Evita is the soundtrack album to the 1996 musical film of the same name, performed mostly by American singer Madonna. It was released by Warner Bros. Records on October 28, 1996, in the United Kingdom and on November 12, 1996, in the United States. Directed by Alan Parker, the film was based on Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1978 musical Evita about First Lady of Argentina Eva Perón, portrayed by Madonna. The soundtrack consists of reworked songs from its original 1976 concept album as well as a new song, "You Must Love Me". Additional performers on the soundtrack include Antonio Banderas, Jonathan Pryce and Jimmy Nail.
After securing the title role in Evita, Madonna underwent vocal training in order to enhance her singing abilities. The actors were tense during the recording sessions for Evita, since they were from a non-musical background. The musical style for Evita differed from Madonna's previous works and she was not comfortable in recording her vocals inside the studio alongside the orchestra. After an emergency meeting with the principal personnel, it was decided she would record in a separate location. It took almost four months for the soundtrack to be finished. Rice and Lloyd Webber had employed the classical technique while creating the music, taking the central theme, "Don't Cry for Me Argentina", and tweaking it to cater to a variety of settings. Through the songs, the soundtrack tells the story of Eva Perón's beginnings, her rise to fame, political career and gradually her death.
The soundtrack was released in two different versions. Evita: The Complete Motion Picture Music Soundtrack, a two-disc edition that included all the tracks from the film, and Evita: Music from the Motion Picture, a single-disc edition with a selection of song highlights. Evita was promoted by the release of three singles—"You Must Love Me", "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" and "Another Suitcase in Another Hall"; the first won the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1997. Critical reception towards the soundtrack was mixed, with AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine calling it "unengaging" while Hartford Courants Greg Morago praised Madonna's singing abilities. Evita peaked at number two in the US Billboard 200 chart, and was certified quintuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It topped the charts in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and has sold over seven million copies worldwide.
Background and development
In 1996, Madonna starred in the film Evita, playing the role of Eva Perón, the Spiritual Leader of the Nation of Argentina. For a long time, Madonna had desired to play Eva and even wrote a letter to director Alan Parker, explaining how she would be perfect for the part. Madonna had already enlisted the help of composers Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, who had originally created the musical Evita. Rice believed that the singer would suit in the title role since she could "act beautifully through music".
However, Lloyd Webber was still wary about Madonna's singing, so after securing the role, she undertook vocal training with coach Joan Lader. Since Evita required the actors to sing their own parts, the training helped in increasing Madonna's confidence in the songs. Lader noted that the singer "had to use her voice in a way she's never used it before. Evita is real musical theater — it's operatic, in a sense. Madonna developed an upper register that she didn't know she had." She taught Madonna how to sing using her diaphragm rather than just her throat, enabling her to project her voice in a more cohesive manner. Madonna was thrilled to find the newly discovered nuances in her voice and would go home every night, practicing by telephoning her friends and singing to them.
Parker finished writing the script for the film by May 1995. He then visited Lloyd Webber's home in France, and tried to bring him and Rice together for working on the film; the duo had not worked with each other for years after the musical Cricket (1986). While drafting the script, Parker had re-written the last act, removing the repetitive content of the original play. This resulted in Rice and Lloyd Webber composing new music, including the new song "You Must Love Me". Parker knew that the pre-recorded playback would be the main backbone for the filming, hence he was wary about the decisions he had to make in the recording studio. He pored over the script and the music, anticipating the questions he expected the actors to ask during filming.
Recording sessions
Recording sessions began in October 1995, and took place at the CTS Studios in London, with Madonna and co-actors Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Pryce. Engineer David Reitzas performed the mixing of the track at Larrabee North Studios, utilizing their Solid State Logic 9000 J series consoles for the mix. For the first day's sessions, music supervisor David Caddick suggested to record "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" with the 84 piece orchestra backing Madonna's vocals. However, Lloyd Webber was critical of the recording arrangements done in the studio. The cast was also nervous. Flick noted that Banderas found the experience "scary" while Madonna was "petrified" when it came to recording the songs. "I had to sing 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina' in front of Andrew Lloyd Webber ... I was a complete mess and was sobbing afterwards. I thought I had done a terrible job", the singer recalled. Conductor John Mauceri remembered another challenge the production faced was adapting the stage numbers into a feature film; "On film, it's different than being on stage because the person on the screen in front of you is never farther than someone on the pillow in bed next to you". Parker declared the first day of recording as "Black Monday", since it was "filled with trepidation and nerves ... All of us came from very different worlds—from popular music, from movies, and from musical theater—and so we were very apprehensive".
According to producer Nigel Wright, the lead actors would first sing the numbers backed by a band and orchestra, "then they would go off with Alan and David in a more intimate recording environment and perfect their vocals". However, more trouble arose as Madonna was not comfortable with laying down a "guide vocal" simultaneously with an 84 piece orchestra inside the studio. Also, unlike her previous soundtrack releases, she had little to no control over the project; "I'm used to writing my own songs and I go into a studio, choose the musicians and say what sounds good or doesn't ... To work on 46 songs with everyone involved and not have a big say was a big adjustment", she recalled.
An emergency meeting was held between Parker, Lloyd Webber and Madonna where it was decided that the singer would record her part at Whitfield Street, a contemporary studio, while the orchestration would take place somewhere else. She also had alternate days off from the recording to save and strengthen her voice. Recording the soundtrack was a slow process and took almost four months before it was completed. But Parker noticed at the end of recording that they did not have the new song in place. Recalling in his The Making of Evita essay: Finally, while I was visiting Andrew at his country estate in Berkshire to play him the tracks we had recorded, he suddenly sat down at the piano and played the most beautiful melody, which he suggested could be our new song. Needless to say, I grabbed it. However, we still needed lyrics and Tim dutifully began to put words to the music. The vast majority of the original Evita score had been done this way: music first, lyrics afterwards. After many weeks of nail biting, Tim was finally cajoled into writing the lyrics that now accompany the music to "You Must Love Me".
Music and lyrical interpretation
The soundtrack is generally considered a Madonna album since her vocals are featured on most of the songs. Other principal vocalists include Banderas, Pryce and Jimmy Nail. Rikky Rooksby noted in The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna that Evita was stylistically different than the music Madonna had recorded previously. The soundtrack was her most challenging endeavor since the Stephen Sondheim songs recorded for the 1990 film, Dick Tracy. Rice and Lloyd Webber employed the classical technique while creating the music, where a composer takes a central theme and adapts it to a variety of settings, keys and tempos. The central backbone and theme of the soundtrack is "Don't Cry for Me Argentina", and through the songs it tells the story of Eva's beginnings, her rise to fame, political career and gradually her death.
The soundtrack begins with the tracks "A Cinema in Buenos Aires, 26 July 1952" and "Requiem for Evita", both conducted by John Mauceri, dealing with the announcement of Eva's death. Following this "Oh What a Circus" begins, where Banderas takes the lead vocals. Built on the uptempo melody of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina", the song has rock influences and piano sounds. After a short interlude by Nail, "On This Night of a Thousand Stars", a distorted electric guitar and bass heralds "Eva and Magaldi / Eva Beware of the City". Here the lyrics talk about warning Eva from strangers in the big city. The sound of train horns, Latin percussion, drums, and light guitars introduce "Buenos Aires", talking about Eva finally arriving in the city. The melody finds Madonna singing in a higher range, and the song has a heavy composition in the middle with guitar, trumpets and discordant music. "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" begins with soft strummed guitar in broken chords, and consists of strings and acoustic guitar played in a subdued manner. Madonna sings about Eva moving from one home to another, portraying an image—the suitcase in the hall—"to express the nomadic nature of modern civilization".
In "Goodnight and Thank You", Madonna and Banderas trade verses, talking about ending Eva's love affairs, followed by Banderas' solo "The Lady's Got Potential", musing about Eva's gradual rise on the society ladder. The gentle ballad, "I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You", is about Eva meeting her husband Juan Perón; its composed of flutes, classical guitar and subdued strings. Military drum beats and a brass section start off "Peron's Latest Flame", where Banderas sings loudly about the general population disapproving of Eva. In the middle of a male backing chorus, Madonna sings her lines, accompanied by stereo tom-tom drum and synth sounds. For "A New Argentina", electric guitar and chorus form the main backbone. Composed as an "uprising hymn", Rooksby noted that Madonna's vocals sounded "aggressive and growling".
The second disc begins with "Don't Cry for Me Argentina", whose lyrics are described as a "string of meaningless platitudes" by Rice, adding that it worked as a speech by a "megalomaniac woman" like Eva, trying to win the favor of the people of Argentina. The composition consists of pizzicato strings, and the song jumps from being light to heavy and extravagant, with one section of it being hummed by choral voices. "High Flying, Adored" has an Elton John style according to Rooksby, who described the lyrics as narcissistic and a parallel with Madonna's life. "RainBow High" features instrumentation from drums, guitars, horns and strings, with the lyrics being about Eva's materialistic needs.