Loving “Jesus Christ Superstar” is one thing, but loving the myriad staged productions of “Jesus Christ Superstar” is another. The Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice masterpiece existed arguably in its most perfect form in the original 1970 concept album, and although there hasn’t been a lack of paying customers for thousands of legit productions in the 55 years since, mounting a really outstanding one has been like, well, putting a camel through the eye of a needle, to quote somebody famous. The pitfalls are endless — too proudly irreverent, too stodgy, too stagy, not staged enough — but one of the biggest ones is treating it like a traditional musical and not the “rock opera” it was conceived as. Another one is: Yes, it’s fun that Judas is really kind of the star of the show, but isn’t there something wrong when Jesus, supposedly the most charismatic figure of all time, by reputation, usually ends up seeming like a sour second banana?

The “Jesus Christ Superstar” presented as a three-night event at the Hollywood Bowl did not have these problems, and you can say that again. So we will: The “Jesus Christ Superstar” presented as a three-night event at the Hollywood Bowl really did not have these problems. Like its namesake, it was a big old smash. The casting of that namesake is probably the biggest single factor among a lot of successful ones. If you were only to have heard first that Adam Lambert was cast as the nominal protagonist/antagonist, you’d think: Well, there they go again, but what a romp it will be, at least, as Judas Iscariot Superstar overpowers whatever poor lamb they get to be his foil. But in Cynthia Erivo, the great betrayer finally met his brilliantly cast match, and Lloyd Webber and Rice’s buddy tragedy landed itself the divine frenemies of your dreams.

Of course, the line on Jesus, theologically, is that he was (or is) both man and God, and Rice’s lyrics in the more self-doubting numbers, like “Gethsemane,” go a long way there, but it’s ultimately hard not to play his humanity up so much that he just becomes banal. But what better stroke of casting savvy than to cast someone who is only half-man than someone who is… not a man? Putting a woman in the part to begin with already establishes a sense of otherness that breaks away from the tendency to play Christ as a shaggy-haired, pissy hippie. But Erivo really does come in with a look and persona that’s a fascinating combination of warm and otherworldly — bald, intimidatingly taloned and ready to break out into a melting smile when she’s not brooding over moneylenders or impending martyrdom. David Bowie once had a song that referred to faith in God as “Loving the Alien” — and as this Jesus Christ, Erivo really is a lovable soul whose DNA seems only partly of this earth.

Tyrone Huntley, Cynthia Erivo and Phillipa Soo in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ at the Hollywood BowlFarah Sosa

Purely vocally, too, it’s hard to conceive of a better-sung Jesus than the one Erivo gave us over the weekend. It transcends being “gender-blind” casting; the part suddenly sounds like it was always written for a powerful woman’s voice. In some practical ways, the show remains weighted toward Judas, as Christ gets a big standout number near the top of the second act, but then goes on to pretty much give Kings Herod and Pilate and the audience the strong, silent treatment after that. (It’s also one of the ballsier conceits of the show that Jesus doesn’t get a resurrection scene, but Judas does.) But if you’ve truly nailed “Gethsemane,” you’ve won the show, even if the last stretch after that calls for silent acting skills more than anything. Standing in place before finally dropping to her knees, without the slightest of scenic distractions, Erivo made the show’s signature epic ballad her own for six minutes. Fan message boards were aflutter about whether she would want to try the song’s memorable “Whyyyyy” howl (a male-falsetto money note likely improvised by Ian Gillan on the original double LP, and imitated by everyone who’s capable of it since). Of course she didn’t, any more than she replicated the exact war cry in “Wicked’s” “Defying Gravity.” She stayed true to the core melody with just enough belted embellishment to make the gospels’ garden suddenly seem like a chilly place, goose pimples included. After that number, the house lights came up for a bit to afford Erivo a very extended standing ovation, while she didn’t break haunted, glassy-eyed character. Bless those moments in the theater where you wait for a showpiece number and, by God (literally, in this case), you get it.

Was this theater, though, or a concert presentation? The Hollywood Bowl’s annual presentations of a major stage musical always skirt that line a little. (The LA Phil has put them on every year up until the pandemic, then picked it back up in 2023 for a one-off of “Kinky Boots,” and now has carried on the tradition again, hopefully for good.) What generally happens is that the part of the audience that isn’t longtime season ticketholders shows up expecting some fairly unstaged vocal performances and then is happily surprised at just how produced the production really is. But “Jesus Christ Superstar” in particular benefits from any is-it-or-isn’t-it confusion, having typically been staged with modern dress or without any Middle Eastern scenic design anyway, and having begun as a couple of slabs of vinyl. The Bowl production split the difference in some interesting ways. No one broke the fourth wall to acknowledge that this was anything other than a deeply theatrical experience — except for Josh Gad’s Herod, with some improvised joking in his one number. But while nearly the entire cast wore now-customary head mics, Erivo and Lambert both used corded, handheld microphones, to subliminally anchor this just a bit on the concert side of things… or so director/choreographer Sergio Trujillo has suggested in interviews. It doesn’t hurt that it makes the two principals look and feel just a little more like the rock stars they more or less are.

Cynthia Erivo and Adam Lambert in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ at the Hollywood Bowl reviewFarah Sosa

Lambert’s Judas is unmistakably a rock god, all the cooler for being, as he predicts, damned for all time. Probably no one has wailed this role with quite the gusto that Lambert wails it, though many have tried. In tone he’s closer to Ian Gillan’s Je