|  Author | Topic: EVITA "Live Update" (Read 13,179 times) |
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|  | Re: EVITA Broadway bound?
« Reply #60 on Jun 29, 2006, 6:54am » | |
According to the NY Post, there seem to be plans for a transfer of Evita to Broadway in late 2007:
http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/evit....hael_riedel.htm
Although the name of Elena Roger has been mentioned, no details about a possible cast for the US production have been unveiled yet.
Your PQG Team
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Gregor
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #61 on Jul 2, 2006, 6:55am » | |
From "The Sun" newspaper (winning the award for the worst titled article):
The Sun
30 June 2006
WINNER FOR EVA 'N' EVER
by Bill Hagerty
Until Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice resurrected her, there were millions outside South America who thought Eva Peron was an Italian mineral water.
I suspect quite a few were present at the first night of director Michael Grandage's revival of this 1976 hit musical.
But by then they'd learned that Eva was the First Lady of Argentina, a charismatic wheeler and dealer who captivated a nation before dying in 1952 at the age of 33 and being dubbed Santa Evita by her husband, President Juan Peron.
The on-their-feet first-nighters awarded an ovation to some of Lloyd Webber and Rice's better songs - 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina', 'Another Suitcase In Another Hall' - and a powerhouse performance by a true star, Elena Roger.
This tiny native of Buenos Aires brings throbbing passion to the title role and can even sing and dance at the same time - don't laugh, many can't.
I was not as overwhelmed as the whoopers and the squealers and many of my critical colleagues by Grandage's competent but rarely exciting take on the show. It's not a patch on the Madonna movie.
But it would be churlish to deny Ms Roger's vivacity, Philip Quast's excellent singing as Juan and Matt Rawle's likeable tell-it- like- it-is narrator, Che.
Eva had immortality guaranteed worldwide by Britain's most successful musical duo.
I guess the current World Cup team might do it without them.
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Gregor
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #63 on Jul 2, 2006, 7:58pm » | |
The Sunday Telegraph
02 July 2006
THE SONG'S THE THING
by Rebecca Tyrrel
****
Elena Roger, the new Evita, the new big star discovery, was on Woman's Hour last week answering Jenni Murray's questions about Eva Peron - the sex, the politics and the sexual politics. It was a struggle to listen to - Roger is Argentinian, the accent is thick and the English is broken - but it was possible to make out that one of her parents was a Peronist and the other a socialist.
Both, however, would have been moved by their daughter's appearance on a carved stone balcony, wearing a meringue of white tulle, singing 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina' in the title role of Evita, the Tim Rice / Andrew Lloyd Webber revival that opened at the Adelphi Theatre last week.
Roger even looks like Eva Peron: the profile is perfect; she is tiny, like a little bird. Neat and polite, she has a beautiful voice that veers between nightingale-sweet and robust belting. There is no dialogue in Evita; things roll along from song to song - the unknown actress sleeping her way to social significance until she encounters the soldier and politician Colonel Juan Peron (Philip Quast) and sings to him, 'I'd be Surprisingly Good for You'.
The Rainbow Tour of Europe sees her clambering upon a pile of Louis Vuitton cases; a radiant, charismatic ambassadress. In Buenos Aires she stands in squares and hands out money to a crowd (rather a small one given the scale of the production). And when, suffering from cancer, she starts to fade and stagger, 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina' takes on a different, genuinely lachrymose meaning altogether.
Evita was the last show upon which Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice collaborated, and 28 years on it has been re-orchestrated. The songs are still lilting and more-ish but sometimes it's bolder and faster than before. There is no question you will come out humming. And it's timely: as I passed a pub on my way home I heard England football fans singing their very own message to their team. It goes, 'Don't try to be Argentina'.
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Gregor
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #64 on Jul 2, 2006, 8:12pm » | |
The Independent on Sunday
02 July 2006
EVITA
by Kate Bassett
Director Michael Grandage's new West End revival of Evita, with the tiny but strident Argentinian star Elena Roger as Eva Peron, is architecturally grand and impressively fluid. Palatial marble balconies roll into view, illuminated by shafts of golden light, as our country-born heroine turns cosmopolitan actress and promiscuous social climber. Tangoing with crowds of her gentleman-admirers, she raunchily flicks her stilettos, swirls and is borne aloft like a soaring bird, fast becoming the masses' glam icon before dying young.
It must be said, Roger's climactic pairing with Philip Quast's huge tubby bear of a Peron makes the presidential couple look dangerously akin to a comic duo. She can hardly reach to seductively stroke his ear. Her bona fide accent sometimes makes her sung-through political speeches hard to decipher too. But, according to Matt Rawle as the sardonic narrator Che, most of her revolutionary promises were vacuous anyway. Lloyd Webber produces a clutch of unforgettable tunes drawing on folk harmonies and Catholic choiring - not least 'Oh, What a Circus', Another Suitcase in Another Hall' and 'Don't Cry For Me, Argentina' - though the bursts of Seventies' rock now seem anachronistic and there are some dull, thudding choruses. The Perons' story is also so compacted by Tim Rice that their dictatorial dark side - including Argentina's disappeared - is barely discussed.
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Gregor
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #67 on Jul 3, 2006, 7:15am » | |
Time Out
28 June 2006
EVITA
by Jane Edwardes
****
If the Argentinian footballers move with only half the dynamism of Argentinian actress Elena Roger, there's not much hope for England. Roger, who is over here to play her fellow countrywoman Eva Peron, is a tiny, dynamic dancer with a big smile and a voice that can be both strident and stunningly clear, especially when she sings 'I'd Be Surpisingly Good For You' to would-be President Peron.
Like Diana with whom she has so much in common, Eva still divides people today. On the one hand, she was loved by the people and scorned by the snobbish grandes dames of Buenos Aires; on the other, she was a ruthlessly ambitious actress who slept her way to the top and was well aware of her fascist husband's dealings. Hugely popular when it first opened in 1976, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's musical bravely tries to encompass these contradictions by using the outsider figure of Che (specifically Che Guevara in the original production) to criticise both the President and his wife. Matt Rawle as Che gives an impressive performance, but the music and lyrics are too jaunty to carry much weight. And there is so much more to tell. I would love, for instance, to know whether Peron coped any better than Prince Charles with his wife's popularity.
The danger of having a real Argentinian as Eva is that she might make the rest of the cast look all too British. In fact, the ensemble not only appears authentically Latin American and where necessary plebeian, but they also tango with a strong and sexy grace. This is director Michael Grandage's second West End musical and he remains determinedly unshowy. Helped by Christopher Oram's flexible, sun-baked designs, Grandage keeps the action flowing. Their work is entirely in keeping with the spirit of a throughsung musical in which one big hit - from 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina' to 'Another Suitcase in Another Hall' - segues into the next.
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tammy
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #68 on Jul 3, 2006, 9:31am » | |
hi, No one seems to have notice how like Peron, PQ Is in this Evita. Just look at the actual pics of Peron that run across the bottom of the page of the current programme and it is amazing how like both Evita and Peron Elana and PQ are She is just as petite as the real Evita and PQ looks just like the real Peron. So casting seems to be perfect from that point of view.!!!
The Sunday Independent seems always to go against the dailys in their reviews. They did so recently with the RSC's -T&A which a Japanese company did recently at Stratford. I was "dragged to it"" by my other half and was not looking forward to a night of Shakespeare in Japanese. I sat with my mouth dropping lower and lower, and boy was it different- it was just an amazing experience, which almost all the other critics raved about.
Did any one here Sara Kennedy this morning? she played PQ singing Stars in her "from the musicals". She mentioned him in the reviews of Evita before she went off for a weeks holiday and surprise surpise she came back to loads of letters asking for Stars to be sung by him. She and her producer admitted they had never heard of him and were very surprised - I think she intends to go and see Evita soon. soory it so long
Tammy
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Eli
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #69 on Jul 6, 2006, 10:16am » | |
Thanks for your interesting remarks, Tammy!
The Sarah Kennedy programme on BBC Radio 2 is available online as "Listen Again" (until next Monday) at this address:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/kennedy/
Click on "Monday" and "fast forward" the first 70 mins or so. 
All the best
Eli
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Eli
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #70 on Jul 6, 2006, 12:14pm » | |
Brilliant "audio review" of Evita on TheatreVoice, featuring Mark Shenton, Matt Wolf, David Benedict & Charles Spencer. Approx 17 mins into the audioclip.
Follow this link to listen to or download the debate.
http://www.theatrevoice.com/listen_now/
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Gregor
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #71 on Jul 7, 2006, 8:29pm » | |
To celebrate the imminent *2000* page views of this thread (congratulations, Eli!  ), here are another two great online reviews:
The British Theatre Guide
http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/evita-rev.htm
Theatreworld Internet Magazine
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/MouseUK/stage/west.htm
Philip Quast inhabits the ruthlessly manipulative Maxwell-like personality of Peron with immense conviction, his accomplished singing and impressive acting combining to create an overwhelming impression of power and unbridled ambition.
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Ally
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #72 on Jul 8, 2006, 10:34am » | |
Went to see Evita on the 3rd of June (fantastic etc etc) and have been hanging out for the recording ever since, but I've just looked on Amazon.co.uk and it says the release date has been put back til August, although on the Really Useful website it still says July. Any ideas?
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Gregor
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #73 on Jul 8, 2006, 11:58am » | |
It is indeed a puzzle, Ally! Sadly (in this case) I've personally found that Amazon UK tend to be quicker than the others in updating their release date information.
Let's see . . . thanks to Eli's convenient shopping links page
http://www.allthingsquast.info/extras/shopping.htm
we have
101cd.com still quoting Monday 19 June (waken up!),
Really Useful promising July,
Dress Circle now saying Monday 31 July,
Amazon UK going for Monday 7 August,
and, most worryingly of all, Tesco anticipating 1 January 2020
(maybe to coincide with the show's closing date at the Adelphi??).
In other words, no-one has a clue!
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Gregor
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| | Re: EVITA "Live Update"
« Reply #74 on Jul 9, 2006, 12:13pm » | |
According to the newly uploaded playlist for Elaine Paige's Radio 2 show today, she will be playing Elena Roger & Philip Quast's version of 'I'd Be Surprisingly Good For You' (premiere of forthcoming album track?) at around 14:20 BST today (available for listen again until Saturday 15 July!)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/paige/playlist.shtml
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