Evita in Concert - Drury Lane

You won't hate it - there's plenty to like about this concert, particularly the orchestra, Peron, Magaldi, the Mistress.

The actress who played The Mistress was excellent. Another Suitcase was a definite highlight.

Glad you got the offer price, but apologies about the children - I’d be annoyed too 😞

I went to the matinee of this today. I had seen the film some years ago now, but had never seen EVITA on stage until today.

My overall view is that it was just okay. To be honest, some of my issues are to do with the material itself. I just don’t think that the storytelling is very clear (unless I am missing something), and I feel like you need to know something about Eva Peron before you watch it, as otherwise you miss some of the intricacies of the piece. There were many in the audience around me who didn’t have a clue what was going on! For me, you shouldn’t need to know anything before you go in, and the material should do the heavy-lifting for you.

I’m afraid to say that Auliʻi Cravalho was out of her depth and just not good as Eva. Again, not entirely all her fault. Her music is poorly written for the voice, requiring her to belt at the top of it for a sustained period of time. She was frequently either under the note or lent into the acting more so that she didn’t have to sustain them. She looked like she was in a high-school production compared to the ensemble around her, and this created a vacuum at the heart of the piece itself.

There were some saving graces however.

As said above, the actress playing the Mistress was good, and her ‘Another Suitcase in Another Hall’ was very pretty.

There were some nice visual moments for a semi-staged concert, particularly at the start of ‘Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina’ when she comes down the staircase in the white dress. I also liked a lot of the mise-en-scene around Eva’s bed near the end.

However, the performance really belongs to the orchestra. They were sublime, and the music sounded glorious! I really cannot wait to hear LOVE NEVER DIES now with that orchestra later this month. I think it really is going to be something special (I’m pretty sure I saw Celinde in the audience this afternoon too).

Glad I went, but it could have been better. I much preferred ASPECTS OF LOVE. I’ve booked for the Leicester Curve production of EVITA, so we will see if that fares any better.

On another note, it is my first time going to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane since the refurb. What a beautiful theatre! They really have done an astonishing job with it. Worth going just to be in that building.

“Concert version” is a strange term, isn’t it? One never knows quite what to expect. Is it neutrally dressed performers standing at a microphone in a line - or is it costumed stars giving performances which beg for sets behind them to match their brilliance?

I attended today’s matinee. It is neither.

The money is on stage from the get-go. A brilliant on-stage 30(!!!!) piece orchestra play Evita as it is meant to sound. In that sense, this is a one off “production”. It sounded amazing - if the quality of the orchestra is the sole measure. The orchestra - yes, orchestra - NOT “band” - sounded incredible.

Then everything falls apart.

Auli’i Cravalho is incompetent vocally and professionally to lead a production at this level. At the performance I attended (today’s matinee) she was desperately poor - my assessment of her terrible performance is a lot crueller than previous reviews in this thread. She missed the starts and ends of sentences, she commanded less presence than the perpetually annoying drunken patron three seats down from me. She couldn’t sing the part. She screamed. It was very, very bad. She couldn’t sing the high notes, she sang with a poorly realised Elena Roger impression (when she remembered). She shouted. It was bad.

That is disregarding the missed cues (entire lines missed in Rainbow Tour), mess ups inducing on the fly lyric changes, and being late/early constantly. It was bad. I wouldn’t accept that from an amateur group.

But then she literally missed a cue to be on stage, while Secomb’s Perón looked confused and replied to the empty space where she was meant to be stage left (with conspicuous spotlight) with “I’m not underestimating you, just do the same thing in Italy please” as written.

But she wasn’t alone in constantly blowing entrances. The chorus did it five or six times too.

Matt Rawle, who I really like as a performer normally, was dreadful. His diction was appalling, he threw away key phrases and emphasised irrelevant ones. His dreadful performance was the big surprise of the night because I hugely admired his Che in the Grandage production. I also love him usually in other shows. Today was a disaster.

And before everyone jumps on me, I realise the performers had limited rehearsal. I remind them that a lot of people paid £175 EACH for this. This was worse than am-dram productions I’ve seen.

Nathan Amzi wasn’t great either to my tastes as Magaldi, despite the good notices here. The humour was completely lost compared to the patronising Gary Milner in the Grandage production. I had a quick look around actually at this point, everyone looked very bored to be honest - and this was 20-30 minutes in.

The standout from the cast is undeniably Jeremy Secomb’s Perón. He had presence, sings the song as written, and even acted in character. But really it’s about the orchestra because this “production” has nothing else going for it.

Specifics? It’s hard to give just one because everything was wrong. Missed pickup (mic) cues are a given but every scene?! Seriously?! Early entrances. Late entrances. It needed another two weeks of 10 hour rehearsal days. It was dreadful.

So the boring facts; the stage are onstage throughout, behind them is a backdrop with three LEDs showing Christian crosses. There is a coffin in the opening scene, a few cheap looking props throughout and small set pieces here and there. Nothing you wouldn’t expect from a church hall production.

The direction of the actors, by Bill Deamer, is pretty much identical to the Kenwright production. But worse. The choreography is IDENTICAL to the tour but scaled down for 8 ensemble members. This is because Bill Deamer (director) choreographed the Kenwright tour and copied absolutely everything. His own work, the previous director’s work. It was the same but worse and thinner.

This was a production that aspired to be as good as the Kenwright tour. Let that sink in.

Now; normally I’d write this off in the context of being a discounted preview performance of a full production as teething issues. I wouldn’t even have the heart to review it because I knew nobody was happy with it within the production.

But as a reminder of the cost of this “concert production”, if you paid full price, you could’ve had a budget weekend away in Europe. This was worth less than a wet weekend in Bognor.

This was bad. Very, very bad.

1*

Just by way of contrast I thoroughly enjoyed it and would award four stars.

ceebee thank you for your consideration but as someone who trusts your opinion I’d rather you gave it. @frontoverpaul I am glad you had a great time and this is why we are all entitled to share our opinions! ❤️

I’ll post full feelings later, but I enjoyed it for what it was. I actually didn’t think the staging was too bad for something advertised as a concert. Was more than I was expecting in that regards, to be fair.

Reading all the reviews I wonder why they didn't choose to hire a strong, capable and suitable Eva.

IMHO, and judging by the standing ovation which only became near-total when Auli'i came back on stage, they did hire a near-perfect Eva.

London audiences give standing ovations to everything. Hardly a measure of success.

surprised to hear about the apparent mistakes at the matinee- just back from the evening show and thought it was very slick and cleverly staged, especially impressed with the ensemble, not one step out of place (and i WAS looking). score sounded gorgeous with the orchestra, but i struggled to make out quite a few of eva & che’s lines- not sure if it’s the sound mix or diction issues.

thought auli’i’s high notes could be stronger at the beginning, where she either struggled slightly or got too shouty, but i felt that tone/approach worked for the character the further the story progressed. matt was charismatic but unintelligible at times. echoing others, jeremy’s peron was perfectly sung/acted, and emily’s mistress was another standout, her ‘another suitcase in another hall’ gorgeously vulnerable.