#Evita

[4theluvofsapphos]

[five-milfs-and-a-twink]

Patti Lupone fans!!!

I’ve recently been getting more into Patti’s music as the obsession progresses and thought I’d share this album in particular:

Her vocals are just so smooth and powerful in every song!!! Lots of jazzy songs, many of them slower but all just beautiful.

Also if you’re a Lana del Rey fan you may recognize the song “The Other Woman” which is also on this album (neither Lana or Patti is the original)

I’m working on a playlist of Patti’s music to share with y’all but this is what I have to offer for now.

Enjoy!!! Let us know your favorite songs in the comments :) I personally love “So in Love” and “Guess I’ll hang my tears out to dry.”

[elinordash]

FILM & TV YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW: Day 2 – Genre ⟶ Musical Films

On the streets you hear the voices / Lost children, crocodiles / You're not into / Making choices, wicked witches / Poppy fields, or men behind the curtain / Tiger lilies, ruby slippers / Clock is ticking, that's for certain!

[playlist]

[ohshitfangirlalert]

Appreciation post for the long running stage AND screen legend Patti mf Lupone!

'Robyn' in The Roommate on Broadway

beautiful smile and cheekbones

Patti's iconiqueee hairstyle

Looks phenomenal in suits, need I say more?

[marybeatriceofmodena]

What did Andrew Lloyd Webber do to make Patti Lupone upset? Sorry, saw your tags and i was curious

Oh.

Oh honey.

You sweet child.

Anyway, get ready for one of the most infamous showdowns in all musical theatre history, with the guy who writes the straightest musicals on Broadway (derogatory) and the one and only, the matriarch, the queen, two three-time Tony award winner Patti LuPone.

So, Andrew Lloyd Webber was basically kind of a boy genius in his prime - he met his future collaborator Tim Rice when they were 17 and 20 respectively, he wrote his first big hit, Jesus Christ Superstar, at 22, with Tim Rice writing the lyrics. And it was kind of a big deal at the time because the topic was controversial (you know, the Passion with rock music), but also because Broadway wasn't that far off from its golden age and let's just say the music and style were very different from, say, My Fair Lady. Or The Sound of Music. Or Funny Girl. It was basically the Rent/Hamilton of its time. (Yeah, Stephen Sondheim was around at that time, he worked on West Side Story which was revolutionary in of itself, but he's kind of an oddball in this case. You'll understand why later.)

Their real follow up (I'm not counting Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for a variety of reasons) was a little musical called Evita, which you might know mainly because of a song called Don't Cry For Me Argentina. Or at least, your mom has probably heard it once at the very least. It's that song that's oversung from a musical while being out of context along with I Dreamed a Dream for Les Misérables. Or Memory from Cats.

Evita tells the story of Eva Peron, the wife of an Argentinian dictator, who basically screws her way to the top and ends up becoming the mistress of Juan Peron and the most beloved woman in her country through guile and deceit. Yes, I know the historical accuracy is very much debated but I know jackshit about Argentina's history except the bare basics so don't come at me. It was first produced in the West End in London, with Elaine Paige in the role, but because of Equity issues, she couldn't reprise her role for the Broadway production. So a Julliard graduate who was mostly starring in David Mamet plays got the part instead, and that was Patti LuPone.

Patti... did not have a good time during Evita, because the part is basically the kind of score where you can tell the composer is used to writing male parts, but most female singers have a two-octave range (yes, you got Julie Andrews who used to have a three-octave range, and many others, but they're exceptions), so she struggled a lot. That being said, if you listen to live recordings of her, you wouldn't be able to tell, and it got a lot easier later on. But she had this to say:

"Evita was the worst experience of my life. I was screaming my way through a part that could only have been written by a man who hates women. And I had no support from the producers, who wanted a star performance onstage but treated me as an unknown backstage. It was like Beirut, and I fought like a banshee."

This is from Patti's autobiography, which she wrote in 2007 - 8 years after shit with ALW went down. With all that said, she won a Tony Award for Evita, and she pretty much became a musical theatre household name from then on. She played Fantine in Les Misérables, Nancy in Oliver!, Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes. Meanwhile, ALW's next big hits were Cats (I'm not even kidding, Cats was a hit), and, you guessed it, The Phantom of the Opera, which he wrote in part to showcase his then wife Sarah Brightman's triple threat talents.

So, you need to understand before I continue that ALW, from my perspective, has always had a bit of an inferiority complex. He's basically associated to writing these commercially successful musicals that show a big spectacle but aren't ultimately substantial. I'm not sure I entirely agree with that, but I do think that if he didn't have Hal Prince, Maria Bjornson, Charles Hart and Gillian Lynne backing him up for Phantom, it would have probably been a Rocky Horror Picture Show knockoff people would have forgotten about pretty quickly. This is what I mean:

Yep, that was Phantom before any of the people I mentioned above (and Michael Crawford) were really involved.

Remember how I said Stephen Sondheim was an oddball? The thing with him is that his musicals weren't always commercially successful, but in general, in part thanks to being Leonard Bernstein's protégé, he was generally pretty well-respected and it was considered that his work was bringing musicals to a whole other level. Without Sondheim, you wouldn't have Jonathan Larson, and you wouldn't have Lin-Manuel Miranda. I am convinced ALW is resentful of that, and when you stop and think about it for more than 10 seconds, it's so obvious he REALLY wants to be Sondheim or at least command the same level of respect, but that's a story for another day.

So, after Phantom, ALW had other musicals that followed that either got a meh reception or outright flopped. Then there was Sunset Boulevard, which is based on the movie of the same name with Gloria Swanson. Despite all of her griefs for Evita, Patti LuPone agreed to partake in the musical as Norma Desmond, for its production in London, with the promise that she would transfer to Broadway once that production would open. And overall, after a string of flops, Sunset was actually doing pretty well.

HOWEVER. One day, while reading the gossip column of a newspaper, Patti found out that contrary to what she was promised, Glenn Close, who was meanwhile starring as Norma in the Los Angeles production, was to play Norma on Broadway. That was a complete surprise for her since no one on the production team had bothered to tell her it was happening - and keep in mind that for the news to come up the way it did in a gossip column, it probably would have necessitated a delay of a few weeks between the producers and the newspaper, which would have given them plenty of time to break the news to Patti. And Patti kind of needed the leg up because she was pretty bitter that a) Madonna was cast in the Evita adaptation instead of her; b) they actually lowered the key to fit Madonna's voice range, and she still had to expand her own to be able to sing the (lowered) score. And trust me, Patti is mad about it to this day.

So of course, she trashed her dressing room, the cast and crew weren't even mad about it because they were as shocked and angered as she was by the news. Patti sued Andrew Lloyd Webber for breach of contract, namely for 1 MILLION DOLLARS (yup, those are the real numbers), won, used the money she got from the lawsuit to get a swimming pool, which she called (and I SHIT YOU NOT) the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool. Since then, Webber is dead to her, to the point rumor has it she had part of a building blocked during an event so she could get out of it without coming across Webber, because she hates him so flipping much she doesn't even want to be in the same building as the guy.

(There's also drama that happened with Faye Dunaway who was supposed to replace Glenn Close after she went from Los Angeles to Broadway, except they abruptly closed the show down after Close left, but that's a story for another day)

So with all the bad press, and with ALW forced to pay 1 million dollars for Patti's lawsuit, that led Sunset's productions to close earlier than expected. ALW has stayed around since, with... mitigated output, so to say. The lowest point for a lot of people is Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom, which some people love, and that's fine, but it didn't do well with either critics nor fans of the original show, which ALW is EXTREMELY BUTTHURT ABOUT. And like, there are so many stories I could tell about LND alone, but I will share my own crack theory about it, since it does relate to the ask.

Anyway, buckle up.

So. There have been jokes going around for years that the Phantom in LND is basically ALW's self-insert, where he displays to the world that he's totally not over Sarah Brightman leaving him (in part because making Phantom kinda ruined their marriage lmao), despite, you know, having married since. (Aaaaaakward.) So LND basically becomes this really uncomfortable therapy session where a man writes a self-insert musical about how his ex-wife made a big mistake of leaving a sensitive artistic soul such as himself. The characters from Phantom who appear in LND are all more or less unrecognizable as a result, and one who gets it worse (in my humble opinion) is Meg Giry, who was basically Christine's sweet and loyal ballerina friend who basically went into the Phantom's lair on her own to save her friend despite the danger. In LND, she's basically a bitter hag (because ALW hates women, guess Patti was right about that), who really likes the swim and even has a stripping vaudeville number about it, written in universe by the Phantom, no less.

For comparison, here's Don Juan Triumphant (the Phantom's opera in the original):

And here's Bathing Beauty (the vaudeville number):

Yeah, so... do you see why people hate LND already?

And that's not the only thing with Meg! She's also pining for the Phantom to pay attention to her and threatens to drown the Phantom and Christine's secret love child when he makes it clear that he's gonna love Christine for EVA AND EVA.

So, with everything we learned today about ALW, would someone like him view someone like Patti LuPone as some sort of crazy, bitter diva who's obsessed with him for whatever reason? Absolutely. Would he be petty enough to insert Patti LuPone into his self-insert musical, which gave us the version of Meg Giry we got in LND? Of course. Why does Meg love to swim so much and why does she drag Gustave out ostensibly for a swim? Is it a dig at Patti's Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool? Maybe.

I kind of hope we find out one day if that theory is true. And maybe start a kickstarter so Patti can add this painting from the 2004 movie in her collection.

Fun fact: during the process of casting for the 2004 movie adaptation of POTO, ALW allegedly suggested Patti LuPone to play Carlotta... only for Joel Schumacher to have to awkwardly remind him that they were not on speaking terms. The idea was therefore promptly dropped.

[recycledmoviecostumes]

This beautiful gown, adorned with crystals and sequins, was worn by Madonna as Eva Perón in the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical 𝑬𝒗𝒊𝒕𝒂.   It's possible that the gown was actually worn before that, on an extra in the 1994 film 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑯𝒖𝒅𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒌𝒆𝒓 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒙𝒚.   It's not known if these dresses are the exact same, but it is certainly possible.   Explore more dazzling costumes: Bit.ly/PostEd051  

[operaqueen]

Patti LuPone, Evita.

[thegivenchythree]

Anya Taylor-Joy in Dior Haute Couture at the “Furiosa“ screening 77th annual Cannes Film Festival

[badwolf-gallagher88]

Yes, having a crush on a fictional character is bad. But have you ever had a crush on a fictionalised version of a vaguely problematic historical figure??

[delusionalforolderwomen]

I need a time machine specifically to go back in time and watch every show patti lupone has been in😩😩

[aviscarrentals]

argentinian f1 fans who always vote franco for driver of the day despite the fact that he crashed out, you have my heart

[itsallmadonnasfault]

Madonna 1997

[littlyamadeus]

OKAY, SO I JUST STARTED TO FALL INTO THE PATTI LUPONE RABBITHOLE- DAMN

Okay, I'll start from the beginning.

As someone who started to call myself a musical nerd, I want to listen to more and more pieces and enhance my knowledge. This is also important to me since I live in a non-western country, seeing Broadway someday is my dream. So I mostly spend my free time listening new recordings and fixating on them till I jump to another.

And then, Agatha All Along happened. And god, did Patti Lupone rock my world. Her voice is just so strong and even I can feel there is a huge technique and experience in her singing with my non-musician ear.

Then of course the re-discovery of her "Anything Goes" performance just blew me away. So, my musical obsession plus AAA, I decided to listen other musicals she was in.

AND EVITA!!! God, it is GOOD GOOD. I only finished listening "Good Night and Thank You," so I am still at the beginning, but I just NEEDED to write here. Patti has such a good technique of using her voice that you can immediately recognize her timbre.

I am obsessed, she isn't just a national treasure, she is the TREASURE. And if there is anyone who just started to discover her genius, go and listen the 1979 recording of "Evita"!!! I promise you won't regret.

[damagnificentcookie]

Patti lufuckingpone

PATTI MOTHERFUCKING LUPONE

Have some of the Lupone for that clever curse

[recycledmoviecostumes]

This vintage wool suit has had quite the journey. Palace Costume acquired the item from former president Lydon B. Johnson’s estate and had supposedly been owned by one of his mistresses, but which mistress is unknown, and no photo documentation of the suit being worn has been found at this point.

The suit was acquired from a Palace Costume for Madonna to wear in the 1996 film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Evita, where she played the role of Eva Perón.

The suit was used the following year when it was worn by Fran Drescher as Fran Fine in the fourth season episode of The Nanny entitled The Facts of Lice.

The gown went up for Auction at Julien’s in 2014, where it sold for $10,240. The auction’s description of the costume is as follows:

A robin’s egg skirt suit circa 1940s…The virgin wool suit comprises a tailored jacket with pearlized and jewel tone beaded sprays and a scalloped hem and a slender-fitting skirt with scalloping and beaded sprays. The jacket has Armand’s of Corpus Christi and Palace Costume labels. The skirt has a Palace Costume label. 

Costume Credit: Mor, Franfinedatabase, Fran_fine_fashion, Brendacooperstyle

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