Björn in new interview about the "ABBA-tars

Abba återförenas – som ”abbatarer”
Abba.19 apr 2018
FOTO: IBL FOTOWARE
Abba.
NÖJEmindre än 2 tim sedan
I höst återförenas Abba i en stor global tv-show. Men det är inte Björn, Benny, Agnetha och Anni-Frid själva som står på scenen – utan fyra digitalt framställda ”abbatarer”.

– Vi gör det för att det är så spännande och kul, säger Björn Ulvaeus till TT.


Under årens lopp har det gång på gång spekulerats om att Abba ska återförenas. I höst blir det alltså av, men i en något annan form än vad Abba-fansen kanske hade trott.

– Vi håller på att skapa "abbatarer" just nu, berättar Björn Ulvaeus på telefon från Bryssel där han har berättat om projektet för radio- och tv-unionen EBU.

Mätte skallarna
Brittiska BBC och amerikanska NBC planerar en tv-sänd hyllningsshow till Abbas ära i höst. Tanken är att de fyra digitala kopiorna ska framträda under showen med en av gruppens låtar. I juni förra året fick Annifrid Lyngstad, Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson och Björn Ulvaeus besök från Silicon Valley i USA. Sedan vidtog något som närmast kan beskrivas som avancerad skallmätning.

– Våra huvuden har mätts på alla håll och kanter och av det skapar man ett bibliotek av ansiktsmuskler. De som gör det kallar sig för technoartister och kommer från filmbranschen och it-branschen. Det som är spännande är att det blir ett slags digitala kopior av oss från 1979.


Varför just det året?

– Vi var tvungna att välja ett år och vi tyckte väl att vi såg bra ut det året, säger Björn Ulvaeus och skrattar.

”Helt mindboggling”
1979 var året då Abba släppte skivan ”Voulez-Vous” och påbörjade sin sista stora konsertturné över världen. Björn Ulvaeus konstaterade i sitt tal till EBU att den existentiella dimensionen av ”abbatarerna” också känns spännande att utforska. Hur är det att vara ung igen? Och hur kan man ”kombinera den visdom som vi förhoppningsvis besitter nu med 'abbatarernas' ungdom?”

– Vi har sett lite "work in progress" för ett tag sedan – och det är helt mindboggling! säger Björn Ulvaeus. Man kommer inte att kunna se att det inte är riktiga människor. Det är spännande att vara delaktig i ett projekt som ingen har kunnat göra tidigare.

Nu gör ni det i tv, men kommer man att kunna turnera med ”abbatarerna”?

– Ja, det är tanken, att det ska komma något halvår, kanske tre kvarts år efter showen. Men då kommer vi att använda olika teknologier. Dels den vi utvecklar här, men i en livesituation kanske man också använder hologram någonstans och body-doubles. Man kan göra en massa roliga grejor.

Det låter som att du har gått all in i projektet?

– Ja, det har vi alla fyra gjort. Verkligen. All in, kan man säga.

Kända artister gästar
Ännu så länge är mycket hemligt kring projektet. Det finns ännu inget datum utsatt för konserten och Björn Ulvaeus vill inte avslöja vilken Abba-låt det är som kommer att framföras i tv-showen, vilken också kommer att gästas av flera kända artister. Genom talet i EBU ger han BBC och NBC lite hjälp på traven med att locka fler tv-kanaler i Europa att sända showen.

Är det här början på en framtid där den nya tekniken ger fansen möjlighet att se fler nedlagda band och döda artister framträda ”live”?

– Jag vill inte spekulera i det. Vi gör det och det är jättekul och vi är pionjärer. Men hur det här kommer att användas, där finns det bara en gräns och det är fantasin, säger Björn Ulvaeus.

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/a/ngJJAm/abba-aterforenas--som-abbatarer

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traslation: facebook Micke A Andersson

Björn in new interview about the "ABBA-tars"
This fall, Abba reunites in a major global television show. But it's not Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Anni-Frid themselves who are on stage - without four digitally-produced "abbatar".
"We do it because it is so exciting and fun," says Björn Ulvaeus to TT (Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå).

Over the years, it has been repeatedly speculated that ABBA will be reunited. In the fall, it will happen, but in a slightly different form than the ABBA-fans might have believed.
"We are creating" ABBATAR" right now, explains Björn Ulvaeus on a telephone call from Brussels where he has reported on the project for the Radio and Television Union EBU.

British BBC and US NBC are planning a television broadcast tribute show to ABBA'shonor this fall. The idea is that the four digital copies will appear during the show with one of the group's songs. In June last year Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus received a visit from Silicon Valley in the United States. Then took something that could be described as advanced balding.
"Our heads have been measured in all directions and edges and create a library of facial muscles. Those who make it call themselves techno artists and come from the film industry and the IT industry. What's exciting is that there will be some kind of digital copies of us from 1979.

TT: Why that year?
"We had to choose one year and we thought we were looking good that year," says Björn Ulvaeus, laughing.
1979 was the year when ABBA released the "Voulez-Vous" record and commenced their last major concert tour of the world. Björn Ulvaeus noted in his speech to the EBU that the existential dimension of "ABBATAR" also feels exciting to explore. How is it to be young again? And how can we "combine the wisdom we hopefully possess now with the" ABBATAR" youth?"
"We've seen a little" work in progress "a while ago - and it's completely mindboggling! says Björn Ulvaeus.
"You will not be able to see that there are no real people. It's exciting to be part of a project that nobody has been able to do before.

TT: Do you do it now on television, but will you be able to tour with the "ABBATAR"?
- Yes, it's the idea that there will be half a year, maybe three quarters of a year after the show. But then we will use different technologies. Partly the one we develop here, but in a living situation, one might also use hologram somewhere and body doubles. You can do a lot of fun stuff.
TT: It sounds like you've got all the way into the project?
- Yes, we have done all four. Really. All in, you can say.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155539489770765&set=a.62337300764.75305.659900764

Chess in London, New York City and Syracuse.

ARTS Grandmaster flashiness dominates CNY Playhouse ‘Chess’ match play
ByJames MacKillopPosted on April 18, 2018 The cast of CNY Playhouse's "Chess" stand in a line across the stage as part of the performance, lit by overhead stage lights. CAST MEMBERS OF CENTRAL NEW YORK PLAYHOUSE’S CHESS. (COURTESY OF AMELIA BEAMISH)

We approach a cult musical differently from your garden-variety hit. With a hit like Guys and Dolls or South Pacific, we don’t expect surprises and are comforted by familiarity. A show cannot become a cult favorite unless it has been wounded, like with a host of savage reviews or disastrous box office, but is championed by an impassioned minority convinced against the odds of the show’s brilliance that wants us to share that vision.

Director Robert G. Searle is a cultist for the Tim Rice-ABBA musical Chess. He makes a compelling case for the show, which runs through April 28 at Shoppingtown’s Central New York Playhouse.

Part of being in the cult is remembering the show’s anfractuous history, which is more demanding than knowing all the characters in the Star Wars franchise. The key moment is the 1988 failure of the Broadway production, based on a different book (by Richard Nelson) and a hamhanded vandalizing of the score. Previous to that Chess had run for three years in London. And ultimately, history is favoring the cultists. This Syracuse production runs concurrently with revivals of the Rice version on both Broadway and London’s West End.

In a 2016 interview with the Syracuse New Times, Tim Rice described Chess as his proudest achievement. A political allegory for the Cold War during the Reagan administration, Chess is a rock opera that first appeared in a 1984 two-disc concept album, much like its Rice siblings Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita.

The score by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA sounds nothing like the bubble gum of their Mamma Mia. They might have been aiming toward Andrew Lloyd Webber, but one also hears disparate echoes from Gilbert & Sullivan and Richard Rodgers. Serious cultists hear remote allusions in the top solo “Anthem” to the ABBA song “Our Last Summer.”

In a candid program note, director Searle acknowledges that his motivation to revive Chess has long been in gestation, and it shows. He has superior voices in all the key roles, such as Paul Thompson as the loutish American Freddie Trumper, Benjamin J. Sills as layered and sympathetic Soviet Anatoly Sergievsky, and Ceara Windhausen (nearly unrecognizable in a black wig) as Florence Vassy, the woman who comes between them. Frequently dominating the scene is Steve Gamba as the whitegloved Arbiter of the matches.

Searle’s commitment to quality extends through the supporting players, including an excellent Kate Crawford as Anatoly’s wronged wife Svetlana, new face Garrett Robinson as the enigmatic Soviet coach Molokov, and Christopher James as de Courcey, his American counterpart. Confidence in Searle’s commitment is so high that five of the singers-dancers in the 14-person ensemble have been leads in recent productions here and elsewhere.

Chess was partially inspired by the highly publicized matches in the 1970s between grandmaster Bobby Fischer, one of the most toxic figures ever to appear in American public life, and the press-friendly Soviet masters, Viktor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov. Yet Rice has made clear that the emergence of the concept album in 1984 was intended to comment on Ronald Reagan’s last eruption of Cold War rhetoric, incidentally linked to a fictionalized account of U.S.-Soviet chess matches.

Changes in the political climate led to rewrites of the show just as drastic as the unfortunate New York City opening. Freddie Trumper, despite his prominent personal failings, is far less a miscreant than Fischer was. None of the original matches were in Thailand as they are here, prompting one of the show’s best numbers, “One Night in Bangkok,” also a Top 40 smash in 1984. And Fischer did not arrive with a girlfriend.

The basis of the Chess cult is not its politics or even its piquant plot. That relies on the music, of course, and its plangent expression. Music director Abel Searor has assembled an eight-piece orchestra, including two brass players, and his keyboard can deliver both a harp and a harpsichord. From the overture and onward, the ABBA score can be gripping. Splendid as Freddie’s numbers like “Commie Newspapers” are, we see in the first act that Rice’s book has favored Florence, such as the affecting solo “Nobody’s Side,” and Anatoly’s powerhouse first-act finale, “Anthem.”

More musical riches are found in the second act, including a big solo for Freddie, “Pity the Child,” and adulterous love-making by Anatoly and Florence in “You and I.” Anatoly’s betrayed wife Svetlana, an aspect of the plot audiences may be slow to embrace, has her plaintive moment in “Someone Else’s Story.” Another winning solo is Molokov’s ironic “Soviet Machine.”

Press comments on the original London version praised its elaborate production values, impossible to reproduce in Shoppingtown. The task of evoking them falls to choreographer Shannon Tompkins. With what space she has been given, Tompkins has the ensemble, dressed in either black or white, depict the conflict on the chessboard, with arrogant rooks and bishops knocking down hapless pawns. It’s one of the cleverest things she has ever done.

Thirty years after bombing on Broadway, Chess is having its day, simultaneously in London, New York City and Syracuse.

https://www.syracusenewtimes.com/grandmaster-flashiness-dominates-cny-playhouse-chess-match-play/