In the Broadway musical Evita, Eva Perón is portrayed as the first lady of Argentina.
Evita dramatizes the life of María Eva Duarte de Perón, who became known as Eva Perón after marrying Argentine president Juan Perón. The musical began as a concept album in 1976, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics and book by Tim Rice. It opened in London in 1978 and reached Broadway in 1979.
The Broadway production starred Patti LuPone as Eva, Mandy Patinkin as Che, and Bob Gunton as Juan Perón. It won the 1980 Tony Award for Best Musical. The score includes “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” which became the musical’s signature song. Evita is a dramatization rather than a documentary biography, and its narrator Che is a theatrical device rather than a literal depiction of one historical person. Eva Perón died in Buenos Aires on July 26, 1952, at age 33.