Evita: stage vs screen

Alan Parker's 1996 film of Evita stars Madonna as Eva Perón, Antonio Banderas as Che, and Jonathan Pryce as Juan Perón. It adapts the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical, which began as a 1976 concept album, opened in London in 1978, and reached Broadway on September 25, 1979, with Patti LuPone as Eva. The film tells the same story but changes the score, Che, and the finish. Here are the main differences.

Stage

Broadway musical (1979)

Screen

Evita (1996), directed by Alan Parker

1. The film was built from the album, not the stage script

Parker modeled his screenplay on the 1976 concept album and said he refused to borrow elements from the stage play. Even so, the shape is familiar: both the stage show and the film open in a cinema in 1952, interrupted by news of Eva's death, and both then flash back to her teenage years in Junín and her meeting with the tango singer Agustin Magaldi.

2. A new song: "You Must Love Me"

Lloyd Webber and Rice wrote "You Must Love Me" for the film, late in the recording process, and it won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Madonna sings it near the end, after "Your Little Body's Slowly Breaking Down" and before "Eva's Final Broadcast," as Eva is dying. It was not in the 1978 London staging, though later productions, including the 2006 London revival, added it.

3. Che is an everyman, not Guevara

In the film, Che is a cynical member of the public who narrates the story, criticizes Eva, and yet is drawn to her. He is not identified with the revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, a link that several stage versions made. Banderas plays him; on Broadway the role was created by Mandy Patinkin, who won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.

4. "Another Suitcase, Another Hall" changes singers

On stage, "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" belongs to Perón's teenage mistress, who sings it after Eva throws her out. In the film, Madonna sings it as Eva, after her affair with the tango singer Magaldi ends, so the song becomes part of Eva's own story. Madonna's recording was released as a single in 1997 and reached number 7 in the UK.

5. "The Lady's Got Potential" returns

Che's rock number "The Lady's Got Potential" was cut from the original production at Harold Prince's request, and most stage versions use "The Art of the Possible" instead to show Perón's rise. The film brings the cut song back for Che, with revised lyrics that drop its insecticide subplot, and keeps "The Art of the Possible" too.

6. A fairy-tale tone instead of a political one

Parker described the film as a Cinderella story rather than a political one, and he saw Eva as a shrewd manipulator. Madonna wanted a more sympathetic Eva and got parts of the script changed, but Rice declined to alter "You Must Love Me." Madonna trained with the vocal coach Joan Lader and won a Golden Globe for the role.

7. Real locations instead of a stage balcony

The film was shot in Buenos Aires, Budapest, and at Shepperton Studios in England. "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" was filmed on the balcony of the Casa Rosada, the real presidential palace, with about 4,000 extras over two days. On stage, the scene is played on a set balcony, in the sequence that begins with "On the Balcony of the Casa Rosada."

8. Different last moments

On stage, Eva gives up her bid for the vice presidency, makes a final broadcast, and dies. Embalmers preserve her body, and Che notes that only the pedestal of her monument was finished and that her body disappeared for 17 years. The film keeps the broadcast and "Lament" but adds a candlelight vigil outside her room that ends when her light goes out, then her funeral, where Che kisses her glass coffin and joins the mourners.

Evita movie vs musical: FAQs