At the time it came out in 1970, “Jesus Christ Superstar” was unusual. Rock and roll was not typically the music upon which musical theater was based, despite the success of “Hair.” And it was also unusual for there to be no dialogue, for the whole work to be carried out in an operatic format. The original concept album (which I nabbed from my older brother’s record collection and listened to relentlessly as a child) featured the lead vocalist from Deep Purple as Jesus. When it came out, many Christian groups condemned it because it didn’t go far enough in proclaiming Jesus as the Christ. Jewish groups worried that it fueled the dangerous and antisemitic “the Jews killed Jesus” trope. But it became an obsession for those who loved rock and roll and Broadway, and launched the career of Weber and Rice as the most famous Broadway production duo since Rodgers and Hammerstein.
One of the most tense and critical moments in the musical is the face off between Pontius Pilate, the Roman ruling Jerusalem on Caesar’s behalf, and Jesus. Pilate is grappling with the position he’s been placed in, being asked to deliver a death sentence to a man whose only crime under the law appears to be that some people think he’s a messiah, and there were actually a lot of those running around Jerusalem in the first century. Jesus has delivered the cryptic response to Pilate’s inquiry as to whether he is the “Son of God” by saying “It’s you…
