Since its 1971 Broadway premiere, Jesus Christ Superstar has been a Norman Jewison-directed feature film, been staged for live television with John Legend and Alice Cooper in the cast; and been revived, reprised and performed all over the world by companies big and small.
So it’s worth noting, with Superstar coming to The Straz today through Sunday, that the current tour is an all-new production that has drawn raves for its bold staging, costumes and choreography.
The new production is billed as the 50th anniversary edition, marking a half-century since the rock opera opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre. However, Jesus Christ Superstar was a hit before it ever hit the stage.
In 1969, the creators of Jesus Christ Superstar had few credits and little experience. Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice had been shown the door by any number of London’s theater producers when they pitched the Superstar concept.
However, record label MCA saw some potential. After all, its U.S. affiliate, Decca, had sold millions of copies of The Who’s album Tommy which was, like Superstar, billed as a rock opera.
Rice and Webber assembled musicians including The Grease Band, the ensemble that backed Joe Cocker. Jesus’ part was sung by Ian Gillan of Deep Purple. Yvonne Elliman played Mary Magdalene, a role she also portrayed in the first Broadway run and the 1973 film version.
Released in late 1970, the album flopped in its native England, possibly because of the U.K edition’s godawful cover, but soared in the U.S., with a much nicer cover, reaching No. 1 on The Billboard 200 album chart.
The songs merged Webber’s orchestrations and rock dynamics, earning the album play on FM album rock stations. The first single released, “Superstar,” was a non-starter on the charts, but Yvonne Elliman’s “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” was a genuine hit, even if Helen Reddy’s contemporaneous cover charted higher.
The album arrived as some in the counter-culture began exploring Christianity. One-time hippies swapped the peace sign for the single-finger “one way” sign, representing the idea that Jesus is the “one way” to salvation. Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” and Ocean’s “Put Your Hand in the Hand,” extolled Christianity and became Top 40 hits.
Not all Christians were thrilled with these occurrences, though, and Jesus Christ Superstar was the No. 1 grievance with a bullet. As Rice and Webber had said, the opera dealt with Jesus as a man, not as a deity. Judas, Jesus’ betrayer, is portrayed sympathetically and, in fact, the story is mostly told from his point of view. The work ends with the Crucifixion, with no mention of Jesus’ resurrection.
These and other issues brought protests, condemnation from religious leaders and fiery sermons warning against the profane’s incursion on the sacred.
Five decades later it may be difficult to sense Superstar’s power to provoke. It’s hardly a critique of Christianity or anything else. It’s a story, a well-told story, about love, guilt, betrayal, sacrifice and death.
And while the new production is a must-see, we also suggest cueing up the 1970 album on whatever format you use, putting on headphones and pushing the volume up – way up – to understand why audiences still connect with Superstar. It’s a solid work that successfully fuses rock and drama. Maybe you can’t dance to it, not all of it anyway, but it’s got a great beat, and a backstory that can’t be beat.