Madonna's voice in "Evita"?

[LYLS3637]

Posted: 11/26/12 at 2:25pm

So BWW Radio just played something from the "Evita" film, and I was just curious if anyone knew what they did to Madonna's voice in the studio. It sounds airy (for lack of a better term) combined with an echo effect. I'm assuming it's an attempt to make her sound better...

[Mildred Plotka]

Posted: 11/26/12 at 2:28pm

Clearly it didn't work.

[Wynbish]

Posted: 11/26/12 at 2:39pm

What song was it?

[BroomstickBoy]

Posted: 11/26/12 at 2:45pm

I still don't hear much of a difference with her voice before and after the "vocal training". It's like Helena Bonham Carter's voice in Sweeney. She took lessons for a year, 2 years, and THAT'S the end result?

I don't get it.

[LYLS3637]

Posted: 11/26/12 at 2:51pm

Wynbish-- "A New Argentina"... It was difficult telling the difference between the radio/microphone sections and the more intimate moments with Jonathan Pryce.

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 11/26/12 at 2:59pm

As much as I dislike Madonna's voice, she still sounds much better than Elena Roger.

[sephyr]

Posted: 11/26/12 at 3:44pm

She sounded great in the Evita film, but she sounded even better on Ray of Light (the album). It was clear that she worked hard on her vocal control and her clarity/warmth, which her work for Evita enhanced.

[pair-o-dice]

Posted: 11/26/12 at 11:19pm

Actually listened to this the other day-

The orchestrations help her a lot, but you have to admit she's singing from her p*ssy. She doesn't have the notes at all but she's giving it 100% of what she has to give. And, even today, she's still the best/most appropriate person for a film version. Can't sing it even close to how thrilling it shoulda, coulda, woulda been but it makes complete sense in every sense of showbusiness. And, she pulled it off pretty damn well if you ask me.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 11/26/12 at 11:33pm

As a long time Madona Hater, I thought she was born to play this role, but her acting was so sucky it made her horrid voice sound OK.
And singing from her kitty,
Why not? She does everything else from it.

[broadway guy]

Posted: 11/26/12 at 11:48pm

I thought her acting was good but she ruined all the songs for me.She wasn't bad in all of them but she had no power to her voice.you cant do a sung through musical and have a lead who cant do justice to the score.I was furious when i heard her do A NEW ARGENTINA and RAINBOW HIGH.Those songs are suppose to be spine tingling and chilling,I cant believe madonna accepted the role when she knew full well she would not live up to expectations vocally.I get why she was casted but I think that Movie is a train wreck IMO.Could have been so good...Banderas was great though :)

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/26/12 at 11:50pm

Oh yay. Another Madonna was awful in EVITA thread. There's more of these threads than "What should I see" threads.

[broadway guy]

Posted: 11/27/12 at 12:20am

I said her acting was good....

[My Oh My]

Posted: 11/27/12 at 5:07am

Madge's vocals were at times thin and warbly ("Don't Cry For Me Argentina") and strong, assertive, and confident at other times ("Waltz For Eva and Che"). The lip synching sucked balls with its horrid, constant echo. The orchestrations were all awesome, even the ones that were revised. My only reservation was the slight changing of melody for "Requiem For Evita," which seemed to be lacking something the original had. But that was a minor point. That scene as a whole is one of the most thrilling movie musical moments ever shot. How well it was recreated was chilling. And the scale of it all!

Know what made it suck butt?

The same thing that makes the current revival suck butt: Eva as saint! While some random guy bitches for no apparent reason on the side.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Updated On: 11/27/12 at 05:07 AM

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/27/12 at 7:48am

Alan Parker needs to direct another musical and put Rob "Singular Vision" Marshall out if business.

Posted: 11/27/12 at 8:50am

This conversation is soooo 1996.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 11/27/12 at 1:38pm

Know what made it suck butt?

The same thing that makes the current revival suck butt: Eva as saint! While some random guy bitches for no apparent reason on the side.

^^^^^This.

My Oh My, they lost me when Eva started singing the Mistress' song. I didn't know whether they were pandering to the audience or the star, and I couldn't decide which was worse. (Well, truth to tell, they lost me the first time Madonna gave an interview explaining that Eva Peron was a misunderstood feminist.)

Are there no history books left to point out that the Perons were fascists? Or have show queens gathered up those books and made a bonfire?

(To be clear, I thought the original score, text and production were rather fair to history. I don't need Eva portrayed as pure villain either. With the OBC, LuPone was thrilling, but it was also clear that flinging cash at adoring crowds isn't a sound monetary policy.)

P.S. Sorry, taboo, but I wasn't here for earlier discussions. Updated On: 11/27/12 at 01:38 PM

[My Oh My]

Posted: 11/27/12 at 11:12pm

The Eva as Saint angle loses all conflict, and in reality, there has rarely been an issue or person more divisive than Eva Peron. To fix the movie version and the current revival so that it heavily leans toward one opinion, is as airheaded as one can get.

I agree, I'd hate to see Eva portrayed as a total villain also, and I admit I probably give the impression that's what I want based on the things I say. In actuality, pure bitch would ruin it just as much, because she wasn't totally evil and I personally believe a lot of what she did that is considered wrong felt very right to her, considering her circumstances and the appalling snubbing she endured even after rising to the top. It doesn't justify her and Peron's making people's lives hell, causing them to leave the country, or their shutting down of publications that dare speak unfavorably of them. Peron banned TIME magazine from Argentina for months just because they had mentioned Eva was illegitimate. There's no question that she and her husband's wild spending caused the country's economy ruin, and there's no question they dabbled in unethical practices.

But Eva did tons of undeniably noble deeds, as well. Particularly for the poor. I sympathize with her rage against the upper classes, which was very real. I've heard speeches of the real Eva in Spanish, in which she very openly and unabashedly denounces the rich, saying the poor will be favored by God and that we must defeat them, regardless of what or who is lost in the process. That in itself, as well intentioned as that may have been to her descamisados, can be said to have been evil. You just can't generalize like that and look down on a whole group, assuming the worst of them. But she did. And she did all this while hugging the sick and dishing out homes and money to the poor.

Definitely a complicated woman and a very difficult story, which is why I resent the oversimplification of it in the film and the current revival. The original presented a balanced portrait. A lot of people say Lupone's Eva was a bitch, even Lupone says that she would often be assumed to be the character she was playing: a bitch. But that's just people looking on the surface of things, Lupone portrayed her as strong and feisty but she had her vulnerable moments too. Above all, like Brantley said in his review of the revival, Lupone also infused the character with a fun sense, with a wink, with a sense of irony. This current portrayal is like Madonna's; all too serious, pious, and just bland.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 7:32pm

My Oh My, as often as not I am responding to my own logic in a post, i.e., thinking out loud. I didn't think YOU said Eva should be made a villain; I thought my own post might be read that way and I wanted to clarify.

I don't know if you are old enough to remember the protests outside the theater on Broadway when the show first opened. People complained the show made Eva look "too attractive". And I thought, "Well, that's the point isn't it? Fascism *IS* attractive, even if only superficially. That's why it attracts followers, at least at first."

Yes, we were all Peronistas during "New Argentina", but, fortunately, the show has a second act.

[CJ N2N]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 7:55pm

I'm taking a wild guess here, but maybe the decision to show Eva as a saint was made to make the film appeal to the Argentinean population. Remember, they still view her as a saint today.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 8:54pm

^^^^I'm sure that was part of it. There's also an appeal in making her a feminist icon. Even if American and British audiences don't care about Argentina (and most of us don't), we do like our strong women, even if their endings are tragic.

The "saintly" Evita fits that mold.

But the creepy thing is that such an approach is really no different from presenting "Springtime for Hitler" as a serious number.

As I wrote above, I have no problem with a complex Evita or even a well-meaning Evita, but the suppression of basic freedoms and the deaths of the desaparecidos continued through the 1980s. Of course Eva Peron was dead and didn't personally order all those atrocities, but she and Juan certainly helped pave the wave for them.

I humbly propose we not forget that, no matter how well an actress sings High Es.

[TracyLord]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 9:30pm

It's funny, I feel like everyone has seen a different production as I read discussions about the current revival of Evita.

This production is the closest I have seen to portraying Eva's complexities, both good and bad. I thought Elena Roger was absolutely unflinching in her portrayal. Her Eva is both sinner and saint, and by the end of the show, I was as confused as Che.

Now if only the show had some kind of dramatic struggle. We have a narrator and a protagonist that we are told everything about.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 10:59pm

The problem with the revival is Che. Martin has sanitized him to the point that he is no longer showing the audience the other side of Eva.

"I get why she was casted"

She was cast and I thought she was incredible.

[AlanAntonio]

Posted: 11/29/12 at 12:08am

She did not "accept" the role, she practically begged to get it. I'm not kidding. Look it up if you do not believe me. She got that role because of her stature as a pop icon. She did not have adequate talent to essay the role justly. She did her best though, given her limitations.

[drewmangroup]

Posted: 11/29/12 at 9:37pm

I don't know that Argentines view her as a saint. You would think you would see her image all over Buenos Aires, but it is not. Either she is still very divisive or the military arm of the government still holds such power (and a grudge) that it makes the public seem divided.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 11/29/12 at 9:43pm

This production is the closest I have seen to portraying Eva's complexities, both good and bad. I thought Elena Roger was absolutely unflinching in her portrayal. Her Eva is both sinner and saint, and by the end of the show, I was as confused as Che.

Tracy, that is the opposite of what I've read here, but I should be honest and admit I haven't seen the current revival. I was talking about the film, to which many others have compared the Roger/Martin revival.