Evita Star Madalena Alberto on Her New West End Gig & Why She Can't Watch Patti LuPone on YouTube

What's the buzz at the Dominion Theatre on Evita's opening week? A star is born. Portuguese actress Madalena Alberto, who plays Eva Peron in the new revival, is winning nearly across-the-board raves for her performance as the Argentine leader. London-based since she was 17, she might also be making history as the first Eva ever to perform eight shows a week. Broadway.com caught up with Alberto in the afterglow of opening night to discuss onstage endurance, following in some very notable footsteps, and the question—posed in one of Tim Rice’s lyrics for the show—of where does she go from here.

You’ve had quite a week, including an opening night that received raves from the critics.
I don’t know if everything has sunk in yet, to be honest. The last few weeks have been very challenging physically and you just to do your best, really. I’m thrilled, of course, and I also think from now on I can start to relax a bit more.

Was it daunting at your West End opening to have the musical’s creators, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, in the audience?
I’d met them a couple of times before, so I already had some sense that maybe we were on the right track but what’s been very nice is to have our production received as a celebration of their work. It must be amazing for them to see so many people appreciating what they did so many years ago.

Growing up in Portugal, what was your first exposure to Evita?
I first heard about it, I think, from the movie, surely. I was very young when the movie came out and I remember watching it and not understanding it. And since the movie, up until I auditioned over a year ago for this production, I’d had absolutely no contact with the show whatsoever; I don’t think I knew what I was in for [laughs].

Lloyd Webber’s score is famously demanding. How are you coping 6 shows a week?
6? I’m doing 8!

You are? That is a first in my experience of this show.
I know it’s more normal for Eva to do six and on tour I did seven, but because this such a short run [through November 1], we all thought I could pull it off. I had two shows yesterday, including the mid-week matinee, so let’s see how it goes. If it gets too much, I will definitely have a backup.

I’m impressed! Tell me how you got the role.
To be frank, it’s one of those things where I’m not sure who said it first or saw me first but it had to do with my being the alternate Piaf in a production of that play [Pam Gems’ Piaf] in Leicester and the sound engineer there works with [Evita producer and co-director] Bill Kenwright. He called Bill up and said, “You have to see this girl,” after which he came one night to see me as Piaf and decided to give me the role [of Eva].

You must have been stunned.
It really was such a massive leap of faith on Bill’s part. He didn’t have a clue who I was but because he had Marti [Pellow, the Scottish pop star] on the bill as Che, he needed someone as Eva who he knew could pull it off.

This entire week must feel like a dream come true.
It’s quite hard to put things into perspective when you’re living them. For the past 10 years or more, since I first moved to London, I’ve been working towards this moment—this role—and it has felt as if all the previous roles I have done have prepared me for this. I’m hoping from now on that at least people will have seen what I do as opposed to walking into an audition with them not knowing who I am.

Did you look up clips of previous Evas on YouTube?
When I first heard I was auditioning for the part, I did watch Patti [LuPone] sing “A New Argentina” online and I promised myself I would not look at any more YouTube videos because she was so awesome [laughs]. I was so scared thinking, “How am I going to sing this every night?”

There’s always the debate with this show as to how much it vilifies Eva Peron or glorifies her.
You’d have to ask Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice what their intentions were, but I know for me as an actress the aim was to be truthful to what is written. My job is to interpret what I’m given, not to mimic her life story, and to find the humanity of the character, whether negative or positive, and to remember that she’s not the villain of the story—she’s the heroine of the story.

Have you ever been to Argentina?
I haven’t, actually; I’ve been to Cuba but that’s as close as I’ve got. Argentina is my next big journey!

What about New York, which seems a more inevitable destination for someone in your profession?
I’ve been to New York once but I did not go to see a show—how horrible is that? I went there because I was in love with a boy, so I had other things to focus on.

Was he an actor?
Yes, unfortunately [laughs].

Have you given some thought to what happens next—or, as Eva puts it in the show, “where do we go from here”?
I’ve been touring with Evita since January prior to the West End, so at the moment I’m really looking forward to taking some time off to see what I want to do. This has been such a journey and I don’t want to rush into anything that would ruin this moment.

An album, maybe?
I’ve actually recorded an album just recently that was produced by Bill [Kenwright], who has invested a lot in me and I definitely have him in my life as a mentor. The last song on the album is one of my own because I write songs as well, so whenever I’m not in a theater you can find me in a bar in Camden accompanying myself on the guitar!