This Week’s Bizarre ABBA News

Benny and Bjorn wanna be free of emperors and kings, and, oh yeah, they want you to come check out their new musical.

By Blurt Staff

Here at BLURT, we got juice - so much juice, in fact, that the goddam Consulate General of Sweden is in regular communication with us. You know, about which of his fair country's bands (who seem to be invading us with increasing frequency) are hip and which one are drips. Stuff like that. In return, he passes along exclusive news tips to us, such as the one below, reproduced verbatim.

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A Note From Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus

Dear Friends,

If you wanna be free of emperors and kings!

Leave the kings and emperors behind you

Don't let'em tie you down and clip your wings

Don't let'em shackle and bind you

That's how Karl Oskar and his younger brother Robert saw America. Kristina, Karl Oskar's wife, was more hesitant and inclined to look back:

Voices whisper behind me

They remind me

Every night

Of another existence

Far in the distance

It comes in sight

Now I see them clear

My folks at the crossroads waving

Losing their child forever

I see them cry

It's as if they're here

My people of time gone by

They come to me when night is falling

Twilight images calling

They crossed an ocean and so will we, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, with the musical about these immigrants from Sweden, who are so famous in the country they left. Made immortal by Vilhelm Moberg, on whose novels the musical, "Kristina", is based. Writing it back in the beginning of the nineties, we always saw it as an American story just as much as a Swedish one. And it was always our dream to be able to introduce "Kristina" to an American audience. Now, at last, the time has come. In musical and lyrical form, in two concerts at Carnegie Hall, we will proudly present our musical on the 23rd and the 24th of September.

We are very fortunate to have the original Kristina, Helen Sjöholm, with us and the English tenor Russell Watson will sing Karl Oskar. They will be backed by the American Theatre Orchestra and choir, conducted by Paul Gemignani.

Swedish ancestry or not, we look forward to seeing you there!

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus