tango as if he were throwing a matchbox into the air.>>
Keep cheking our Reviews Page for more and more (mostly brilliant!) reviews about the show:
http://www.allthingsquast.info/press/reviews/evita/index.htm
Also: tomorrow 26 June Elena Roger will be Jenni Murray's special guest in "Woman's Hour" on BBC Radio 4 at 10.00 am. The programme will be available online as "Listen Again", but probably only for 24 hours.
More details:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/01/2006_26_mon.shtml
Cheers!
The PQG Team
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Eli
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #53 on Jun 25, 2006, 7:36am » | |
Found this production photo on an Argentinian website. It's a different shot of Peron and Eva and I like it a lot.
![[image]](http://www.lanacion.com.ar/anexos/imagen/06/535051.JPG "[image]")
All the best,
Eli
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Gregor
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #54 on Jun 25, 2006, 12:24pm » | |
There's no reviews of Evita in the printed editions of The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph or The Sunday Independent today, so another week to wait for these. 
Here's another two first-rate reviews from the printed editions of The Mail on Sunday and The Sunday Express however!
The Mail on Sunday
25 June 2006
THIS TINY EVITA IS A HUGE STAR
by Georgina Brown
****
Eva Peron was part Grace Kelly, part People's Princess Diana, part Cory Aquino, part Lady Macbeth - a nobody who became the first lady of Argentina. The first major revival of the 1978 hit Evita (Andrew Lloyd Webber's score, Tim Rice's lyrics) throws yet another Cinderella into the pot, tiny Elena Roger, an unknown Argentinian who proves herself every single inch, and some, to be a worthy first lady of musical theatre. So life mirrors art.
Roger is not a conventional beauty, but her flashing eyes, wide smile, belting voice, sex appeal and sheer force of personality blow you away. What's more, she doesn't just dance up a storm, she tangoes up a tempest.
Roger gives us an unstoppable hustler with infinite ambition who knows what she can do for Juan Peron, and what he can do for her.
'They need to adore me, so Christian Dior me; it's vital you sell me, so Machiavell me,' she sings as she is dressed to thrill in the wittily written 'Rainbow High'. And thrill the 'shirtless' proletariat she does. And me, too.
Michael Grandage's terrific, atmospheric production is superbly staged on Christopher Oram's stuccoed palazzos and wrought-iron balconies of Buenos Aires in the Fifties.
We are led along by Che (excellent Matt Rawle), the cynical narrator who, while never actually saying that Eva was a nastly little fascist, casts some justifiable doubt over whether she deserved her superstar treatment.
While perfectly capturing the moment when politics and showbusiness become hopelessly confused, as a history lesson Evita is somewhat limited. Was Juan Peron as genial and impressive as Philip Quast's gentle giant suggests? Were snotty posh Argentines the only hurdles Eva had to jump?
Who cares. Enjoy the rags-to-riches fairy tale with its tragic ending. 'Another Suitcase In Another Hall' is beautifully sung by Lorna Want, Peron's mistress, whom Eva kicks out as she moves in, and 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina', in which Eva bids farewell to her people, is as potent as ever. Evita's triumph - Roger's triumph - is that you believe she loved the people as ferociously as they worshipped her. A sensational hit, all over again.
The Sunday Express
25 June 2006
EVITA'S STAR
by Mark Shenton
****
An icon of the age was turned into musical Evita, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's 1979 masterpiece. It chronicled how Eva Peron, a graspingly ambitious Buenos Aires actress, born illegitimate, became the First Lady of her nation when her husband was elected President.
But though she lived fast, she died at the age of just 33. In the post-Diana age, the story of the cult of celebrity that formed around her and turned her into her country's spiritual leader; amplified by her early death, has even larger ironic resonances.
Now it is revived in a spectacular new production that returns the show to the West End exactly 20 years after the original closed. That made a star of Elaine Paige, and the new show launches Argentinian Elena Roger.
Physically slight, she's a transfixing presence with more than just a touch of the star quality that she proudly sings of possessing.
Michael Grandage's lush and epic staging, played out in Christopher Oran's beautifully recreated courtyard of the Casa Rosada presidential palace, vividly brings the pulsing contradictions of the character to life.
While she's adored by the population, there's also the smirking presence of the narrator Che - re-conceived for this production as an everyman narrator; played by Matt Rawle, not the Che Guevara of the original, who Eva never met - to remind us of her craved pursuit of power and the powerful.
With choreographer Rob Ashford providing a gorgeous tapestry of continuous movement of waltzes and tangos, Lloyd Webber's best score has been given new, Latin-inflected orchestrations that make dazzling melodies like 'I'd Be Surprisingly Good For You', 'High Flying Adored' and 'Buenos Aires' freshly powerful. Eva Peron lives again, and will do so for some time to come.
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Gregor
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PQG Team
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| | Saturday Review
« Reply #56 on Jun 25, 2006, 6:55pm » | |
...Because the voice of the minority also has a right to be heard: check the latest "Saturday Review" programme on BBC Radio Four, available as "listen again" at this link.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/saturdayreview.shtml
Never mind...
The PQG Team
off to sing a Requiem for constructive criticism. 
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Eli
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