Welcome to
another episode of „Facts about Chess“ ;). I have introduced you to the musical
itself and now it’s time fort he songs, before that are some details on the
plot of the musical:
CHESS - The Plot
Act 1
The world chess
championship is being held in the northern Italian town of Merano.
The brash American champion relishes the crowd's affection, while his Russian
challenger and Molokov, his second (actually a KGB agent), watch with curiosity
and disdain on TV. The opening ceremony features an arbiter insisting on
holding the proceedings together, US and Soviet diplomats vowing their side
will win, and marketers just looking to make a buck. The American storms out of
a rules meeting, leaving his second, Florence, in an argument with the Arbiter
and the Russians. She later scolds him, but he insists that she, a child emigre
who escaped Hungary during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, should support him.
Instead, she reflects that "nobody's on nobody's side". The first
game of the match goes badly, with dirty tricks nearly evolving into a brawl. A
meeting to smooth things over goes badly and strands the Russian and Florence
together, where they quickly develop feelings for one another. As the matches
continue, the American flounders and blames Florence, who leaves him. The
Russian wins the championship, then defects to the west. Answering reporters'
questions about his loyalties, his "Anthem" declares that "my
land's only borders/ lie around my heart."
Act 2
A year later, the Russian
is set to defend his championship in Bangkok, Thailand. The American is already
there, chatting up locals about the nightlife. Florence and the Russian are now
lovers, and worry about the situation. Molokov, meanwhile, has trained a new
protege to challenge the Russian. The American interviews the Russian on TV and
makes obvious attempts to rattle him, even declaring that the Russian's wife
(Svetlana) is being allowed to leave the USSR to attend the match. She and
Florence both reflect on their relationships with him. The American goes to the
Russian with information about Florence's long-lost father, claiming that
instead of being a hero as she believed, he was a collaborator. The Russian,
and later Florence, dismiss him, unwilling to hear what he has to say. He
reflects on his life and his obsession with chess as a way to escape an unhappy
childhood. In the deciding game of the match, The Russian manages an
exceptional victory, and realizes that it may be the only success he can
achieve - Svetlana castigates him for wallowing in the crowd's empty praise.
Both acknowledge they are doomed to care only for themselves. Later, he and
Florence reflect on their story that seemed so promising, and how they "go
on pretending/ stories like ours/ have happy endings."
On our CHESS website you
can find an overview of the synopsis including all the songs: http://www.chessthemusical.ch/synopsis.html
Now, let’s talk songs. The
one song everybody knows is One Night in
Bangkok and who doesn’t love it?! It’s the opening number of the second
act, which is of course set in Bangkok.
The other song you might
now is a duet called I Know Him So Well.
It’s sung by the two female main roles. The song is beautiful and lots famous
singers have covered the song.
The music in this musical
is a mixture between rock, opera, pop, classic and even a bit oriental. The
song Merano includes it all. It’s
starts in a classical operatic way sung by the big choir and then moves into a
very rocky piece sang by the main male role. In the end it’s classical again.
The transition between these parts is phenomenal and it happens several times
in the show.
If you have read my post
about the show, you know that the two ABBA man have written the music, but it’s
not like Mamma Mia or ABBA at all. There are certain passages, where you can
here the ABBA influence, like in Arbiter.
Lots of songs sung by the
main roles have backing vocals, who are sung by a pop choir (choir of nine
people). Arbiter is one of these songs, there are also: 1956, Nobody’s Side, Where I Want to Be etc.
The man have some great
songs to sing (I’m a little jealous), they’re fun and full of energy: Sovjet Machine, Diplomats.
A song with a lot of text
and sung really fast is the Press
Conference. I really like this song, the journalists interview the American
chess player. I know it by heart, even though I’m not in it.
Other songs sung by the big
choir are: Hymn, Ouverture and Endgame.
The endgame is really long and has different parts including smaller choirs and
prinicipals as well. I really like this, because the whole cast comes together.
A song where all the
prinicipals come together is The Deal. It has different parts as well
and the main characters sing about their feelings.
The music here is
brilliantly written. That’s also the case in the Quartet, four roles interacting in a song.
The quartet is musically
the same as Story of Chess. Story of
Chess is sung by a smaller choir and tells the story of how Chess developed
as a game. In this song we are chess figure and get to move on the chess board.
Another song sung by a
smaller choir is Merchandisers. We get
to sell chess merchandise there and get to be crazy! It’s a lot of fun.
One of the most beautiful
and emotional songs in this musical is Anthem.
The Russian chess player sings about his emotions, it’s amazing, especially
with the choir in the background. Similar to this one is the Mountain Duet, a love song of course
;). Oh or You and I, I love this
song!!!
The song called Chess is a total instrumental one and occurs
more than once. It’s when the Chess game is happening and we only have dancers
on stage. The music is actually from the endgame, the melody is just played by
instruments.
There are more songs in
this musical and they are all fab as well, but I mentioned the ones that mean something
to me.
You have seen videos of
some songs now, on YouTube there is the concert version in the Royal Albert
Hall with Idina Menzel, Josh Groban, Kerri Ellis and Adam Pascal. This version
is amazing!!! Not like a musical, but still with a bit of acting and dancing. I
started watching this and couldn’t stop anymore, just got hooked.
This is similar to our
version, but not quite. The one closest to ours I found is from Denmark. It’s
only the sang version on YouTube, but it sounds awesome.
Act 1
Act 2
Rehearsing these songs is
so much fun and I can’t wait to perform them on stage!!!
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