What Is Chess?

[RumTumJM]

Posted: 3/26/25 at 3:30pm

A traditonal musical?

A rock musical?

A pop musical?

Thanks to this board, I have become a fan of Chess & gotten quite excited for the (supposed) revival we will get this fall. But, I keep trying to figure out how to categorize the show. - I want to call it a rock show, but the beginning of Merano doesn't sound too rock...or even pop...at all! - But, The Arbiter certainly isn't classic Broadway.

So, what exactly is Chess?

Updated On: 3/26/25 at 03:30 PM

[raddersons]

Posted: 3/26/25 at 3:53pm

A really successful concept album.

A really unsuccessful stage show. 

[binau]

Posted: 3/26/25 at 4:05pm

It’s the strangest show. Some nice songs, some amazing performances of them over the years. And then you slap them together and put it on a stage and it. Just. Doesn’t. Work. The characters are not believable, the plot is odd and convoluted, it doesn’t make sense. And the whole conception of it is also so strange why is this a musical? And yet like a strange stalker that doesn’t leave you alone it just never seems to go away. The melodies don’t get old. There is this always a bit of buzz and excitement on whether this will finally make it back. It’s very strange. It’s a weird theatre cult phenomenon. 

[DeNada]

Posted: 3/26/25 at 4:22pm

Andersson and Ulvaeus's two MT scores aren't really easily pigeonholed; both Chess and Kristina have pop and rock inflections in amongst the classical fugues and choruses.  I think it's just safest to call them traditional musicals with some slightly odd 80s/90s touches in their scores.

While reviews of the original production suggested the show was a rock score, I think it's only Freddie's numbers that lay claim to rock by any modern standards, and that's mostly because of the wailing guitar in Pity The Child and the high Cs.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 3/26/25 at 4:28pm

Chess is amazing and frustrating all at the same time. There are so many parts of it I really love, but the messy story and weird character choices/motivations are often just incredibly bad. There is a world-class musical hiding in the cracks there somewhere, and I hope to God they can figure it out and to bring it to life this Fall. 

[GirlFromOz68]

Posted: 3/26/25 at 4:41pm

It has some absolute banger songs ( Nobody's Side,  Pity the Child, Anthem, Mountain Duet, You and I) , some more comic songs ( Merano, Soviet Machine), and a few that i love that are less easily categorised ( Quartet, Deal or No Deal). Them there is Benny's beautiful orchestrations 

Yeah, the book is a bit of a mess but I'm interested to see if with a longer rehearsal period than they had for the Washington and NYC concerts if Danny Strong's book can be successful.

I actually find the story much easier to follow than other people seem to but maybe as someone who was growing up in the period it was set, living with the fear of nuclear war even in far off Australia,  it just resonates with me. 

Plus I was watching the 2008 concert the other night again and the section where Florence and Molokov were discussing/singing about her being Eastern European and Florence talking about Hungary being overtaken by the Russians and losing her family and her people,  it hits in a really different way in the world we live in right now.

Fact is I'd rather see this staged again with some phenomenal voices ( and Lea and Ramin hopefully together again is a very good start) than a bunch of other musicals with less interesting music and a more straightforward book or yet another musical based on a movie or another jukebox musical thats easy to follow.

It really is a anamoly!

[DeNada]

Posted: 3/26/25 at 6:07pm

GirlFromOz68 said: "Them there is Benny's beautiful orchestrations
 

I don't think Benny has ever orchestrated Chess; I think Anders Eljas has orchestrated basically every major production of the show ever.  Fun fact - Anders Eljas also was one of the orchestrators for Carrie (I'd love to know which bits - did he do the incredible bombastic orchestrations for Eve Was Weak, or was that Michael Starobin?). 

Every time he re-orchestrates the show he does something newly horrific to Someone Else's Story; the original Judy Kuhn version and the gorgeous Helen Sjoholm version in the Swedish production have always been wonderful, but the weird country and western guitar sounds he's whacked in there since the Albert Hall concert are completely lost on me.  Strip it back, if anything - there's a heartbreakingly simple video on Youtube  of Helen Sjoholm singing it in English on a Swedish talk show that shows what an absolute banger the song is without any bells and whistles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myZt9c2Tips).

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 3/26/25 at 7:07pm

Parts of the original Sydney production work well ( Maria Mercedes Someone else’s story is gorgeous ). If you look you can find the whole show on video and audio. 

[shomeika]

Posted: 3/26/25 at 7:41pm

An overly long, bloated musical with some of the most gorgeous songs ever - 

[GirlFromOz68]

Posted: 3/26/25 at 7:47pm

DeNada said: "GirlFromOz68 said: "Them there is Benny's beautiful orchestrations


I don't think Benny has ever orchestrated Chess; I think Anders Eljas has orchestrated basically every major production of the show ever. Fun fact - Anders Eljas also was one of the orchestrators for Carrie (I'd love to know which bits - did he do theincrediblebombastic orchestrations for Eve Was Weak, or was that Michael Starobin?).

Every time he re-orchestrates the show he does something newly horrific to Someone Else's Story; the original Judy Kuhn version and the gorgeous Helen Sjoholm version in the Swedish production have always been wonderful, but the weird country and western guitar sounds he's whacked in there since the Albert Hall concert are completely lost on me. Strip it back, if anything - there's a heartbreakingly simple video on Youtubeof Helen Sjoholm singing it in English on a Swedish talk show that shows what an absolute banger the song is without any bells and whistles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myZt9c2Tips)."

sorry not a music expert, so obviously i used the wrong word when I said orchestrations but I meant the beautiful music that Benny wrote for the other sections of the score that I love. I'm happy to be corrected on what I should be calling that but I am right that Benny wrote that as I've heard Tim say he did. 

[Pernigraniline]

Posted: 3/27/25 at 6:19am

DeNada said: ". Fun fact - Anders Eljas also was one of the orchestrators for Carrie (I'd love to know which bits - did he do theincrediblebombastic orchestrations for Eve Was Weak, or was that Michael Starobin?).

)."

Stratford was solely Eljas, and Eve was Weak is Wagnerian and only slightly different to Broadway - I'd say Starobin was responsible for just tweaking Eve for Broadway, whereas other songs like Do Me a Favour were totally reorchestrated, Elljas had a strange electronic 80s weirdness in Stratford

Updated On: 3/28/25 at 06:19 AM

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 3/27/25 at 11:28am

To go back to the initial question, I'd still call it a rock musical, kind of in the same vein as how Hamilton can be called a rap musical even though there are a lot of parts that aren't rap.  Or maybe a European rock musical, just to give a slightly different connotation. But the most accurate would probably be "a musical based on a concept album with primarily rock influences" or something.