Highlights from Chess - Benny Andersson

The composers of the musical Chess, Benny Andersson and Bjrn Ulvaeus, as well as the lyricist Tim Rice had already had a very successful career before they started this huge project. Andersson and Ulvaeus had been the male singers of the popular Swedish group ABBA, whereas Tim Rice had written the lyrics for Lloyd Webber's musicals 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and 'Evita'. The plot of the musical is situated in Merano, a small town in Northern Italy, hosting the Chess World Championships. The protagonists are the American titleholder and his Russian challenger, who are adversaries on both the sports and political level. Nowadays the subject is out of date, as Chess was conceived in 1984 when the political scene was completely different. This might be the reason why this musical did not hold out as long as e. g. 'Les Misrables' or 'Cats'. Anyhow the music remained very popular and songs such as 'Last Night in Bangkok', 'I know him so well' and 'Anthem' belong to the standard repertoire of 'musical classics'. In his 'Chess selection' Johan de Meij used the nice orchestral parts of the soundtrack which gave a kind of symphonic character to this musical.

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