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Though a nightclub singer may sing 'On This Night of a Thousand Stars' early on in Evita, Andrew Lloyd Webber's masterpiece musical set to lyrics by Tim Rice, there's one blazing star in the new production at the Adelphi. As the Act One Finale welcomes the arrival of 'A New Argentina', it's a new Argentinian discovery who blasts a mesmerizing new light on both the character of Eva Peron and the show: the tiny but fierce Elena Roger. When she announces in 'Buenos Aires', "snad back - you ought to know what'cha gonna get in me / Just a little touch of star quality", you better believe it. But then the star quality of this production is in abundant supply throughout. As expertly marshalled by director Michael Grandage, the musical is given immediate vibrancy: just as Chicago at this same address took on new weight in revival so Evita emergs as a fresh critique of the cult of instant celebrity and believing your own myth.
The musical has myths of its own, originally fictionalizing a relationship between Eva Peron and Che Guevara, who never actually met, but now adjusted so that he is simply Che, an everyman narrator commenting from the sidelines. But as a succession of dazzling leading ladies - from Elaine Paige and Pati LuPone on stage, to Madonna in the film - have made Eva their own, so Roger now claims Eva entirely to herself. In the satellites that circle around this new star, there's excellent support from Philip Quast as Peron; Matt Rawle as Che; Gary Milner as Magaldi, the nightclub singer she discards; and Lorna want as Peron's mistress whom she usurps. Christopher Oram's magnificent balconied set and Rob Ashford's choreography folds the action in a tapestry of constant movement, while the score has been re-thorught with new, Latin-inflected orchestrations.
© What's On in London
