Kristina (Musical/At Carnegie Hall)

構成数 : 2枚
合計収録時間 : 02:23:25
Lyricists: Herbert Kretzmer; Bjorn Ulvaeus. Audio Mixers: Bernard Lohr; Benny Andersson. Recording information: Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, Carnegie Hall, New Yor (09/2009). Photographer: Carol Rosegg. Arrangers: Olov Helge; Kenneth Olausson; Orjan Fahlstrom; Par Martenson; Magnus Linden; Lars Hedberg; Lars Beijbom; Anders Berglund; Anders Eljas; Lars G. Flinck; Benny Andersson. After the former ABBA members Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus collaborated with lyricist Tim Rice on the musical Chess in the mid-'80s, they next turned to a project related to their native country, a musical based on Vilhelm Moberg's series of novels The Emigrants. The series, which tells the story of the Swedish Diaspora to America in the mid-19th century, had previously been adapted into two lengthy films by director Jan Troell, The Emigrants (1971) and The New Land (1972), both starring Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow. Andersson and Ulvaeus focused on the character Ullmann had played, the wife and mother Kristina, taken by her husband, Karl Oskar, across the sea to the U.S., where the family settles in Minnesota. (By this point in Andersson and Ulvaeus' songwriting collaboration, they had largely separated their duties, with Andersson essentially writing only music and Ulvaeus only lyrics.) Under the title Kristina fran Duvemala (Kristina from Duvemala), the show opened on October 7, 1995, with several additional Swedish productions and a recording through the end of the `90s. But since, unlike the ABBA music and Chess, the show was written in Swedish, not English, that was as far as things went for a while. Eventually, Andersson and Ulvaeus brought in Herbert Kretzmer, who had written the English adaptation of French composer Claude-Michel Schonberg's musical Les Miserables, resulting in a worldwide hit, and he and Ulvaeus created an English-language version of Kristina, which was given its premiere as a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York in September 2009. This recording is drawn from that performance. Helen Sjoholm, who created the title role in Sweden, and for whom the part was written, is again playing Kristina. She has a contralto voice reminiscent of Anni-Frid Lyngstad of ABBA, but sings in English with less of a Swedish accent. Andersson's tuneful music, while recognizable to anyone familiar with Chess, has little of the pop/rock sound of ABBA this time around, although he does throw in a little electric guitar here and there. Rather, his influences are classical and operatic. The show is also strongly suggestive of the musicals of Schonberg and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Indeed, Les Miserables is perhaps its nearest antecedent, especially in the big ballads sung by tenor Kevin Odekirk, who plays the tragic younger brother Robert, "Down to the Sea" and "Gold Can Turn to Sand." The story is not so much like opera as it is like soap opera, however, a kind of domestic melodrama about the travails of a struggling family and its friends. That can make the music seem heavy-handed at times, although Andersson does have some fun with what must be the only song ever written about "Lice" (they infest the ship on the way over to America) and on "American Man," the emigrants' first encounter with an atypical citizen of the new land. Louise Pitre, who starred in Andersson and Ulvaeus' Mamma Mia! on Broadway, has a juicy part as the reformed prostitute Ulrika, but ultimately it's Sjoholm who makes the strongest impression, clearly bringing the audience to its feet with her climactic ballad (or, as they call it in the musical theater, the 11 o'clock number) "You Have to Be There," in which Kristina addresses God. Kristina may or may not have a future on-stage, even in English, but it should be of interest to anyone who likes the music of the creative team from ABBA. ~ William Ruhlmann
録音 : ステレオ (Live)