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Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG – one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers.

“A fantastic night” proclaimed musiccomh.com, while thestage.co asked “Is there an original pop musical stuffed with better melodies?” neatly echoing Time’s initial 1988 assessment: “One of the best rock scores ever produced.” Adding to the excitement is the 50-piece City of London Philharmonic, led by David Firman, and the 100-voice West End Chorus.

ABBA composers Andersson and Ulvaeus created their first musical theater work more than a decade before striking pay dirt with their phenomenon, Mamma Mia. It was the inspired idea of lyricist/librettist Rice to match the pair with his cold war tale: the East/West Chess Championship and the romantic triangle that develops between the Russian and American competitors and the beautiful woman who manages one and falls in love with the other. Chart topper Groban (Awake, Closer, Noel) sings the Russian player, Anatoly; Rent Tony and Drama Desk Award-nominee Pascal is the American Freddie, and Tony-winner Menzel (Wicked Witch Elphaba) is Florence, the woman between them.

Chess in Concert is a co-production of THIRTEEN, Reprise Records and Peppermint Pictures, in association with Heartaches Ltd. Directed for telecast by David Horn and produced by Austin Shaw, it was recorded at Albert Hall May 12, 2008. Hugh Wooldridge staged the concert adaptation.

Josh Groban includes among his many Great Performances appearances Josh Groban in Concert (2002), Josh Groban at the Greek (2004) and last December’s David Foster & Friends. Adam Pascal was most recently seen in the series’ My Favorite Broadway: The Love Songs (2001). Chess in Concert marks Idina Menzel’s Great Performances debut.

Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers, and PBS.

Donny Osmond: Joseph

Maria Friedman: The Narrator

Richard Attenborough: Jacob

Ian McNeice: Potiphar

Joan Collins: Mrs. Potiphar

Robert Torti: Pharaoh

Christopher Biggins: The Baker

Alex Jennings: The Butler

Nicolas Colicos: Reuben

Jeff Blumenkrantz: Simeon

David J. Higgins: Levi

Shaun Henson: Napthali

Patrick Clancy: Issachar

Martin Callaghan: Asher

Sebastien Torkia: Dan

Michael Small: Zebulun

Peter Challis: Gad

Nick Holmes: Benjamin

Gerry McIntyre: Judah

Amanda Courtney-Davies: Apache Dancer

GREAT PERFORMANCES Web pages copyright © 2000-2001 Educational Broadcasting Corporation.

Web Credits

Producer: David McCarthy
Art Director & Designer: Sabina Daley
Associate Producer: Anu Krishnan
Graphic Art: Lenny Drozner, Meiza Fleitas
Acting Design Director: Shannon Palmer
Technical Director: Brian Lee
Production Assistance: Peter Tierney
Intern: Ben Velmonte
Writer: Michael Coveney

Thirteen Online is a production of Thirteen/WNET New York’s Kravis Multimedia Education Center in New York City. Anthony Chapman, Director of Interactive & Broadband. Bob Adleman, Business Manager. Carmen DiRienzo, Vice President and Managing Director, Corporate Affairs.

About the Writer

Michael Coveney is the theater critic for the DAILY MAIL in London. He has written books about the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, the actress Dame Maggie Smith, the film director Mike Leigh, the actor Sir Robert Stephens, and now Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber. His critically acclaimed book about the composer, CATS ON A CHANDELIER, was published in London in 1999 and draws on extensive conversations with Lloyd Webber, as well as with many of his colleagues, friends, and family. An updated paperback version of the book, THE ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER STORY, will be published in the summer of 2000.

Television Credits

Principal Musicians
Guitar: Freddie “Frizzy” Karlesson
Bass Guitar: Andy Pask
Drum Kit: Neil Wilkinson
Piano: Pete Adams
Keyboard: Andy Lynwood and Andy Vinter
Percussion: Frank Ricotti

“Go Go Go” Percussion
Tavin Singh

London Musicians Orchestra
Rolf Wilson, Leader

Production Manager
Rebecca Ferrand

Production Coordinator
Rebecca Pope

Production Assistant
Lisa Todd

First Assistant Director
Matthew Clarke

Script Supervisor
Jane Darby

Lighting Designers
Nic Knowland
Stewart Hadley

Costume Supervisor
Charlotte Bird

Sound Recordist
Tim Fraser

Video Monitoring Supervisor
Tibor Kud

Supervising Editor
Dave Gardener

Music Recording Engineer
Robin Sellars

Music Programmer
Lee McCutcheon

Audio Post-Production
David Woolley

Post-Production Supervisor
Cecilia Blaker

Camera Operators
Andrew Watt
James Ramsay
John Metcalfe
Nigel Kirton
Tiffany Walker

Makeup Designer
Rupert Simon

Chief Hair Dresser
John Henry Gordon

Prop Master
Steve West

Post-Production Sound Supervisor
Peter Baldock

Wig Supervisor
Michael Ward

Wig Maker
Christine Sterritt

Shot at Pinewood Studios
Recorded at Whitfield Strait Studios

Tavin Singh Affcars, courtesy of Island Records

© 1999 Jacob & Sons Limited. A member of The Really Useful Group.

For GREAT PERFORMANCES

Produced and Directed by
David Horn

Written by
Michael Walsh

Coordinating Producer
Mona Niemiec

Editor
Gary Bradley

Line Producer
Mitch Owgang

Director of Photography
Rick Siegel

Associate Producer
Noelle Serper

Unit Manager
Mark McKenna

Cameras
Manny Gutierrez
Juan Barrera

Video
Richie Wirth
Mike Kirchner

Utilities
Jim Foglia
Leo Lawrence

Dolly Grip
Chris Varga

Gaffers
Gil McDowell
John Roche

Electricians
Ted Lettane
Ruank Behan
Ben D’Andrea
Bryan Wachtel

Teleprompter
Peter Korpan
Jason O’Brien

Makeup
D’Arianne Bramberg

Production Assistants
David Landphier
Greg Arciniega
John Wiley
Dillon Jones

Production Secretary
Jackie Ling

Special Thanks
St. Thomas Church, Addison Keim
St. Michael’s Academy, Sr. Kathleen Cusack
The Really Useful Group, Austin Shaw

Executive Producer
Jac Venza

The contents of these GREAT PERFORMANCES Web pages are copyrighted under United States and other copyright laws. You may not download, reproduce, transmit, display, distribute or make derivative works from the contents of the GREAT PERFORMANCES Web pages other than for personal use without the advance written permission of the copyright owner. Any unauthorized use of any of the contents of the GREAT PERFORMANCES Online Web pages may result in civil liability and criminal prosecution.

Walters State Stage Company: “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”
www.public.usit.net/stansell/joseph.htm
This is an unofficial fan site created by a member of the cast of the Walters State Stage Company. Pictures, a list of cast members and their biographies, music, and more are included.

Nick’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” Hompage
www.geocities.com/Broadway/6123/
Devoted to the musical “Joseph,” these pages contain links to pictures, midis, sound files, and a few other good Web sites about the show.

The Really Useful Company
www.reallyuseful.com
Lloyd Webber’s company presents pages about some of his most successful productions, including “Aspects of Love,” “Cats,” “Evita,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” “The Phantom of the Opera,” and “Sunset Boulevard.”

Microsoft Encarta Online: Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber
http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?z=1&pg=2&ti=038D5000
The online encyclopedia’s biographical entry for Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber that also includes links to articles about the composer at e-Library and MSNBC, as well as photos.

Andrew Lloyd Webber Online
www.westegg.com/unmaintained/alw/
An exhaustive list of Web links for those looking for online information about the composer and his works.

The Osmond Family Web Site
www.osmond.com/
Everything you ever want to know about the Osmonds can be found on this site. It features biographies, photos, discographies, information about the family, and an online store.

Donny Osmond
www.donny.com/
A complete guide to everything Donny! Follow his life from his early years to his most recent performance in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolr Dreamcoat.”

E! Online: Richard Attenborough
www.eonline.com/Facts/People/Bio/0,128,913,00.html
An outline of Richard Attenborough’s life and work as an actor and director, with an in-depth section of his credits. You can also watch trailers from movies he’s appeared in or directed.

Microsoft Encarta Online: Richard Attenborough
encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?ti=0B1F4000
The online encyclopedia’s biographical entry for Richard Attenborough also provides links to articles about the director at e-Library and MSNBC.

The Internet Movie Database: Richard Attenborough
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Attenborough,+Richard
This site offers a complete Richard Attenborough filmography, biography, and trivia.

Classic Movies: Joan Collins
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/9766/collins.html
A host of links to Joan Collins Web sites are available on this page.

Mr. Showbiz Celebrities: Joan Collins
www.hyperion-records.co.uk/artists/winchester.html
A brief biography, profile, current news, and links to other sites about Joan Collins can be found here.

Owning the rights to your own work must be the ideal for any creative artist, but in the nature of the show-business beast, you more usually end up owned. The first half of the 1990s was a period in which Andrew Lloyd Webber set about defying these rules by assiduously re-acquiring the rights to one of his earliest pieces, “Joseph,” and producing his next big show, “Sunset Boulevard,” entirely within the company designed to exploit him.

Even before Robert Stigwood had come along to propel Rice and Lloyd Webber to fame and fortune with “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Joseph” had been sold by Tim and Andrew to the independent music publishers Novello for 100 guineas (about $165 dollars). When Novello had been acquired by Granada Television, Lloyd Webber kept in touch with Sir Denis Foreman, the chairman of Granada, reminding him of the little show that could still prove to be a big asset, and he was more than miffed when Granada sold Novello without telling him. It was bought in the late 1980s by a small film music outfit called Film Trax, and eventually, they asked Lloyd Webber’s company, the Really Useful Group (RUG), if they would be interested in buying “Joseph” from them, as they started to sell off various items in their catalogue.

A deal was negotiated on behalf of RUG costing £1m, and soon afterwards the executives heard from Tim Rice expressing dismay that he had not been offered his half share. RUG directors felt that as Tim had resigned from the board, not without financial advantage to himself, and that the rights had been offered to the board, he was no longer part of the equation. Andrew says he abstained on the vote. There was nothing in writing with Andrew, but Tim had always, not unreasonably, understood that when the copyrights on their collaborations came up they would have an equal share. Andrew at first denied any such understanding, but after thinking it through, readily agreed as long as Tim paid half of what RUG had paid to Film Trax.

The papers were drawn up and the business well in hand when Tim decided to withdraw from the purchase. There was nothing much happening with the show and the price was more than he could afford at that time. Within a few months, “Joseph” was re-launched in a spectacular new production at the London Palladium with pop teen idol Jason Donovan — an Australian TV soap star who was branching out — ensuring a siege at the box office.

It wasn’t long before Tim Rice changed his mind yet again about his half share in the once-little musical, but RUG argued that, because of the Palladium success, the show now had a totally different value, and Polygram, as major shareholder in RUG, vetoed the request.

All of this annoyed Rice intensely, but as usual he presented a sanguine face to the world. “In a funny way, I think I’m better off not having my share because I don’t have to get involved in any of the productions, or run any risks. And I’ve also been able to be as awkward as I like — I still have an artist’s veto — and all I’ve done since then is collect the royalties.”

Which just goes to demonstrate how a charming, innocent collaboration could become, in time, a source of resentment and enmity between the two people who wrote it. The show had become a popular stalwart of school, college, and touring productions around the world. In Britain, the producer Bill Kenwright had a version (fairly tacky, when I saw it) on the road for years on end. But it had never been a West End hit.

Joan Collins But on June 12, 1991, a production costing £1.5m opened with advance ticket sales of £2m and climbing. The cast album went straight to the top of the hit parade, as did Jason Donovan’s beguiling, Caribbean-flavoured version of “Any Dream Will Do,” and the show broke all Palladium box office records before it closed in January 1994. When Donny Osmond led the American cast in the same production, “Joseph” was discovered anew on this side of the Atlantic, too.

The show had grew and grew in a remarkable display of what the leading London critic Milton Shulman called theatrical parthenogenesis — the development of an egg without fertilization. The 20 minutes at Colet Court had stretched to 40 at the Edinburgh Festival in 1972, an hour in the West End in 1973 and now this two-hour, camp extravaganza dreamed up by director Steven Pimlott and designer Mark Thompson, talented scions of the state-subsidized theater and opera stages in Britain.

The robust simplicity of the piece has guaranteed a new life for “Joseph.” This video combines the witty extravagance of Pimlott’s stage production while deleting its more ludicrous excesses. “The show just works and everyone loves it, “says Tim Rice, “and I can almost watch it as if I hadn’t written any of it.” The revival, and this video, have resoundingly proved Lloyd Webber’s claims for its indestructible quality, what he calls “a strong core to the piece that makes it possible to hang anything on it, like an umbrella stand.”

The origins of “Joseph” as a school performance are built into this production, which starts in a hall where the children are gathered for a morning assembly. That spinsterish teacher in severe glasses at the piano bears a striking resemblance to Joan Collins! And when Maria Friedman rushes in, drops her book, and sings about the story of a boy whose dream comes true, the young audience enthusiastically embraces the magical events that follow.

The picture-book Middle East of designer Mark Thompson is a bright and colorful fantasy land into which the children rush in order to lend their voices in support of the story. Joseph’s dreams and coat of many colors land him in trouble with his brothers, who sell him into slavery in Egypt.

There, Joseph becomes a prophetic guru to the Pharaoh, predicting years of plenty, then of famine, and guides the country through the recession to economic renewal. His father and his brothers, having become refugees from Canaan, turn up and beg for food, the magical coat goes missing, is found again, and the tribe is joyously reunited as Joseph ascends in a blaze of color and a chariot of gold.

One of the highlights has always been the appearance of the Pharaoh as an Elvis Presley routine in, as the score indicates, “1957 Rock Time”: “I was wandering along the banks of the river/ When seven fat cows came out of the Nile, a-ha, haa (Bop-shu-wah-doo-wah, Bop-bop-shu-wah-doo-wah)/ And right behind these fine, healthy animals/ Came seven other cows that were skinny and vile, a-ha, haa (Bop-shu-wah-doo-wah,),” etc. Pharaoh’s dream is interpreted by Joseph in the irresistible couplet, “All these things you saw in your pajamas,/ are a long-range forecast for your farmers.”

The mixture of brash, trumpet-tongued musical statement, unforced, relaxed melody, and well-turned, racy lyrics (”And when Joseph tried it on, he knew his sheepskin days were gone. … He looked handsome, he looked smart, he was a walking work of art”) has ensured the enduring appeal of “Joseph.” Musically, the score brims with ingenuity, especially in the lilting fluency in Joseph’s dream, an expressive, minor-key soliloquy in waltz time (”Close Every Door To Me”) and in the pleasantly mobile “Any Dream Will Do,” which remains one of the duo’s most popular songs and which uses a stiffening choral counter melody to add sinew and dramatic effect.

The dazzle of the coat is conveyed in a one-note litany which sparkle simply as the words define themselves like a separation of all the colors in the rainbow. That coat is red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn and lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve and cream and crimson and silver and rose and azure and lemon and russet and grey and purple and white and pink and orange and blue.

The show now works not only as a beguiling story in itself, but as a sort of upbeat pop anthology, with elements of reggae, psychedelic flower power, calypso, French café ballad, and even, as suggested in this video, the Hollywood musicals of Busby Berkeley. Any dream will do.

“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” was the musical that put Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice on the map. And its humble beginnings as a simple pop cantata with a Biblical theme in a school hall in March 1968 are all part of its perennial charm and freshness.

The whole serendipity of how Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice got together informs the bounciness of the early work they produced. Andrew had written music from the age of six or seven. His father was a composer, organist, and teacher at one of the leading London colleges, and his mother taught piano to young children. Even at a very young age, he was as interested in architecture and history as he was in music. His mother despaired of his future as a pianist as he refused to practice as diligently as she would have liked, so she was determined that he should excel at his academic studies. But Andrew recalls a life-changing experience when asked to play the violin in a school concert:

“I said, ‘I’m not going to do that, I’m going to play six songs [on the piano], and I’m going to dedicate each one of them to masters in the school,’ which I did from the stage. Because of the reaction of the other kids, I knew that there was something very different that I would be interested in doing … I was about nine or ten, and I’d written all the songs myself.”

Throughout his teenage years at Westminster School, he composed songs for student revues and indulged his enthusiasm for musical theater in the company of his Aunt Vi, a former actress who took him on outings to the West End and carried with her a smell of the grease and a glimmer of the footlights that was irresistibly exciting to her nephew.

Together they saw “My Fair Lady,” “West Side Story,” and “South Pacific,” in which the hit song “Some Enchanted Evening” made an indelible impression. He became a complete devotee of Rodgers and Hammerstein. He sent songs off to publishers and record producers in London, and through this network, his name was passed on to another young hopeful in the music business, Tim Rice.

Tim Rice wrote to Lloyd Webber in April 1965, suggesting they try writing pop songs together, as he had been told that the budding composer was looking for a “with-it” lyric writer: “I wondered if you considered it worthwhile meeting me? I may fall short of your requirements, but anyway it would be interesting to meet up — I hope!” Andrew was on his way to Oxford University, but this meeting changed his life.

They immediately set to work on a musical about an orphanage (the work was never produced), and Andrew, who always says that he was literally “smitten” with Tim, three years his senior and far more world-wise and sophisticated, left Oxford after just two terms. He could not settle into the rhythm of academic life as all his energy now poured into working with Tim. The young duo — Tim had studied law, worked in a solicitor’s office, and was already mixing with professional singers and producers at a big record company — churned out pop songs, following the pattern of music first, words later, which marked all their collaborations.

The Lloyd Webber household in South Kensington became home for Tim, too, as he moved into a spare bedroom in the large apartment owned by Andrew’s grandmother. Another regular visitor, and family friend, was a music teacher, Alan Doggett, who had taught Andrew’s younger brother, Julian (now a renowned solo cellist), in Westminster preparatory school. Doggett had moved on to another preparatory school, Colet Court in Hammersmith, and suggested that Tim and Andrew should write a pop cantata for the annual school concert, ideally on a Biblical subject.

Tim’s favorite Bible story had long been Joseph and his coat of many colors. In his recent autobiography, OH, WHAT A CIRCUS, Tim declares that the way to a child’s heart is through laughter, which is why he deliberately set out to make the lyrics as funny as possible.

“This great tale has everything — plausible, sympathetic characters, a flawed hero, and redeemed villains … It is a story of triumph against the odds, of love and hate, of forgiveness and optimism. As with all great stories, the teller has no need to spell out the messages if he tells the tale well. Perhaps risking comparisons with the youthful Joseph’s lack of modesty, I believe Andrew and I told the story very well indeed.”

The audience at the first performance agreed, and the show was repeated a couple of months later, on May 12, 1968, in the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster, where Andrew’s father was the organist. The place was packed with worshippers as well as the proud parents of all the boys in the choir. One of these parents, unknown to Tim and Andrew, was Derek Jewell, then the jazz and pop critic for the SUNDAY TIMES. His unsolicited review on the following weekend changed their lives:

“Throughout its twenty-minute duration it bristles with wonderfully singable tunes. It entertains. It communicates instantly, as all good pop should. And it is a considerable piece of barrier-breaking by its creators.”

England would be unthinkable without her rich tradition of church music. For generations, the soaring sounds of a boys choir have practically defined what it means to be British. But over the past 30 years, the world’s ideas of English music has undergone a startling change. What began as the rock-influenced melodies of a long-haired, upstart composer is today England’s best-known international export.

Good evening. I’m Donny Osmond, and tonight public television is bringing you an evening of music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the most commercially successful composer of our time. So, why are we in St. Thomas Church in New York City and not a few blocks away on more familiar territority, Broadway? Because Mammon is only part of the story: God has played a starring role as well. For Lord Lloyd-Webber of Sydmonton, the distance from the stage to the sacristy is a lot shorter than you might think.

He’s found inspiration for two of his most famous shows in the Bible, and themes of faith and redemption run throughout his works. Later on this evening, we will return here for Lloyd Webber’s most explicitly liturgical piece: The Requiem Mass he wrote in tribute to his father, also a composer and a renowned London chruch organist. But the Andrew Lloyd Webber the public knows best is [on Broadway], where the composer of “Cats” and “The Phantom of the Opera” continues to dominate the musical. No one’s ever had three shows running simultaneously on Broadway and in London’s West End before, but Andrew’s done it several times. In fact, somewhere in the world, there’s probably a performance of an Andrew Lloyd Webber show going on right now.

The path that took Andrew from the streets of swinging London in the 1960s to his manor house began with a single song. In 1969, Andrew and his lyricist, Tim Rice, burst onto the scene with a hit song that became a best selling album, which became a sensational show that, 30 years later, is returning here to Broadway in a new production opening this month. That song was “Jesus Christ Superstar” — and here, in a nutshell, are the main themes of Webber’s career: religion and the counterculture, the individual against society, sin and redemption — set to some of the most humable tunes ever written.

But even before “Superstar” made Andrew and Tim household words, there was “Joseph.”

For many of us, our school auditorium is where we first saw — and maybe even were in — our first musical. It was in a place much like this that, in 1968, Andrew and Tim launched their career with a short musical for children called “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” It’s all there in Chapter 39 of Genesis: how Joseph, the favorite of Jacob’s twelve sons, is sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt and rises to become the Pharaoh’s right-hand man. He saves the empire from a deadly drought and rescues his family as well.

It’s hard to believe now, but back then “Joesph” was only 15 minutes long, performed before an audience of school children and their parents at a London prep school called Colet Court. But the kids loved it, and the critics cheered. Since then, Andrew and Tim have added new characters and songs. “Joesph” has not only become one of their most beloved shows, but also a big part of my life. In fact, it still is. So, get ready for a Bible story you can tap your toes to.

Go, go, go Joseph!

Well, “Joesph” and his brethren have certainly come a long way. And so have the careers of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. But to really understand the show — and the men who wrote it — let’s go back three decades and across the Atlantic. The ’60s were not only a time of radical change in morals, but in fashion and music as well. And the revolution’s epicenter was London.

It was a “youthquake” of political liberation, sexual freedom, and social experimentation. Shorn of Empire, Great Britain became “Little England” — the hippest, most swinging place on earth.

From the boutiques of Carnaby Street to the rock clubs of Liverpool, a new kind of British culture emerged, led by groups like the Beatles. England may have lost her Empire — but she had conquered the world.

But there was a spiritual side to Flower Power, too. Amidst the unabashed hedonism of the age, young people were searching for meaning. Some found it in protest . . . Others sought it in psychedelic drugs . . . Still others found it in God. It might not have been religion as their parents understood it, but it was all part of doing your own thing. And no single work of the 1960s brought youth culture and the New Testament together more controversially than Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Putting on a Broadway show is a complicated undertaking, requiring the talents of hundreds of people. But the genesis of “Jesus Christ Superstar” was actually very simple. First it was a hit single that swept Europe in 1969. Then it was a best-selling double album, hopping across the Atlantic and topping the charts in America.

Finally, it landed here, on Broadway, where it quickly became one of the most controversial shows in the long history of the Great White Way.

Has there ever been a Broadway show with this kind of cultural impact? “Show Boat” in 1927 and “Oklahoma” in 1943 helped define the modern musical. But the impact of “Jesus Christ Superstar” was felt far beyond 42nd Street. Whether it was hit or miss on stage ultimately didn’t matter, for by 1971 it was already an icon.

Every 20 years or so, it seems that pop culture flings a challenge at American society, forcing us to re-examine our values, our standards — and ourselves.

John Lennon as Jesus? That would have been something. Still, stories about Jesus were in the air. The Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis had published his revisionist novel THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST just 14 years earlier, and the avant-garde Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini had released THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW five years before. Why not a “rock opera” about the life of Jesus Christ?

Somehow, “Jesus Christ Superstar” not only survived, it flourished:

• in London, where Jim Sharman’s version ran for eight years and broke the record as the longest-running musical in British history.
• in Tokyo, where the acclaimed Shiki production turned Christ’s road to Golgotha into a riveting Kabuki drama.

It even made it to the big screen in 1973, directed by Norman Jewison.

“Superstar” became the foundation of the Lloyd Webber fortune, enabling him to buy his 16th-century manor house, Sydmonton Court, with its sweeping bucolic vistas of the famous Watership Down. There, he turned the estate’s private chapel into a small theater, where all of Lloyd Webber’s musicals are workshopped before heading to his own personal chain of more than 20 London theaters, including the venerable Palace.

Mary Magdalene, trying to figure out whether she loves Jesus as God — or man. Judas played not as a villain, but as a confused and frightened disciple. Sacred or sacrilegious? Even today, the interpretation is in the eye — and the ear — of the beholder.

This concept of creating a hit song or album prior to the show proved to be a formula that suited the team of Rice and Lloyd Webber well.

For their next show, Andrew and Tim chose a subject that, at first glance, doesn’t seem very religious at all: the life of Eva Peron, wife of the Argentine dictator. But look more closely: worshipped by millions, the latter-day “Santa Evita” turned out to be a fickle, false goddess. But oh what a circus! What a show!How did Andrew come by his choice of profession? And where does he get his inspiration? For the answers, we have to go back to his boyhood in London’s South Kensington. Andrew’s father, William Lloyd Webber, was a well-known figure on the British music scene. During his varied career, he was the organist at two important London churches — All Saints, Margaret Street, and Central Hall, Westminster — a professor of composition and harmony at the Royal College of Music, and the director of the London College of Music. He was also a classical composer, and it was a source of lifelong frustration for him that his music was not more widely performed.

Andrew was born in 1947, the elder of the two sons of Bill and Jean Lloyd Webber. It was a happily, noisily musical household. While Andrew was staging imaginary musicals in a toy theater, his brother Julian would be sawing away on the cello. Another member of the Lloyd Webber managerie was John Lill, who was practically adopted by Andrew’s parents, and who grew up to be one of the finest British pianists of his generation.

Andrew Lloyd Webber continues to explore religious and liturgical themes — sometimes in surprising ways.

In “Cats,” the tattered prostitute Grizabella — the feline Mary Magdalene — is chosen by Old Deuteronomy to ascend to heaven — the “Heaviside Layer.” A levitating car tire — now that’s getting into Heaven the hard way! After nearly 20 years, “Cats” is finally heading towards the end of its Broadway run after shattering every box office record. But its “Memory” lingers on.

Even the “Phantom of the Opera” gets into the act, composing his operatic masterpiece at a mighty organ and hoping the beautiful Christine Dae will save him from his subterranean misery — both as a musician and as a man.

Even today in his later works, the theme of faith — or lack of it — is never very far beneath the surface.

“Whistle Down the Wind” is the story of a mysterious stranger — an escaped convict — who is mistaken for none other than Jesus Christ by a group of innocent school children. Lloyd Webber and his librettists transposed the action of the 1961 film starring Hayley Mills and Oliver Reed from rural England to Bible-belt Louisiana. For a secular work, the song titles themselves tell the real story: “The Vaults of Heaven,” “I Never Get What I Pray For,” “The Vow,” “Long Overdue for a Miracle,” “Wrestle with the Devil.” Sin, death, and redemption loom large in the show, both as text and subtext.

What is it about this subject that resonates with Lloyd Webber? Why, in show after show, has he chosen material that deals, in one way or another, with religion? In his new work, he is adapting the novel BEAUTIFUL GAME, which deals with the Troubles between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.

In 1985 — right here in St. Thomas Episcopal Church — Andrew Lloyd Webber finally gave full voice to his lifelong interest in religious themes. The work was the “Requiem,” a complete setting for soloists, chorus, and orchestra of the ancient liturgy that has long fascinated opera composers. Mozart wrote a Requiem Mass, so did Giuseppe Verdi. From the thundering “Dies Irae” — the Day of Wrath — to the joyful “Hosannah,” the “Requiem” affords composers a chance to shine.

Andrew made the most of the “Requiem” — right down to composing a hit tune, “Pie Jesu.” The score won the Grammy Award for the best classical album that year, and director Stephen Frears filmed “Pie Jesu” as a tribute to the young victims of war everywhere.

I’m in St. Thomas Episcopal Church in New York City. It was here, in 1985, that Andrew Lloyd Webber premiered his only major departure from the Broadway stage, the “Requiem.” Inspired both by the ongoing strife in Northern Ireland and by the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the “Requiem” was also a tribute to Andrew’s father. That first performance was conducted by Lorin Maazel and starred tenor Plácido Domingo, a boy soprano named Paul Miles-Kingston, and a young coloratura called Sarah Brightman — at the time, the new Mrs. Andrew Lloyd Webber. Andrew would go on to write another important piece for her, “The Phantom of the Opera,” before their divorce in 1990.

All the sounds Andrew heard as a child resonate throughout the “Requiem”: his father’s church music, as well as the sacred choral works of Handel, Holst, Elgar, and Benjamin Britten. Following the example of Brahms and Fauré, Lloyd Webber omits violins from the orchestration, creating a striking contrast between the darkness of the orchestra and the bright, light voices of the tenor and the two sopranos. It is at once Lloyd Webber’s most personal work — and his most English.

We can still hear the echoes of the “Requiem” today. Its most famous number, the haunting “Pie Jesu,” was recently recorded by Charlotte Church. Once again, Andrew Lloyd Webber has a hit.

Based on the Roman Catholic Mass for the dead, a requiem is constructed in clearly defined, self-contained sections. Each movement is named after a liturgical prayer, and is sung mostly in Latin. Charting mankind’s journey from the death of the body to the eternal life of the soul, a requiem emotionally invokes the terror of the Last Judgment, the sorrow of our separation from God through sin, and, finally, the bliss of eternal peace. It’s easy to see why so many composers, whether personally religious or not, have been attracted to the form: in its stirring dramatic progression, a requiem is really an unstaged opera, in which the central character is all of us.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Requiem” follows the classical model of Mozart and Verdi. Massed choruses are complemented by moments of exquisite tenderness for the soloists. Its movements include a frightening “Dies Irae,” a spirited “Hostias,” a jubilant “Hosannah” — which brings a little bit of Broadway to the altar — and a gorgeous “Lux Aeterna” as the soul is bathed in God’s eternal, perpetual light. The “Requiem” is Lloyd Webber’s most ambitious work, and his most heartfelt.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s enduringly popular musical favorite “Joseph and the Amazing Techincolor Dreamcoat” comes to television in a production starring Donny Osmond, Maria Friedman, Richard Attenborough, and Joan Collins. Beginning its life in 1967 as a 20-minute “pop cantata” for a school Easter concert, “Joseph” was revived and expanded in the mid-’70s and eventually made its way to Broadway in 1982. This lively interpretation of the biblical story of Joseph of Canaan has gone on to charm audiences around the world with its excitement, energy, and eclectic musical variety.