Mamma Mia, Abba in concert are avatars – Magazine

London – The ArcelorMittal Orbit, the Olympic tower designed by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond for the 2012 Games inspired by the DNA strand, glowed in the distance last night while the guests at the Abba Voyage premiere took their places in the holy sanctorum of the SOS myth and Fernando created to accommodate the digital clones of the Swedish quartet. Made of the same substance as dreams, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus are back to singing, transferring that D na that played so much in 70s European pop to their respective avatars. Indeed, to the respective “Abbatar” as they have been renamed the four – with forty years younger – who sing, joke, wink on the stage of the three thousand seat arena built for them. The avatars sing supported by a muscular orchestra of seven elements and three choristers, in a scenography with dozens of movable mirrors that rise and fall above the heads of the audience. “I’m fine for my age”, jokes the young Benny (75 years old) quoting Shakespeare (“To be or not to be”) before attacking SOS Chiquitita first song all standing: in fact, Abbatars need twenty minutes to unleash the room . Then Fernando, sung with a lot of starry sky and northern lights. And in the end, after the encore, here they are: to greet the public they introduce themselves, the Abba in flesh and blood. They couldn’t miss an event like this … In 2000 the four had said no to the billion dollars offered by the entrepreneurs to get them back on stage, but now the heroes of Dancing Queen are paying out of their own pocket to do so, by co-producing this show made with Industrial Light & Magic by another visionary like George Lucas. Andersson says that the idea of ​​this Abba Voyage was given to him by the former manager of Spice …