Eva's last words in the musical "Oh my daughter, oh my son, understand what I have done." Evita never had children. Is she expressing regrets about this? Or is she possibly referring to her people as her daughters and sons? What is it she refers to have "done"?

Tammy

She's referring to her people, and she's appealing to them to understand the actions she took in life (some of which were detrimental to "her people").

Thank you. I've seen the production on stage a few times and the movie several but wasn't sure what she meant by that line. It did sound like regrets to me

You may already know this, but I think certain versions/recordings of the show don't include all the lyrics about her "children":

The choice was mine and no one else's
I could have the millions at my feet
Give my life to people I might never meet
Or else to children of my own

Remember I was very young then
Thought I needed the numbers on my side
Thought the more that loved me the more loved I'd be
But such things can not be multiplied

Oh my daughter! Oh my son!
Understand what I have done!

Thanks for posting that final verse. It irked me that they left that, and a few other things from both the American version and the movie, such as:

"This is not a gambler's final throw, forced upon me by those bastards who'd only long to see me up and go. . It's not an unprepared or panicked move, which just goes to prove, I'd be good for you. Eva, vice president, is good for you." There's another part that something about "to face a storm so long and not capsize is not the change achievement of a fraud. Conservatives are kings of compromise. It hurts the more to jeer, then to applaud." The last part they left out is when they set up their final broadcast and she says "They also left out a part after her final speech. She sings: "The acress hasn't learned the line you'd like to hear. ___________ She's sad for her country, sad to be defeated by her own weak body. She's sad for her people. She hopes they will know she did not betray them." But my tired mind can't put it together right now.

At least they did add "You Must Love me" which I think is an absolutely fantastic song.

Tammy

I also think "Eva's Sonnet" right before that ("Those shallow, mean pretenders to your throne shall come to know ours is the upper hand...") is great. It's a shame that's been scrapped.

this might be a left field interpretation, but in a sense I hear the line referring to a deathbed lament about the private life - and family - she sacrificed in order to live a public life - and which sapped her strength and caused her early death.

The version that R&H sends out in America, replaces the first verse with:

The choice was mine and mine completely
I could have any prize that I desired
I could burn with the splendor of the brightest fire
Or else, or else I could choose time.

The lack of the line about her "children" does leave the daughter/son statement without a definitive reference point. It leaves it open to some interpretation, like the idea that Thessaly mentioned. However, I would argue that it still should be thought of as a reference to her people, and a reference to the line that was changed.

That is the first verse. It's in the R&H score. Having done the show two years ago, I know it's there.

Rice really regretted some of the cchanges in the stage version of EVITA. He has often been quoted as calling the "Lament" a "mangled version of what was intended originally." He got the chance to put the complete "Lament" (in its original form) into the 2006 London revival.

Andy.

Okay...well, they must have changed it since then, since I was looking at the score when I typed it.

That's impossible. That verse has always been there.

Andy.

Maybe I'm confused...are we talking about this verse?

"The choice was mine and no one else's
I could have the millions at my feet
Give my life to people I might never meet
Or else to children of my own"

If so...then I can scan in the page from the score and the script when I get home from work.