A new production of the musical Evita, based on the life of Evita Peron at Malmö Opera in Sweden features Charlotte Perrelli in the leading role. The Eurovision Song Contest winner from 1999 is doing the role of Evita until January 2013.

Evita is written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, the writer of the 2009 United Kingdom Eurovision entry My time. It started its life in 1976 as a rock opera concept album but was later made into a musical in London’s West End. Madonna played the role of Evita in a film based on the musical in 1996.

 

In a recent interview on Swedish TV the 37-old singer tells about her life, since she started singing with a local dance band as a 13-year-old. She tells how winning Eurovision in 1999 started her career properly, but how she also was treated quite badly by the Swedish media. She also recalls how she really was not sure if she wanted to do it all again, but found herself in Belgrade in 2008 as the pre-contest favourite. She tells that the pressure was immense and the feeling after the bad placing in the contest, as well as her divorce led to a  physical breakdown for her.

In the interview below (in Swedish) you can see a bit from the rehearsal of Evita at Malmö Opera, in the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest host city.

Photos: Malin Arnesson/ malmoopera.se