Jesus Christ Superstar in the context of "Life of Jesus in the New Testament"

A sung-through or through-sung work is a narrative work such as a stage musical, musical film or opera in which the entire libretto is set to music, with little or no spoken dialogue or monologues used to tell the story. The story is told through a combination of aria, arioso and recitative. Early versions of this include the Italian genre of opera buffa, a light-hearted form of opera that gained prominence in the 1750s. Since Jesus Christ Superstar, sung-through musicals have been increasingly popular, with one commentator writing, "Hamilton demonstrates ... that a sung-through musical can be as vigorous in its storytelling as any more traditional book musical."

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948), commonly referred to as "Lloyd Webber", is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 21 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass.

Several of Lloyd Webber's songs have been widely recorded and widely successful outside their parent musicals, such as "Memory" from Cats, "The Music of the Night" and "All I Ask of You" from The Phantom of the Opera, "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar, "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from Evita, and "Any Dream Will Do" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. In 2001, The New York Times referred to him as "the most commercially successful composer in history". The Daily Telegraph named him in 2008 the fifth-most powerful person in British culture, on which occasion lyricist Don Black said that "Andrew more or less single-handedly reinvented the musical."

Jonathan James English (26 March 1949 – 9 March 2016) was an English-born Australian singer, songwriter, musician and actor. He emigrated from England to Australia with his parents in 1961. He was an early vocalist and rhythm guitarist for Sebastian Hardie but left to take on the role of Judas Iscariot in the Australian version of the stage musical Jesus Christ Superstar from May 1972, which was broadcast on television. English was also a solo singer; his Australian top twenty hit singles include "Turn the Page", "Hollywood Seven", "Words are Not Enough", "Six Ribbons" and "Hot Town".

For his starring role in the 1978 Australian TV series Against the Wind he won the TV Week Logie Award for 'Best New Talent in Australia'. He also co-wrote and performed the score with Mario Millo (ex-Sebastian Hardie). The series had international release, known as Mot alla vindar (1980) in Swedish, where "Six Ribbons" was released as a single, both single and the soundtrack album peaked at No.1 on the Norwegian charts; the first single, "Six Ribbons" and the album, peaked at No.4 on the Swedish charts.