ABBA's Benny Andersson on reprise of his Minnesota-set musical 'Kristina'

The Swedish hit-makers ABBA changed pop music as we know it: they sent 20 songs to the Billboard Hot 100 and turned the world onto Europop. But there is some lesser-known music by the people behind ABBA.

Back in 1995, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA wrote a musical called “Kristina.” It tells the story of Swedes who found their way to Minnesota territory in the mid-18th century.

In 1996, Benny and Björn came to Minnesota, where Kristina made its American premiere. Now it will be back on the stage nearly 30 years later. VocalEssence will open its 56th season with a concert performance of Kristina on Oct. 26.

ABBA’s Benny Andersson joined Minnesota Now from Sweden in an exclusive interview with VocalEssence director Philip Brunelle.

The story has been lightly edited for clarity. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

For those not familiar with the musical Kristina, how did you choose Minnesota as part of this story?

Benny Andersson: [“The Emigrants”] is probably the most famous and popular novel in Sweden, written by Vilhelm Moberg. It’s four books, thousands of pages, and it is about the Swedish immigrants and the family who left for Minnesota. So we got hooked on that and decided that, “yeah, let’s give it a go and see what happens.”

It took five years for me to write the music and then we opened in Malmö, Sweden, and it ran in Sweden for, I don’t know, five, six years.

No other musical in this country [Sweden] has had a bigger audience. So it went very well. And then Mr. Philip Brunelle had this idea to do this concert in Swedish with his American choir, which was very brave, I think, but it was wonderful. So that’s probably why we’re back again, but this time in English.

Philip Brunelle: What I did is I asked several wonderful people from the Swedish Institute here in Minneapolis who came to rehearsals and helped everyone so that they could make the right Swedish sounds. And don’t forget, I also had the orchestra play in Swedish.

Benny, what do you remember from visiting Minnesota back in 1996?

Andersson: I was there a few times. First time was just to do a little recce as we were working on this project, just to, you know, go up to Lindström and follow the footpaths of the writer Vilhelm Moberg. He stayed there for quite a long time, just to get the feel of what it was, where they went, see the graveyards. It was very nice experience actually coming up there.

Phillip, why did you decide to redo the musical this season?

Brunelle: I've been wanting to do it ever since that first performance, because I have to say, Benny knows how to write a melody, and the songs that are in “Kristina” are so poignant, so beautiful. I've had people all of these years saying: “When are you going to have “Kristina” back?” and so it just seemed to be something to do.

In addition, all of the talk about immigration just made it more poignant this year that we really should bring “Kristina” back to the audience, and now that there’s an English translation, we could do it in English.

Benny, do you recall the process you had to go through to write this musical?

Andersson: Well, I don’t know how it is for other people who write music. For me, it is like a nine-to-five thing, or nowadays, maybe eleven-to-three, because I’m a little older.

I have to sit on my piano and wait for it to happen. That’s how it works. In a way, it helps a little when you know what you’re writing for.

Kristina is sitting in her swing in the beginning. They’re getting married. The barn is on fire. They have to travel over the sea to America, all that. So it gives you a little help in: “I wonder how that felt for them. What were their feelings?” And that helps to create music that probably will rhyme with that, as I saw it.

• For more information on the performance visit to vocalessence.org

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