Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House
September 18, 2018

Forty years after Evita opened on the West End, legendary director Harold Prince has recreated his original production of what is now a classic musical for Opera Australia, with Australian singer-songwriter Tina Arena in the title role. The show, a rock opera with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, is the fifth collaboration between OA and producer John Frost – who in 2016 brought Dame Julie Andrews’ 60th anniversary production of My Fair Lady to Australia – and the first time a Lloyd Webber musical has been staged at the Sydney Opera House.

Tina Arena in Evita. Photograph © Jeff Busby

Prince’s 1978 production is very much of its time, but it holds up – a gritty backdrop on which to play out the story of Eva Perón, the complex and controversial woman who rose from poverty to become the First Lady of Argentina in 1946, capturing the imagination of the Argentine people – and the world – before dying tragically young. The design by Timothy O’Brien (who worked on the original production) is all black and scaffolding,...