Mark Pentleton

Next Wednesday evening in the Royal Albert Hall the UK première of the concert version of  Benny and Björn’s musical Kristina will take place. As I explained in a previous post when I performed Guldet Blev till Sand, the epic musical is based on Vilhelm Moberg’s series of books, Utvandrarserien, which tell the story of one family’s migration from Småland to Minnesota. In many ways it’s a Swedish Les Misérables!

I’ve loved the music from Kristina since I first heard it fifteen years ago, and I’ve decided to do a little series on 365songs over the next week in which I’ll record a few songs from the show. Today I’ve chosen to begin with Stanna (Stay). During the journey from Sweden to the New World, the title character Kristina who is pregnant with her fifth child has fallen ill to scurvy. Her husband, Karl Oskar, sits with her throughout the night. (YouTube link from the Minnesota concert a few years ago – Swedish with English subtitles).

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:02 — 4.2MB)