DVDs: Musical Passion Play

When The Phantom of the Opera is released this December, it will be the third theatrical film version of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Madonna's Evita was the second, but Jesus Christ Superstar was the first.

The 1973 film of Jesus Christ Superstar has been on DVD before. But it has just been reissued in a new "special edition," cleverly timed to coincide with the DVD release of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, and outfitted with a couple of bonus features.

Composer Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice followed their Old Testament school oratorio, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, with a shift to the New Testament. Jesus Christ Superstar focused on the last seven days in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, told from the perspective of Judas. Superstar first appeared as a double-LP album, one that was such an enormous success in the U.S. that a theatrical production quickly became imperative.

The self-described "rock opera" had its stage premiere at New York's Mark Hellinger Theatre in the fall of 1971. Reviews were mixed to negative, but the controversial attraction was a publicity gold mine. Unlike the next Lloyd Webber-Rice disc-to-stage musical, Evita, the material of Jesus Christ Superstar was not substantially changed in the move from recording to theatre, the most significant alteration the addition of a new number for Mary Magdalene and Peter, "Could We Start Again Please?"

Tom O'Horgan's Broadway production played almost two years. But Superstar was a much bigger hit in London. It opened at the Palace Theatre in the summer of 1972 and remained there for 3,358 performances. Although no one could have known it at the time, Superstar's through-sung style of composition would come to dominate Broadway and the West End in the following decade.

Stage producer Robert Stigwood wisely decided to get a film version of Jesus Christ Superstar made while the piece was still hot and still playing in its international premiere productions. Hired to direct was Norman Jewison, who had recently done well by the film version of another hot stage-musical property, Fiddler on the Roof. Stigwood and Jewison co-produced the film for Universal, and it was the last film shot in widescreen Todd-AO.

Recreating their Broadway roles on screen were Yvonne Elliman Mary and Barry Dennen Pilate, both from the original concept recording, along with Bob Bingham Caiaphas. Josh Mostel the son of Zero was cast as Herod. In the ensemble were a number of dancers Robert LuPone, Thommie Walsh, Baayork Lee, Steve Boockvor, Denise Pence, Kathryn Wright, Jeff Hyslop who would soon be involved in the creation and early stage life of A Chorus Line. For the soundtrack, Andre Previn led the London Symphony.

For all of its theatrical success, Jesus Christ Superstar was not an easy property to film. Shooting it realistically, à la Ben Hur or The Ten Commandments, would not only have been financially prohibitive, but would have conflicted with the contemporary style of the writing. So director Jewison and screenwriters Melvyn Bragg and Rice came up with a new concept for the movie. Shot entirely on location, the film has a troupe of young, contemporary players arriving by bus in the Israeli desert to enact a modern-day version of the events of the final week of Christ's life. Other than a new musical scene for Caiaphas and Annas and some new lyrics elsewhere, the material was unchanged for the screen; Superstar was allowed to remain an opera, with no spoken dialogue added.

The production design favored sets and costumes that were stylized, combining biblical and contemporary motifs, with ancient ruins, caves, and spears mixing with scaffolding where the priests lurk, tanks, machine guns, and jets.

Cast as Jesus was Ted Neeley, who had been in the ensemble of the Broadway production, understudying its Jesus, Jeff Fenholt. Neeley is visually ideal for the role, and offers a generally sensitive performance. But Judas has the juicier role, and Carl Anderson takes full advantage of it. Anderson had sung Judas in concerts that preceded the Broadway production, but director O'Horgan chose Ben Vereen over Anderson to create the role on Broadway. Anderson and Neeley were co-starring in the Los Angeles Superstar when they were cast in the movie. Neeley, Anderson, and Dennen would continue to appear in stage revivals of Superstar on and off throughout the next three decades.

Because it was offering a contemporary take on its subject matter, there are moments in the film i.e. the "Superstar" number that have a dated, '70s feel. But the central concept remains a plausible solution to filming the piece. Then too, Superstar is the sort of international classic that each new generation is likely to update. As if to demonstrate that notion, Superstar got a contemporary rethinking via a 2000 videofilm remake, directed by Gale Edwards and based on her London and New York stage revivals. It's also available on a Universal DVD.

For the special edition DVD of Superstar, we get a new, fifteen-minute interview with lyricist Rice, who traces the genesis of the piece from single to album to stage and film. He approves of Jewison's work on the movie, attributes the durability of Superstar to its story, and believes the show to have a claim as one of the twenty outstanding musicals of the twentieth century.

Then there's a feature-length track of audio commentary by Jewison and Neeley. During their warm conversation, Neeley calls the film the first long-form music video, while Jewison recalls desert temperatures of 120º, the risk of casting a black actor as Judas, and the serious accident suffered by choreographer Rob Iscove during the shoot. Both men deal extensively with how and why the piece affects its audiences. And both fondly recall Carl Anderson, who was fifty-eight when he died in February, 2004.

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