On the bus into Buenos Aires from the airport, I spotted a billboard announcing Eva: el gran musical argentino. I loved Evita and so decided we must see this musical.

To commemorate our last week in Argentina, we headed to Teatro Lola Membrives in Buenos Aires for a performance. Although the play we bought tickets for had a slightly different title, I was secretly hoping to see Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Evita in Spanish. In preparation, I danced around our rented apartment Thursday afternoon, belting out my roughly translated Spanish version of “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.”

After the curtain rose, though, it quickly became apparent that this was indeed a different musical. I pushed aside the tinge of disappointment as I struggled to understand Eva Perón’s life story as told in operatic Spanish. Having seen Evita the movie and the play years ago definitely helped, but it still wasn’t easy to follow the plot.

Here’s what I got: Eva leaves small town Junín for Buenos Aires because she wants to become an actress. An agent laughs in her face and kicks her out, but she gets a small part later, then is on a radio show, and eventually gets her own show. At some point Eva meets Juan Perón, who later gets arrested, and Eva demands of the guard that he be released. She leads protests to the affect. (Apparently historians say this never happened, but it makes for a better story so playwrights keep it in.)

Perón is released and he and Eva get married. He’s president and she’s running for an office (vice president, my later research revealed). Eva gives money to the poor, chats it up with commoners, and scoffs in the faces of traditional women who tell her she can’t hold an office because she’s a woman and too young. Eva is very busy, always meeting with people, and gets tired. She becomes sick, gives a dramatic speech from the balcony (apparently dropping out of the running for VP, though I missed that during the play), and dies shortly thereafter.

It was quite an experience seeing a musical about Evita in Argentina. I imagine it would be like watching a play about John F. Kennedy in the US; some members of the audience remembered when Evita was alive, and most revered her. It was an excellent musical and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I followed most of it, I think, though I’m sure I missed some important details. It definitely put my Spanish to the test. And from what I remember of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s story, this version is pretty similar.

After the play, Elizabeth and I decided to do some Google and Wikipedia research to see if we missed anything major. The biggest shock is that the youthful-looking actress who portrayed Eva, the apparently famous Nacha Guevara, is 68 years old. We also learned that after Eva died, Juan Perón was overthrown as president and Eva’s body was hidden away by the government for the next 16 years. For a decade and half, no one knew what happened to the body of the beloved Eva Perón. The government forbade anyone to even mention the Peróns’ names. It wasn’t until 1971 the government revealed her body was hidden in a Milan crypt under a pseudonym.

Now returned to Argentina, Eva rests in a crypt we visited in Recoleta Cemetery. The government is afraid someone will try to steal her body so the tomb is booby trapped. A dramatic end to a dramatic life.

If you’ve still got a hankering for hearing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” in Spanish (I know I did) here’s Nacha Guevara, the star of Eva: el gran musical argentino, singing it — “No llores por mí Argentina.”