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| Chess | |
|---|---|
&sq=Facebook&lang=en&file=File:Original_Cast_Recording_-_Chess.jpg) Concept album cover | |
| Music | Benny Andersson Björn Ulvaeus |
| Lyrics | Tim Rice Björn Ulvaeus |
| Book | Tim Rice (West End version) Richard Nelson (Broadway version) |
| Productions | 1984 European Concert Tour 1986 West End 1988 Broadway 1990 First US Tour 1990 First UK Tour 2003 Broadway Concert 2008 London Concert 2010 Second UK Tour 2018 Washington, D.C. Revival 2018 West End Revival 2020 Japan Tour 2020 Moscow 2022 West End Concert 2022 Broadway Concert |
| Awards | Nominated for 1986 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical |
Chess is a musical with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of the pop group ABBA, lyrics by Ulvaeus and Tim Rice, and book by Rice. The story involves a politically driven, Cold War-era chess tournament between two grandmasters, one American and the other Soviet, and their fight over a woman who manages one and falls in love with the other. Although the protagonists were not intended to represent any real individuals, the character of the American grandmaster (named Freddie Trumper in the stage version) was loosely based on Bobby Fischer,[1] while elements of the story may have been inspired by the chess careers of Russian grandmasters Viktor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov.[2]
Chess allegorically reflected the Cold War tensions present in the 1980s. The musical has been referred to as a metaphor for the whole Cold War, with the insinuation being made that the Cold War is itself a manipulative game.[3] Released and staged at the height of the strong anti-communist agenda that came to be known as the "Reagan Doctrine",[4][5] Chess addressed and satirized the hostility of the international political atmosphere of the 1980s.
As with other productions such as Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, a highly successful concept album was released prior to the first theatrical production in order to raise money. In the case of Chess, the concept album was released in the autumn of 1984 while the show opened in London's West End in 1986 where it played for three years. A much-altered US version premiered on Broadway in 1988 with a book by Richard Nelson, but survived only for two months. Chess is frequently revised for new productions, many of which try to merge elements from both the British and American versions, but was not revived in the West End until 2018.
Chess placed seventh in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the UK's "Number One Essential Musicals".[6]
- ^ Schonberg, Harold C. (8 May 1998). "Does Anyone Make a Bad Move In 'Chess'?". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 April 2008. "Bernie Jacobs, the grand Rhadamanthus of the Shubert Organization, one of the presenters of the musical, says that Bobby originally was the model for the American player but that in the course of events his image got a little diluted."
- ^ Keene, Ray. "Keene on Chess: Viktor Korchnoi". Chessville. Archived from the original on 29 October 2007.
- ^ Marynowski, Jenna (1 July 2016). "Chess an epic story of love and Cold War politics". AfterTheHouselights.com. Archived from the original on 6 August 2016.
- ^ Graebner, Norman A., Richard Dean Burns & Joseph M. Siracusa (2008). Reagan, Bush, Gorbachev: Revisiting the End of the Cold War. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-313-35241-6.
- ^ Marynowski, Jenna (8 July 2016). "Chess at Walterdale shows interchangeability of pawns and kings". Archived from the original on 9 August 2016.
- ^ "BBC – Radio 2 – Elaine Paige".