Montage Lyrics – Evita

Song Overview

Review and Highlights

“Montage” arrives near the end and does what the title promises. It splices Che’s barbed commentary, Perón’s cool appraisal, the workers’ chants, and fragments of Eva’s earlier declarations. In two quick minutes the audience relives the arc and feels the floor tilt toward the final scene.

Highlights

• Reprise-as-argument: familiar hooks return not as comfort but as cross-examination. Che mocks, the crowd adores, and Perón frames her image in one polished verse.
• Momentum over melody: underscored speech and rifflets click forward like newsreel cuts, building kinetic pressure before “Lament”.
• Political chorus: “Santa Evita” lands like a litany, making devotion sound both tender and strategic.
• Key takeaway: the show edits its own history in real time – how Eva was seen, sold, and sanctified.

Creation History

The montage device appears on the original concept album and was retained for the Broadway Premiere American Recording in 1979. Webber and Rice produced that cast album in Los Angeles in July 1979, with remix work completed in London soon after. On the album cut, principal voices include Mandy Patinkin (Che) and Bob Gunton (Perón), with the company carrying the workers’ refrains.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

Che surveys the dream fading. Magaldi’s old warning flickers, Eva’s class-war provocation returns, workers chant a new country into being, and Perón sums up his wife as both saint and fantasy. The chorus crowns her “Santa Evita” while Che interrupts with a grim punchline – the queen is gone, the spell is breaking.

Song Meaning

The number weighs mythology against mortality. By compressing reprises, it shows how memory edits a life – the public clings to symbols, the narrator demands receipts, and the politician keeps the brand intact. The message is clear enough: adoration can be true and useful at once, and that tension drives the story to its last breath.

Annotations

Genre and feel: through-composed medley that pivots between martial ostinatos, spoken interjections, and choral hymn. Emotional arc: nostalgic sparks turn combative, then ceremonial. Touchpoints: street-chant politics, radio-era rhetoric, and the Catholic imagery embedded in “Santa Evita”.

Production and instrumentation

Compact pit orchestra with brass and snare figures for parade energy, strings carrying the glue, and chorus set forward in the mix for the crowd effect. Che’s lines are half-sung, half-spat; Perón’s bars sit on a polished lyric line that mirrors his image work in the show.

Language and symbolism

• “Screw the middle classes” – a blunt rejection that doubles as backstory, recast here as motive fuel.
• “A new Argentina” – slogan and song fuse, reminding us how choruses move bodies as well as hearts.
• “Santa Evita” – sanctification vocabulary, signaling how quickly politics borrows ritual.

Key Facts

• Artist: Original Broadway Cast of Evita
• Featured: Mandy Patinkin, Bob Gunton, company voices
• Composer: Andrew Lloyd Webber
• Lyricist: Tim Rice
• Producers: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice
• Release Date: July 1979
• Genre: Pop, Musicals
• Instruments: orchestra, chorus, kit percussion, brass, strings
• Label: MCA Records
• Mood: urgent, ceremonial, unsentimental
• Length: about 2:40
• Track #: 22
• Language: English, Spanish
• Album: Evita (Original Cast Recording)
• Music style: reprise collage that bridges “Eva’s Final Broadcast” to “Lament”
• Poetic meter: irregular syllabic lines over march and hymn patterns

Questions and Answers

Who produced “Montage” by the Original Broadway Cast of Evita?

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.

When did the Original Broadway Cast release “Montage”?

1979, on the Premiere American Recording.

Who wrote it?

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Tim Rice.

Who is heard most prominently on the track?

Mandy Patinkin as Che and Bob Gunton as Perón, with the company.

Where does it sit in the show?

Late in Act 2, right after “Eva’s Final Broadcast” and before “Lament”.

Awards and Chart Positions

The Broadway production won seven Tony Awards in 1980, including Best Musical and Best Original Score, and the Premiere American Recording won the Grammy for Best Cast Show Album at the 23rd Grammys in 1981.

How to Sing Montage

Vocal ranges in context: Eva spans low E to top F with a strong mixed belt, Che sits in rock-tenor territory, Perón is baritone, Magaldi is baritone, and the ensemble needs secure tops. The cut is brisk – plan breaths like a relay, especially around the workers’ chant and Che’s interjections.

• Pulse and diction: keep the march snap in the workers’ lines while staying legible in Spanish; don’t over-sustain vowels that blur the rhythm.
• Che’s approach: speak-sing with bite, land consonants forward. Stay slightly ahead of the bar to feel like commentary cutting in.
• Perón’s verse: sing on a clean, centered line – measured vibrato, elegant portamento – to sell the image-maker persona.
• Choral blend: think hymn for “Santa Evita” – aligned vowels, straight tone on entries, bloom later.
• Transitions: treat each reprise as a camera cut. Reset intent on every entrance so the collage reads.

Additional Info

• The montage device appears on the 1976 studio concept album as well, signaling its role as a narrative fast-forward before the closing scene.
• The 1979 cast album was issued by MCA Records in a 2-LP set under catalog number MCA2-11007.
• Official licensing materials list vocal types and confirm the show’s 1934-1952 setting and two-hour runtime, useful for performance planning.