Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Introduced in 1970, it highlights the political and interpersonal struggles of Judas Iscariot and Jesus. The action largely follows the canonical gospels' accounts of the last weeks of Jesus's life, beginning with Jesus and his followers arriving in Jerusalem and ending with the Crucifixion. Twentieth-century attitude and sensibilities as well as contemporary slang pervade the lyrics, and ironic allusions to modern life are scattered throughout the political depiction of the events. Stage and film productions accordingly feature many intentional anachronisms.

A large part of the plot focuses on the character of Judaswho is depicted as a conflicted, tragic figure who is not satisfied with what he views as Jesus's lack of planning, and with his relatively recent claims of divinity.

The opera was first heard as an album before being staged—on Broadway and later in London's West End. (The same pattern would be followed by Rice and Lloyd Webber's second musical hit, Evita.) On the original album, the part of Jesus was sung by Ian Gillan, lead singer of Deep Purple, and that of Judas by Murray Head. The future Gary Glitter had a one-liner as a priest and Michael d'Abo appeared as King Herod. The title song, "Superstar", sung by Judas, and "I Don't Know How to Love Him", sung by Mary Magdalene (Yvonne Elliman) about her relationship with Jesus, were both big hits.

In June of 1971, the "first" US staged version was performed at Southold High School in Southold, New York by students of the school. [1] However, other unauthorized productions were also going on at the time, eliciting a response in court from the authors, eventually shutting down several hundred productions between them before the official premiere (and becoming a benchmark in copyright law). The show remains a favorite for community and regional theater, often with women taking male roles (particularly Judas).

On October 12, 1971, the show opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on Broadway. The Broadway production received mixed reviews, as reviewers from the New York Times deemed it to be a heartless overhyped production; Andrew Lloyd Webber has also criticized it harshly[1]. The show starred Jeff Fenholt and Ben Vereen. Carl Anderson stepped into the role of Judas when Vereen fell ill, and the two performers later took turns playing the role. The Broadway show closed after 18 months.

The Broadway show and subsequent productions were condemned by some religious groups. Some Christians claimed that by showing Jesus as a man but not a god (as Rice explicitly said) and by omitting the resurrection, Superstar was sacrilegious. They also found the character of Judas too sympathetic and some of his criticisms of Jesus offensive.[2], [3] At the same time, some Jews said that it bolstered the anti-Semitic claim that the Jews are responsible for Jesus' death by showing most of the villains as Jewish (Caiaphas and the other priests, Herod) and showing the crowd in Jerusalem calling for the crucifixion.[4], [5] Many religious groups protested outside the theater during the first Broadway production. However, after many of these same groups of people actually saw the production, resentment decreased and popularity for the production grew.

Superstar opened at the Palace Theatre in London in 1972, starring Paul Nicholas as Jesus and Stephen Tate as Judas. This production was much more successful, running for eight years and becoming the world's longest-running musical at the time (a title currently held by the The Fantasticks, which ran off-broadway for 42 years.)