ABBA is so not getting the band back together. But they don't mind a little joint promotion.
The four members of the 1970s Swedish pop group made a rare joint appearance Wednesday but they made it clear again that they're done with the peripatetic lifestyle of world-famous singing sensations.
The ABBA four — Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad — showed up in Stockholm for the opening night of Ulvaeus' new dinner-theater extravaganza, "Mama Mia! The party."
The Greek taverna-style restaurant is inspired by the hit movie Mamma Mia!, which was inspired by the hit stage musical Mama Mia!, which in turn was inspired by the ABBA hit of the same name from 1975. Ulvaeus was involved in all of these.
It was a rare spotting of the four — once two married couples — who broke up in 1982 (after nine years touring the world) not long after each couple divorced.
The four have not been seen in public together in the same place since 2008 when they attended premieres in London and Stockholm for the film Mamma Mia! (starringMeryl Streep among others), according to the BBC.
Even when the long-awaited ABBA museum, also a project of Ulvaeus, opened in the Swedish capital in 2013, Fältskog wasn't there because she was in Britain promoting her latest album.
The three ABBA stars came out to support fourth star Ulvaeus and his dinner-theater restaurant, where people pay about $160 a ticket (drinks are separate) to munch from a Mediterranean buffet while watching and singing along to a four-hour show based on ABBA songs.
But they did not sing or even pose for photos together, and rejected, as they have for years, suggestions they would ever perform together again. All four are in their late-60s or early 70s.
"I don't think so," Andersson said.
All four are in regular, friendly contact but they have moved on. Ulvaeus is a successful businessman and producer. Andersson is a songwriter/composer/producer. Fältskog is still recording as a solo singer. And Lyngstand, known as Frida, also had a solo career before she married a Swedish-Swiss count. After being widowed, she is living with a British viscount.
