Worth the wait
Steven Valenti | Cleveland, OH | 05/04/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"From the ABBA guys Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus comes, finally, a follow-up to their crowd-pleasing 80s score, "Chess." Actually, "Kristina: At Carnegie Hall" is the first English language version of "Kristina fran Duvemala," a huge musical hit in Sweden in the 90s. It was worth the wait.
I will say straight off that the 90s-ness definitely shows- "Kristina" falls mainly in the pop opera style that dominated musical theater in the 80s and 90s (the translation is by Herbert Kretzmer, who also wrote the English lyrics of "Les Miserables"). This serious story, based on a series of novels by Vilhem Moberg, is about Swedish immigrants facing various hardships as they settle in America, and it's certainly more insistently somber and period than most musicals these days. The plot is episodic, and as this newest version is truncated down to some two and a half hours from the original four(!), one has to assume the cuts have made the plot feel more disjointed than it appeared originally.
The music, though, is fantastic, and actually falls a bit more on the "opera" side of "pop opera." Which is to say, don't come to "Kristina" to find the pop-rock quality so dominant in "Chess." This has a more symphonic sound, mixed in with some folksiness (these are poor immigrants in a mid-1800's setting, after all) and one of the stars, the superb Russell Watson, sings with an operatic tenor. In comparison, this is more in the mode of the more "classical" numbers in "Chess" ("You and I," "Anthem," "A Model of Decorum of Tranquility," etc.). To be sure, there are some pop-rock inflections here and there, but this is no "Mamma Mia!" You can, however, expect soaring, emotion-packed melodies that remind you how transporting the best musicals can be.
In addition to Watson, the cast is rounded out by standout performers, including Kevin Odekirk, Louise Pitre, and as Kristina, the phenomenal Helen Sjoholm (who originated the role). Her rendition of "You Have to Be There," near the end of this two-disc set is downright spine tingling. And there are many other songs to savor in "Kristina." If there are a few spots that lag, that's okay: there is so much here of high quality, it feels beside the point- "Kristina" delivers more memorable numbers than the typical musical score. I don't know if Broadway plans will ever come about, but this is definite confirmation that BB are among the best theater composers we have. I hope we don't have to wait as long for their next show. Or, for that matter, an English translation of a fifteen-year-old show!"
"Kristina" Rings All the Bells
J. Carpenter | New York | 06/18/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I am always quite surprised that individuals listen to a concert recording and draw inferences about the actual, fully staged production. The concerts, both in Minnesota some years ago and in New York City recently, as gloriously they were produced were mere shadows of the full production with much of Molberg's exceptional dialogue included and fleshed out by minimalistic but often stunning Robert Wagner sets.
As an example, the concert did not produce one powerfully evoked image from the full production. As the crescendo builds of the show's final song, a swing--the swing Kristina playfully rode while waiting for Karl Oscar--appears from the wings and soars back and forth across the stage. It is a brilliant coup de theater that elicits a paradoxical sense of joy.
The swing is never even mentioned in the concert.
More to the point, the music is truly among the best ever written for the musical stage with intimations of Wagner, Dvorak, Puccini, and even Rogers and Hammerstein. The penultimate piece, a haunting choral--"Rising from Myth and Legend"
has all the grandeur of a Bach Oratorio.
It is my opinion that a blanket condemnation of the lyrics as "trite" is remarkably wide of the mark. The additional criticism that they are about "things" rather than emotions might have me wonder if the person who suggested that even heard the lyrics.
There are 34 songs from the concert, as look at the lyrics, by my count TWO are about "things"--the unlistenable "Lice" and "Queen of the Prairie". I'm not going to bother turning this review into an epic by citing lyrics from the other 32 songs
to demolish the criticism that the lyrics are comprehensively banal but a few will surfice:
From "Never" sung by Ulrika, the town prostitute which is a bitter lament against her persecutors, the hypocrites who bartered for her body:
"Righteous congregation
Pillars of the Nation
I am in your debt evermore...
Men came in the darkness
Scratching at my window
Men I know by sight--and by name
They bought their share of me...
Councilmen and churchmen
How they came a-wooing
Stealing home in silence and shame
Their shame is my renewing"
Later in the musical, Robert mortally ill and cast off by the older brother he loved as a cheat contemplates a stream making its way to the sea
" Free, you are free
Not a slave, not like me
Choosing your way
As you please
At your ease
You are your own master.
Soon you will rise
To the crest of a wave
To be one with the sea everlasting
On giant shoulders you'll carry sailors
In tall white galleons
To far horizons..."
There is much more of Walt Whitman in such language than Don Black.
Again, I could cite example after example but there is little to be gained. Should one make the effort and dig deep enough one could find couplets in the works of e.e. cummings or Yeats that do not go down so easily.
On balance, "Kristina" is an astonishing piece. As concerts do, this one is like most others: it does not convey anything close to the power of the full production but it does suggest Trevor Nunn may be on to something when he suggested "Kristina"
was the best thing he heard in ages and a critic whose name escapes me said, "I have seen the future of musical theater and it's name is "Kristina".
(As an aside, a woman of my acquaintance with an encyclopedic and first-hand knowledge of musical theater spanning 40 years declared "Kristina" to be as extraordinary as the universally praised concert version of "South Pacific" which was also performed at Carnegie Hall a few years ago.)
"
Long Awaited Translation
Brett | Australia | 06/06/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"At last an English translation of this breathtakingly beautiful score. Now all those sumptuous songs have greater meaning for those of us who don't speak Swedish!"
Track Listings (20) - Disc #1