The story starts in 1934 when young Eva leaves her small hometown to go to Buenos Aires where she uses her charme to climb the ladder of success, first as a model, then an actress, and finally as the wife of General, then President, Juan Peron, becoming the most powerful woman in South America.
"Evita" is Webber and Rice's first collaboration for the musical theater since "Jesus Christ Superstar" and it was first released as a double album by MCA Records in 1976. Webber and Rice produced the album themselves and gave the leading roles to Julie Covington as Evita Peron, Colm Wilkinson as Che and Paul Jones as Peron. Two songs from the album became famous worldwide: "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" by Julie Convington, and "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" by Barbara Dickson (Peron's Mistress).

After the success of the album, (sales of Evita were even greater than sales of Jesus Christ Superstar), it was time then to stage the show, and on June 21, 1978, "Evita" was presented for the first time to the public of the Prince Edward Theatre in London (2,900 performances in its initial run). Eva Peron was played by Elaine Paige, who won the award for best performance in a musical; Joss Ackland was Peron, while David Essex played the role of Che. The show was directed by Harold Prince and it was produced by Robert Stigwood and David Land.

The American premiere of Evita took place at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in Los Angeles on May 8, 1979. Then Evita opened its New York run at the Broadway Theatre on September 25, 1979 (1,567 performances) and it was nearly sold out before it even began. This time Evita's role was played by Patti Lupone, Bob Gunton was Juan Peron, while Madonna's future Dick Tracy co-star Mandy Patinkin (What can you lose) played Che.
The musical was an immediate success with public and critics and it won almost every award on Broadway. A spanish adaptation, supervised by Tim Rice, featured Paloma San Basilio as Evita.