By Andrew Gans
18 May 2009

Creators Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus
photo by Marc Bryan-Brown

Kristina — the new musical from ABBA songwriters Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson (with English lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer) — will be presented in concert this fall at Carnegie Hall.

Kristina: A Concert Event at Carnegie Hall is scheduled for Sept. 23 and 24. Show time both nights is 8 PM. Casting will be announced at a later time.

Universal Music's Decca Records will record both evenings and will release a CD at a future date.

The show's plot is based on four novels by Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg. Kristina from Duvemala premiered at the Malmo Music Theatre on Oct. 7, 1995, and has played Gothenburg's Opera House and Stolkholm's Cirkus Theatre, among others.

In October 2005 Ulvaeus had this to say about Kristina: "It's about immigrants going from the south of Sweden in the 1850s to America," Ulvaeus told Playbill.com. "It's about their lives. It's an epic saga really. We did that in Sweden successfully — ran for about three years in various cities. . . . And then we wanted to translate it [into English] because we thought it was American history as well. It's really more American history than Swedish. Herbert Kretzmer did [the translation] with me, and we did a workshop here in New York in March to find out what people didn't understand, what the weaknesses were and what it would be like to do it in English. And, we really learned a lot from that."

Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson also collaborated on the rock musical Chess (with lyricist Tim Rice), and their songs are heard in the international hit Mamma Mia!

Tickets for the fall concerts will go on sale May 31 at noon by visiting the Carnegie Hall Box Office (57th Street and Seventh Avenue), by calling (212) 247-7800 or by logging on to www.carnegiehall.org.

For more information visit www.KristinaTheMusical.com.