Academic style writing

Throughout her life and indeed after her death, Eva Peron has been heralded by many as a heroine and saint and was even given the title of ‘Spiritual Leader of the Nation’ shortly before she died on July 26th 1952. So when in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Evita’ she is referred to more as a ‘whore’ than a ‘saint’ it leads to the question, ‘ Is the musical/opera ‘Evita’ a fair portrayal of the life of Eva Peron?'

‘Prostitute, Fascist, Profligate- Eva Peron was much maligned most unfairly’ (Thomas Eloy Martinez, ‘The Woman behind the Fantasy’- Time Magazine).

One of the most negative aspects in the portrayal of her life in the musical is almost certainly the introduction of the character ‘Che’, whose role is to narrate the story. Strongly based on Che Guevara, a very famous revolutionary of the era, he is constantly present on stage, criticising and questioning Evita and her lifestyle. From the very beginning of the show, as the other characters representing Argentinean people mourn for Evita at her funeral, he is singled out from their grief singing ‘Oh what a circus, oh what a show’, demonstrating his belief that the reaction to Eva Peron’s death is ludicrous.

Two Evita Biographers, Nicholas Fraser and Maryssa Navarro, have suspicions that Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice based their opera/musical on Mary Main’s biography ‘The Woman with the Whip’, which Tim Rice openly praised. This biography looks very negatively upon Evita with Mary Main claiming that ‘Eva did evil things’, and so it would seem that ‘Che’ is almost the embodiment of author Mary Main’s views.

Mary Main grew up in privileged Anglo-Argentine society, far from the poverty Eva experienced as an illegitimate child, struggling to make her way in the world. It is easy to see how Eva’s efforts to become an actress could be misinterpreted by someone from a privileged upper class. In the musical, during the song ‘Goodnight and Thankyou’, Eva Duarte is shown letting men in one door and out the other once she has got what she needs. The character ‘Che’ sings the lyrics

‘Goodnight and Thankyou Emilio, you’ve completed your task...............

And that will be all, if she needs you she’ll call,

But I don’t think that’s likely somehow.’

This is suggestive of a prostitute’s behaviour. But when Eva arrived in Buenos Aires she was just fifteen, with little talent and no money. As Thomas Eloy Martinez points out in his article for ‘Time Magazine’, ‘Each time Eva auditioned for a part in radio, theatre or film, she was expected to pay a sexual toll.....It was a matter of survival.’

In the song ‘And The Money Keeps Rolling In’, the character ‘Che’ also takes a very negative stance on the ‘Eva Peron Foundation’, implying that Evita was keeping some of the funds for herself. This is quite explicit in the lyrics:

‘Now cynics claim a little of the cash has gone astray,

But that’s not the point my friends.’

This aspect of the musical relates strongly to Mary Main’s opinion that the foundation was merely a way of channelling government money into private Swiss bank accounts controlled by Evita and Peron. However in their 1996 book ‘Evita: The Real Life of Eva Peron’, Fraser and Navarro counter these claims, saying that the Minister of Finance did keep records and that the foundation ‘began as the simplest response to the poverty encountered each day in her office’. They also state that the foundation was started with 10,000 pesos that Evita provided herself.

Scholars now recognise that much of Mary Main’s biography is made up of scandal and gossip and the close relationship between the book and the show suggests the musical is also prejudiced. So even though towards the end of the second act, Evita is finally given a chance to fight back in ‘Waltz for Eva and Che’, I would conclude overall that the opera/musical is great entertainment, but not a fair portrayal of Eva Peron’s life.