| |
  
"The serious work on Kristina from Duvemåla began for me after Easter 1989. In the beginning not much happened. First of all it was an enormous step to undertake Vilhelm Moberg. To attempt to exceed what he had already achieved with his novels was unthinkable. One doesn't want to tamper with a masterpiece. "It wasn't until Björn and I decided to make this into something of our own did it really take off. Then I recognized that I wanted to work on two levels: On the one hand, it should be grand and sweeping, an epic sound in the music. A single feeling which flows throughout the entire performance. On the other hand, there should be, within the greater piece, smaller bits with a different pitch. The easiest were those parts which we included into the show which were our own and not Moberg's. It was there one could really play around. The song of the lice was such a bit, and the scene with Pastor Jackson where the two languages converge was another. "But this took time. Everything took time. When we first met Eva Moberg, Vilhelm Moberg's daughter, to discuss the rights to the material, Björn and I said that we needed to have a dramatist. Through Eva Moberg we got into contact with Carl Johan Seth who we worked with for a couple of years. After a while we got stuck. For a year and a half we sat and stared at 52 pieces of paper tacked to a styrofoam board and nothing happened. These pieces of paper represented scenes we envisioned for the show, but they never quite fit together as a unit. Not until the director, Lars Rudolfsson, entered the picture did the pieces start to fall into place. The musical still consists of a number of scenes but it does not feel disparate. It feels complete, a whole. "What happened was that we could solve problems for eachother after discussions. The collaboration has been fantastic. I think, honestly, that it doesn't enter any of our minds to embark on a new big project without the others. The cooperation felt that good. "From my point of view it is extremely valuable that Rudolfsson is so musical. I play a little piece for him and he absorbs it immediately and can respond to it. Another thing was that Lars Rudolfsson had his version of the show, Björn had his and I had mine. But together we could develop it into a whole. I knew instinctively how my version looked, but to express it was like trying to describe the color blue. First when someone displays just that color one stands and shouts excitedly that that's it, that's exactly it. "The same went for the auditions. One knows that amongst over a thousand candidates one searches for the woman with a clear and pure voice. And there is certainly five or six very talented singers who would be perfectly capable of assuming the roll of Kristina. "We had fifteen girls and eight guys at the secondary tryouts. And then along came Helen Sjöholm. Then and there everything worked just right. She is far and away the best, she wins on pure talent. As if she's tailor made for the part. And I really liked her comment upon hearing that she won the role when Rudolfsson phoned her, "How brave you all are," she said. "Indeed, she knew she could do it, but we weren't so sure. We relied on intuition. And throughout the entire process she never once seemed to shake in her shoes. Not even when I sat in the audience at the première did I notice the slightest trace of nervousness. At one of the recording sessions later I could hear the adrenaline in her voice but not when I was watching the show. And once again, it is always the performance of Kristina which counts."
The Musical | Background | Interactive guide | Merchandise | Downloadables | Swedish |
 |