We considered many ideas for our next project together but partly because we were so busy trying to keep up with Superstar’s international progress and partly because we were a little nervous about even attempting to write a follow-up, we did nothing of any note from 1970 to 1973 except adapt our 1968 children’s musical Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for a run in the West End. That show became one of the most-performed pieces around the world.

We did not want to rush into a new venture for the sake of it, but at the same time we were keen to prove that whatever abilities we possessed had not dried up. When I heard the last 10 minutes of a programme about Eva Peron on my car radio one evening late in 1973, I was not immediately struck by the idea that here was the perfect story for us, but I was intrigued by what I had heard (and by the fact that another programme in the same series was to feature James Dean) to make a point of listing to a repeat of the programme a few days later. I then discovered that I had recently missed a TV film about Eva Peron called Queen of Hearts which had been shown on ITV. I contacted the director, Carlos Pasini, an Argentine film-maker who has been living and working in London since 1966, and he arranged a showing of his movie at Thames TV. I have now seen it at least 20 times. Queen of Hearts is an excellent documentary, in part actual film of Eva Peron as both actress and politician, in part new material including interviews with many close to Evita, such as her hairdresser and one of her sisters. By the time I had seen Pasini’s superbly researched film, I was hooked.

Not, I hasten to add, on her philosophy or her morals. It is not unreasonably assumed by most people that a composer or writer admires the heroes or heroines he writes about. This is no problem if your subject is St. Francis or Florence Nightingale but your motives can be misunderstood if your subject is a person who was indisputably murky in both character and deed. If your subject also happens to be one of the most glamorous women who ever lived, you will inevitably be accused of glamorising her. Small bodies calling themselves Aims for Freedom and Enterprise will attempt to deny you the freedom to pursue an enterprise that discusses such a woman, and larger bodies such as Left-wing lady MPs will take up a lot of space in popular newspapers criticising you for bringing a Fascist to the attention of the public. THE POLITICAL LESSONS TO BE LEARNT I cannot imagine that Evita will convince anybody that the tactics adopted by the Perons in the Forties and Fifties form an acceptable political creed, but for the record I would like to state that the only political messages we hope emerge from the work are that extremists are dangerous and attractive ones even more so, and that a nation does not have to be a tin-pot banana republic to allow a person of the far Left or far Right to gain power—Argentina in 1945 was a sophisticated nation and no country today can claim with confidence that "it can’t happen here".

Once Andrew and I had agreed that the Eva Peron story could be the one strong enough to be our follow-up to Superstar, I wrote a fairly long plot synopsis which underwent many changes, but even in its earliest form enabled Andrew to get going on one or two of the most important musical themes. The fact that one of these was the melody for what eventually became Don’t Cry For Me Argentina was very encouraging for me—it was good to know from the word go that Evita would have at least one extremely strong tune. I still feel that it is the best tune Andrew has written to date, although just two months ago he came up with another spine-tingler.

I went to Argentina in February 1974 which was where I wrote most of the initial synopsis. I did not do any major research out there (I was content to maintain a low profile as both the planned stage and film presentations of Superstar in Buenos Aires had met with fairly strong critical reaction in that the theatre where the stage show was scheduled to open was burned to the ground and the cinema due to show the film was bombed. I am not sure exactly who was responsible but after that reaction to our work no words from any critic hold any terror for me, but obviously it was a great help, and also very exciting, to see for myself many of the places where Eva Peron had operated. Buenos Aires is a magnificent city.

I think we both felt while we were writing Evita that the work would get finished eventually, but it took us a long time to get it into a state fit enough to make sense to friends and colleagues. By the end of 1975 we reckoned that we had written a piece that was working taking a stage farther—there were still many improvements to be made, but if Evita was ever to progress beyond our interpretation of it (piano and weak vocals) now was the time.

We decided we would launch the property via records. We had gone this route very successfully with Superstar although had anybody shown the slightest interest in staging it when it was first written we would never have made that LP. By accident we discovered a very good way of introducing a musical work intended for the theatre—don’t risk it in the theatre straightaway, test reaction to the music alone on records first. There are so may things that can go wrong with a stage musical that the writers of the score of a flop can never be really sure whether they were to blame.

We spent 1976 planning the recording, and in November that year our work finally saw the light of day when the double album of Evita was released in Britain. During the following 12 months it proved to be very popular in many countries with the notable exception of the United States. This is naturally a disappointment to us but we have the consolation that Superstar was a failure in Britain on disc until the stage show reached London nearly two years after the record’s release. Evita also failed to reach the charts in Argentina, where sad to say the recording has been banned.

Both Andrew and I were genuinely surprised by the success of Don’t Cry For Me Argentina as a hit single. We never felt that it would have any appeal on its own, out of context. If there was to be a pop hit within the score of Evita we felt sure it was the song sung by Peron’s mistress Another Suitcase In Another Hall. However it seemed a good idea that the first single to be released from Evita should be sung by the opera’s leading character—played by Julie Covington on the LP—so we followed the advice of MCA Records in this country and Argentina was issued. I would never have tipped a single lasting for six minutes, performed by a comparatively unknown (at the time) singer, with a beat guaranteed to clear a disco floor in 10 seconds (i.e. no beat), and with lyrics all about a country hardly anybody knew anything about (the World Cup was still two years away), to make number one—but it did, not just in the U.K. but in several other countries.

All we had hoped for was a little radio action to bring the album to the public’s attention. In fact, although we only sold 3000 copies in the U.S. (and many of these may come back to us as they are on sale or return), the worldwide total is 1.7 million of the Covington single plus nearly 100 cover versions including recordings by the Carpenters, Petula Clark and Horst Wende the Master of the Accordion. The song has been a sensationally effective trailer for the entire work. Perhaps too effective in some ways, for it has tended to give a false impression of our view of Eva Peron’s personality to those who only know of Evita through this one single. Argentina portrays Eva Peron at her most cynical, but this is only clear heard as part of the entire play. I am sure most people who bought the single bought it simply because they thought it was a good pop record—which is why I buy most of the records I buy, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The total failure of the Evita album and Argentina single in the States is rather hard to explain. In Britain and Europe, Australia, South Africa and South America, our record sales eclipsed those of the original Superstar recording. But as the U.S. market is by far and away the largest in the world, our worldwide Evita sales (around 700,000 double albums so far) are tiny compared to the Superstar grand total of six or seven million. There is of course the ghastly possibility that the Americans just can’t stand the record, but I am encouraged to believe that this is not the case as hardly any of them have actually heard it. Our promotional tour of the States was not one of the most triumphant or well-organized processions of the postwar years, and virtually no U.S. radio stations felt that Don’t Cry For Me Argentina suited their narrow playlists or formats. The single was not rock enough for rock stations, not easy enough for the easy listening stations, and clearly would not appeal to disco, soul or country networks.

Fortunately one American did hear Evita and liked it—Harold Prince, with the result that America’s leading director of musicals agreed to direct, for the first time in his career, the first production of a British musical in London. If we have any confidence in the stage production of Evita, it has nothing to do with the mountain of publicity we have attracted in recent months but everything to do with the fact that Harold Prince is at the helm. It is a superb opportunity for British writers and performers to be able to work with Hal on a show that has not already been produced in the United States, to be creating not recreating.

Hal Prince himself, spending most of his time in a country where it has been hard to give Evita albums away, was staggered by the desperation of many of the representatives of the British Press to write anything about Evita, however trivial. Although nobody will believe us we have spent more time in recent weeks attempting to avoid publicity than in looking for it.

It was Julie Covington’s refusal to be considered for the leading role which launched the Press on their gripping quest to find the new Evita. The search seemed to go on for ever but in fact was nothing like as drawn-out or racked with despair as the casual follower of the saga might have assumed. The story featured in the papers for around six months but in fact only during about six weeks of those six months when Hal Prince was actually in Britain were the dreaded auditions taking place in earnest. All the same it was a great relief when eventually an actress with every quality we were looking for emerged in Elaine Paige.

I haven’t a clue where many of the stories stating that famous film actresses such as Faye Dunaway and Raquel Welch were pestering us on the telephone to be considered for the part originated, but we had never expected the final choice to fall upon an actress who was already well-known. Elaine has had many good parts in many shows during the past 10 years (including a stretch in Superstar) but until now her name has not meant a great deal outside the theatrical profession. This fact has already changed. She was recognised in the street several times even before rehearsal started. Luckily one of her greatest assets is a calm temperament as revealed during the bun-fight of her introduction to the Press en masse a day or two after her name was announced. Her ability to keep her feet on the ground may prove to be as big an asset to the show as her singing, acting and looks certainly will be. I am sure that the fact that her initials are E. P. is a good omen. After all, Julie’s initials are those of our previous leading character.

Naturally, Andrew and I were disappointed when Julie Covington decided that she did not want to do any more work on Evita, even though we had never thought beyond records when we asked her to be on the original album. Her singing then was superb, and she would have been almost certain to have got the part in the show if she had wanted it—we would not have bothered to look elsewhere. Now I am glad we were forced to do that. Julie’s talent hung around, a lurking shadow, during many of the auditions, particularly during some of the less stunning six-minute treatments of Argentina. (If we ever write another hit song, it must not be longer than 2:15). But Elaine’s beautiful voice disposed of the shadow, and suddenly we agreed with Julie—why do the same thing again? Much more exciting to start afresh with a new approach to the part.

There are things to admire about Eva Peron the person—her determination to succeed against almost insuperable odds, her championing of women in a male-dominated society, her championing of her class in a class-dominated society, her courage in illness and in death, and not least her physical appearance. Even those who have written the most vitriolic accounts of her life were clearly fascinated by her, and I plead guilty to this charge too. It is a tragedy that her talents were often warped and misdirected, that her colossal energy was rarely used for more worthy ends. Even as a struggling actress in her early days in Buenos Aires, she dedicated herself to perfect the art of manipulating people in order to become a star, rather than dedicating herself to become a good actress.

From her earliest age, Eva Peron was consumed with a desire for power. That desire was fueled by her bitter resentment of the fact that she was born without privileges, and that many would never want her nor accept her because of her humble origins. If she could not achieve respectability in the eyes of the established system, then that system would have to be replaced. There have been many people in many societies who have gone through their lives with similar thoughts—but few turned their thoughts into action as Eva did.

Most people who make any kind of impact upon their fellow men owe a great deal to chance. Events and people around them have to be just right to enable their particular talent or characteristic to leap into prominence. AN obvious example is Winston Churchill—in less dramatic circumstances than those of Britain in 1940 he might never have been chosen to lead his country. Had an opportunist of the efficiency of Juan Peron not crossed Eva’s path in 1944, it is doubtful whether even she would have made any lasting impression on Argentine life and politics. The combination of Peron and Eva was the factor that was the greatest single help to each of them.

When Peron finally achieved power in Argentina he produced ‘justicialism’ (justicialismo) as his official doctrine. Justicialism was promoted by Peron as being the alternative to both capitalism and communism, a ‘third position’ between that of the West and that of the East. In fact Peron presided over nothing more or less than common or garden variety fascism but the concept of justicialism was a perfect focus for Eva’s fantasy of being a leader in pursuit of an ideal. Without her the story of Peron’s presidency (assuming he would have become president without her help) would have merely been one more depressingly typical tale of dictatorship in Latin America. As it is no-one can fail to be disgusted by many of the actions of the Peron regime, by the torture, corruption and deception, and by the gross mismanagement of a rich country.

Frankly, it is impossible to say why Eva Peron reacted so drastically to the disadvantages of her early life, when nearly every other person starting out in similar circumstances made little attempt to alter the hand dished out by fate. One can only say, rather obviously, that her basic make-up was different. However, once she had set out on the path she had chosen for herself, it is easy to see how one triumph or achievement satisfied her, how ambition became megalomania, and how power became a drug she had to pump into her system in an ever increasing quantity. It is harder to cope with an ambition fulfilled than it is to achieve the ambition in the first place; I hope the Che’s song to Eva in Evita, High Flying, Adored, illustrates a little of Eva’s dilemma.

No-one can surely blame Evita for wanting to fight her way out of the gutter; how sad that in doing so determination and viciousness became confused and remained thus even when she was First Lady of Argentina. All the same, there was certainly a genuine desire to see an improvement in Argentine social justice caught up in the tangle of Eva’s emotions right until the very end of her life; could a totally selfish person have gone through the final grim months with so much dignity? She had to believe she was dying for her people, which she was able to do because she really believed she had been their savior since 1945.

Why Eva Peron? She had style, in spades. We hope that Evita has captured some of the life and magic, death and disaster of this strange woman. It is probably just as well that the crazy, magnificent, demonic complexity that was Evita is no longer inspiring and corrupting the millions from the balcony of the Casa Rosada. If she could, she would; she would not yet be 60 were she alive today.