This year ,1996, in the course of playing the title role in a US$59 million (S$82.6 mil) film musical on Argentina's former first lady, Eva Peron, Madonna has learned a few new tricks. As she tells it, she dramatically expanded the range of her singing voice, with the help of a vocal coach (which have surely paid off handsomely) . She also acquired many of the diplomatic and statesman-like skills that are sometimes crucial when you are the star of aprestigious, big-budget movie being shot aboard.
And recording Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's song from their 1976 musical for the all-important soundtrack of EVITA, she learned to relinquish control in the studio -- a milieu in which she's called the shots for a decade.
Oh, and in case we forgot, this was also the year of Madonna with child. She became a mother for the first time at the age 38 when her daughter, Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon, was born on 14 Oct.
| " She's outraged public sensibilities with her risqué actions but if the advance verdict on EVITA is anything to go by, all may soon be forgiven for the newly maternal Madonna, whose soundtrack and movie is doing very well. " | 
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Based on the 1978 Broadway hit by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, Evita is the most ambitious musical Hollywood has mounted in a long time. It has a cast and crew of 600, 40,000 extras, 24,000 period props, and locations spanning England, Hungry and Argentina.
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Director Alan Parker on Madonna's coup : " I never doubted she could do it, but even I am surprised at how well she's pulled it off " |
She was an illegitimate village girl, incarnated here by Madonna, who headed for the bright lights of Buenos Aires. There,she proceeded to sleep her way up from radio actress to wife of Juan Peron(Jonathan Pryce), the President of Argentina.
