Review: Evita
HELSINKI CITY THEATRE BRINGS EVITA TO LIFE
EVITA
– Saint, climber or marionette?
Rarely has there been such a loved and hated person in history as Eva Duarte de Perón (1919-1952), the wife of Argentine President Juan Perón. Was Evita a saint, a power-hungry climber or her husband’s marionette? Helsinki City Theatre’s musical Evita presents Evita as a woman who had the reins in her own hands.
“Tears away Argentina”
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s hit musical, which premiered in London in 1978, is now seen as a masterpiece directed by Kurt Nuotio and retranslated into Finnish by Mikko Koivusalo , which received a lot of publicity even before its premiere. The musical also aroused the audience’s interest in advance, and more than 40,000 tickets have been sold for the spring performances.
The musical, which premiered on 2 February, is an artistically high-quality production that keeps the viewer in its grip from the very first bars of the musical and lives up to expectations. Koivusalo has managed to preserve the original spirit of the work in his fluent Finnish translation, and Kari Junnikkala’s set design is simply stylish and inventive.
“I would be surprisingly good”
The role of Evita is alternated between Vuokko Hovatta and Maria Ylipää. Evita’s shoes are big for a young actress to step on, but Vuokko Hovatta, who was seen in the role of Evita in the premiere, holds the role and the audience. The role of Evita is also demanding musically, and as the notes climb towards the ceiling, Hovata’s voice is not quite at its best, but Hovata’s stage radiance fits well with the role of Evita. The role of Juan Perón is played by Sami Hintsanen.
Evita is also known as Alain Parker’s 1996 film starring Madonna and Antonio Banderas. Compared to the film version, Evita is portrayed as a stronger and more determined woman in Kurt Nuotio’s direction. During her lifetime, Eva Perón travelled around the country to attend workers’ meetings, campaigning in particular for the improvement of the status of women and for women’s suffrage. Indeed, Argentine women gained the right to vote in 1947, more than twenty-five years later than men.
“New Argentina”
Eva Duarte was born as the youngest of five children. His father was a married farmer whose family never recognized his illegitimate children. As a young woman, Eva Duarte travelled to the country’s capital, Buenos Aires. She worked as a film actor and radio voice until she met her future boyfriend, Juan Perón, a man who was one of the officers who started the revolution and overthrew the government.
Juan Perón’s (1895-1974) first wife had died of uterine cancer a few years earlier, and after his wife’s death, Perón had several teenage girls as his mistresses. Evita sends Perón’s 16-year-old flatmate on her journeys and begins a determined struggle for Perón’s rise to power. After Juan Perón was arrested in 1945, Evita travelled around Buenos Aires to inspire people to join the protests against the arrest. The government is finally forced to release Perón, who will be elected president of Argentina the following year.
“Perón’s latest”
The Argentine upper class never accepted Evita, who came from poor backgrounds, into their circles, and the army officers also hated Evita, who presented herself as an equal co-ruler with Perón. The choreography created by the musical’s choreographer and assistant director Markku Nenonen brings out the grumpy attitude of the upper class and marches the army on stage while the men shout “slut” in time.
In Perón’s case, young mistresses were seen as a fringe benefit of his position of power, but Evita, on the other hand, was considered to have climbed to power solely with the help of her lovers. The same attitude of double standards is still echoed in theatre criticism written about Evita, and it is still a quick explanation for women’s success today.
The critical narrator of the musical and the plot is held together by Che, aka the Argentine rebel Che Guevara, whose role is played by Petja Lähde with a convincing and confident touch. Costume designer Sari Salmela has designed almost 400 costumes for the performance, which capture the spirit of the times well: Evita shines as a “rainbow” in evening dresses while the workers dressed in rags cheer.
“The Art of Politics”
Evita was not allowed to join an upper-class charity, and outraged by this, she founded her own aid organization, which distributed clothes to the poor and established children’s homes, among other things. However, evil tongues suspected that some of the foundation’s money flowed into secret bank accounts in Switzerland.
According to critics, Evita also had no political opinions of her own, but uncritically adopted her husband’s totalitarian ideology. However, Evita received recognition from her opponents for her triumphant visit to Europe, known as the Rainbow Tour, during which she was a guest of General Franco of Spain and met Pope Pius XII in the Vatican.
Evita tries to persuade her husband to appoint her vice president, but uterine cancer in 1950 quickly drains Evita. The last scene of the musical Evita at the City Theatre is an impressive depiction of her deathbed, from which Evita declares that she has chosen her own path.
“Santa Evita”
Despite her contradictory features, Evita became a saint in the eyes of the people already during her lifetime, whose cult was associated with features of worship of the Mother of God. According to the director of the musical, Kurt Nuotio, there was a strong social demand for Evita in chaotic Argentina. The story was born about a girl who starts from nowhere and rises to become the leader of Argentina, who promises to take from the rich and give to the poor.
After her death, Evita’s body was embalmed and placed in a glass coffin at the Ministry of Labour, where tens of thousands of mourners went to say goodbye. After this, Evita’s body disappeared for 17 years. The Argentine writer Tomás Eloy Martinez has written a novel about the disappearance of Evita’s body, Santa Evita (1996), which attracted a lot of attention, especially in the Latin American world. Wherever Evita’s body is hidden in the novel, a convoy of burning candles and flowers appears.
Today, a steel plate has been welded on top of the coffin placed in Evita’s family grave so that the body can no longer be stolen.
The subtitles are Evita’s musical numbers as new Finnish translations by Mikko Koivusalo.