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Saturday also marked 50 years since ABBA won the Eurovision Song
Contest final in Brighton, United Kingdom, in 1974 with the song
"Waterloo", bringing them to global attention.
"About this time in the evening, exactly 50 years ago, I was
standing on another stage in another city here in the UK,"
Ulvaeus said.
"It's strange to think that if we hadn't won ... I most probably
wouldn't be standing here today. And this wonderful adventure
which we call 'Mamma Mia!' wouldn't have happened," he said,
speaking to the audience on the London stage.
ABBA was formed by Ulvaeus, Andersson, Agnetha Faltskog and
Anni-Frid Lyngstad in Stockholm in 1972.
"Mamma Mia!", composed by Ulvaeus and Andersson and based on
their songs, originally opened in London's West End on April 6,
1999. Written by Catherine Johnson and directed by Phyllida
Lloyd, it centres around a mother and daughter with three
possible fathers.
According to its creators, over 70 million people have seen
productions of the show in more than 450 cities around the
world, staged in 16 different languages. It has also led to two
blockbuster movies.
"The fact that somehow ABBA has managed to touch so many
millions of lives around the world, generation after generation
and people ask me 'how does it feel for you to know that?', and
that's a very good question and very hard to answer," Ulvaeus,
78, said.
"It's a very elusive feeling. It's more to do with gratitude and
with humility than pride, because it humbles you to know that so
many people have listened to something you've created and that
they've been made happy by it or sad, and that it has meant so
much for them in their lives."
"It's very difficult to fully emotionally grasp that, at least
for me," said Ulvaeus, who was joined on stage by producer Judy
Craymer, who first met him and Andersson in the 1980s and
convinced them that a musical could be made from their songs.
With its 25-year run, "Mamma Mia!" becomes the 3rd longest
running musical in West End history, after "Les Miserables",
which made its debut in 1985 and "The Phantom of The Opera",
launched a year later, in 1986.
(Reporting by Hanna Rantala; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
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