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Global Hits
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The World, Global Hits >>
Broadway and London's West End have taken just about every conceivable story idea, added song, and turned the tale into a form of entertainment known as the musical. The life of Federico Fellini and his films, sacred to cinephiles, became the show "9." The story of William of Orange became "Pippin." A T.S. Eliot poem got turned into the smash "Cats." So brace yourself for the next big production: the musical version of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings." It's not just a stained paperback on your dorm room shelf, nor is it a DVD to be played over and over. Now, "The Lord of the Rings," headed for the London stage in 2005 is destined to become the most expensive theater production ever.
"The Lord of the Rings" estimated price-tag of 8 million British pounds or over 13 million dollars will be overseen by composer A.R. Rahman, the Bollywood movie-musical king from India. For starters, Rahman put two music producers in a room. They split the world into regions, and started listening to dozens of music CDs.
Susan Aho and Janne Lappalainen: And then they found out our record Illimatar, and they really liked it, so that was that starting point. Yeah, there was a song called Aijo. It's a scary spell song.
That's Susan Aho and Janne Lappalainen, from the band Varttina. Their spell song "Aijo" charmed composer Rahman. Aijo is a Finnish folk tale about incantations that save a cranky old man's life from the bite of a venomous snake.
Finland's folklore abounds with magic. It boasts its own epic, akin to the medieval classic "Beowolf." The Finnish "Kalevala" is based on ancient nordic legends and was compiled in the 19th century. Janne Lappalainen says "The Lord of the Rings" author JRR Tolkien was very familiar with this work.
Janne Lappalainen: He has read our national epic 'Kalevala" in Finnish so he was really into this nordic tradition and also for the Elvish language language that is in the book he has used Finnish grammar.
And for those who don't remember what Elvish sounds like, here is a 1952 recording of Tolkien himself reading a passage in the Elvish language.
No new-agey synthesized soundscapes are in sight for the stage version of "The Lord of The Rings." The Finnish band Varttina relies heavily on the acoustic sound of nordic traditional music, bringing in instruments like saxophone, bouzouki, accordion and strings.
The colossal "Lord of the Rings" commission will take Varttina band members away from producing any other records for the next couple of years but Janne Lappalainen says they don't mind.
Janne Lappalainen: This will be big publicity for us so in the long run it will be a really good thing that we have this opportunity. We feel really fortunate about this.
"The Lord of the Rings" the musical is schedule to premiere on the London stage in the spring of 2005.
11/10/03 >> go there
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