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Chess the Musical - in Moscow
October 19, 2020
From The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...old-war-moscow
by Theo Merz in Moscow
In a week when Moscow and Washington squabbled over arms treaties and Europe imposed fresh sanctions on the Kremlin, Russia has offered a further throwback to the cold war era: its first staging of the 1980s Abba and Tim Rice musical Chess.
The story, inspired by real events, tells of the professional and romantic rivalry between two chess grandmasters, one Soviet and one American. It spawned the hits I Know Him So Well and One Night in Bangkok, and was performed in the West End and on Broadway.
Given the musical’s chorus of villainous Soviet spooks and a hero who is threatened by the KGB after his defection, the show might seem an unlikely draw for Moscow audiences.
But producers have made a number of changes, including “humanising” the hero’s KGB handler and removing the role of an American spy.
“In our interpretation, there are no heroes and no villains,” said Dmitry Bogachev, who produced the show, which opens on Saturday at the Moscow Palace of Youth. “All of them are lifelike and complicated. There’s a lot of good and bad in all of them.”
He pointed to the role of the Soviet chess delegation head, Molokov, who also works for the country’s spy agency and bugs his top player’s room. “You probably consider that he is the villain. But he is a man who is just carrying out his work.”
The new staging presents events from the point of view of the Russian player Anatoly Sergievsky, loosely based on the chess grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi, who fled the Soviet Union in 1976. A scene in Moscow has been added while the role of Walter, Molokov’s American counterpart, has been cut to prevent the musical becoming “a story about politics”, Bogachev said, adding that all changes had been approved by Rice. The lyricist visited Moscow in February, along with Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, who wrote the music.
Bogachev said the aim was not just to adapt the musical for a Russian audience, but to reflect the realities of the new cold war.
Peter Doggers in chess.com
The 1980s musical "Chess," with a storyline set around a Cold War-era chess event and with music by ABBA's Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, is world-famous. Somehow, it was never performed in Moscow—until last Saturday night.
The musical opened on Saturday evening, October 17, in Moscow's MDM Theatre in the Russian capital's central Khamovniki District. With a capacity of 1,800 seats, the theater was full. (Wearing face masks is strongly recommended nowadays in Moscow but only about half of the people did so.)
The red-carpet event saw politicians, business luminaries, and other VIPs mixed with chess grandmasters, including GM Anatoly Karpov, GM Sergey Karjakin, and GM Alexandra Kosteniuk.
Karpov came on stage after the opening show.
The story of the musical tells about a chess match in which an American grandmaster and a Soviet-Russian grandmaster fight over the same woman, who manages one and falls in love with the other. It can be seen as a metaphor for the Cold War.
The American is named Freddie Trumper, a character loosely based on GM Bobby Fischer (and certainly not on the current U.S. president!) while the Russian player has certain elements of GM Viktor Korchnoi and... Karpov.
The musical originally premiered in London's West End in 1986 (where it was revived in 2018), after the concept album had come out in 1984. The song "One Night In Bangkok" became a worldwide hit in 1985.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/ches...pens-in-moscow
Earlier comments on the musical in ChessTalk:
Chess in Toronto
https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...hess#post75946
Chess in Hamilton
https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...al-in-hamilton
Chess in film and television
https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...ge3#post202218
Hartston’s book Chess: the making of a musical
https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...-bill-hartston
October 19, 2020
From The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...old-war-moscow
by Theo Merz in Moscow
In a week when Moscow and Washington squabbled over arms treaties and Europe imposed fresh sanctions on the Kremlin, Russia has offered a further throwback to the cold war era: its first staging of the 1980s Abba and Tim Rice musical Chess.
The story, inspired by real events, tells of the professional and romantic rivalry between two chess grandmasters, one Soviet and one American. It spawned the hits I Know Him So Well and One Night in Bangkok, and was performed in the West End and on Broadway.
Given the musical’s chorus of villainous Soviet spooks and a hero who is threatened by the KGB after his defection, the show might seem an unlikely draw for Moscow audiences.
But producers have made a number of changes, including “humanising” the hero’s KGB handler and removing the role of an American spy.
“In our interpretation, there are no heroes and no villains,” said Dmitry Bogachev, who produced the show, which opens on Saturday at the Moscow Palace of Youth. “All of them are lifelike and complicated. There’s a lot of good and bad in all of them.”
He pointed to the role of the Soviet chess delegation head, Molokov, who also works for the country’s spy agency and bugs his top player’s room. “You probably consider that he is the villain. But he is a man who is just carrying out his work.”
The new staging presents events from the point of view of the Russian player Anatoly Sergievsky, loosely based on the chess grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi, who fled the Soviet Union in 1976. A scene in Moscow has been added while the role of Walter, Molokov’s American counterpart, has been cut to prevent the musical becoming “a story about politics”, Bogachev said, adding that all changes had been approved by Rice. The lyricist visited Moscow in February, along with Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, who wrote the music.
Bogachev said the aim was not just to adapt the musical for a Russian audience, but to reflect the realities of the new cold war.
Peter Doggers in chess.com
The 1980s musical "Chess," with a storyline set around a Cold War-era chess event and with music by ABBA's Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, is world-famous. Somehow, it was never performed in Moscow—until last Saturday night.
The musical opened on Saturday evening, October 17, in Moscow's MDM Theatre in the Russian capital's central Khamovniki District. With a capacity of 1,800 seats, the theater was full. (Wearing face masks is strongly recommended nowadays in Moscow but only about half of the people did so.)
The red-carpet event saw politicians, business luminaries, and other VIPs mixed with chess grandmasters, including GM Anatoly Karpov, GM Sergey Karjakin, and GM Alexandra Kosteniuk.
Karpov came on stage after the opening show.
The story of the musical tells about a chess match in which an American grandmaster and a Soviet-Russian grandmaster fight over the same woman, who manages one and falls in love with the other. It can be seen as a metaphor for the Cold War.
The American is named Freddie Trumper, a character loosely based on GM Bobby Fischer (and certainly not on the current U.S. president!) while the Russian player has certain elements of GM Viktor Korchnoi and... Karpov.
The musical originally premiered in London's West End in 1986 (where it was revived in 2018), after the concept album had come out in 1984. The song "One Night In Bangkok" became a worldwide hit in 1985.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/ches...pens-in-moscow
Earlier comments on the musical in ChessTalk:
Chess in Toronto
https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...hess#post75946
Chess in Hamilton
https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...al-in-hamilton
Chess in film and television
https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...ge3#post202218
Hartston’s book Chess: the making of a musical
https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...-bill-hartston
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