NEW YORK — As far as musicalized versions of the life of Hans Christian Andersen go, the 1952 film “Hans Christian Andersen,” starring Danny Kaye as the inimitable Danish storyteller and directed by Charles Vidor, is pretty indelible, if completely fabricated.
And Frank Loesser’s songs — “Inchworm,” “The Ugly Duckling” and “Thumbelina” — remain as sweet and poignant as ever. Not, however, in Stephin Merritt’s opinion.
“It’s not Loesser’s best work,” he said, in between rehearsals for “My Life As a Fairy Tale,” his Hans Christian Andersen musical, which opens tonight as part of the Lincoln Center Festival and plays through Saturday. Chen Shi-Zheng is directing; Blair Brown, Mia Maestro and Fiona Shaw star, and Merritt wrote the music and lyrics.
“I’ve never been able to watch the movie all the way through,” Merritt said. “I have a Danny Kaye problem, though. It’s sort of an allergy. But it particularly bothers me that they pronounce Copenhagen [Copen-haygen] Copenhagen [Copen-hahgen].
“There’s no danger of us creating anything like that,” Merritt said. “Where Loesser has ‘Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen,’ we have ‘Odious Odessa.’ It’s a joke, but it appears only at the end, so it gets it out of the way.”
Merritt is the oft-depressed, much aloof creative force behind the cult band The Magnetic Fields. This new piece was commissioned by the Danish National Theater for the Hans Christian Andersen Bicentennial in Denmark, but, alas, Merritt had never read any Andersen. Making his way through an omnibus, he found that he really responded to the storyteller’s bleak, Gothic sense of humor (something absent from Loesser’s version).
“It’s right up my alley,” he said. “Most of these stories are about children dying in horrible ways. The little matchstick girl freezes to death so she won’t have to go home to see her father. That’s the end, oh well.”
The script, which Merritt conceded doesn’t make much sense, is basically a collage of 180 fairy tales with no attempt to tie them together.
“It’s like putting the complete Andersen into a paper shredder,” he said. Each song is a stand-alone condensation of a story. Though writing a number can take the composer anywhere from two minutes to 15 years — “I’ve written songs in less time than it takes to play them” — this project wasn’t easy. “I don’t think any of these took me less than four days to write.”
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But, at least, he didn’t have to make any concessions to narrative.
“This is definitely not a musical comedy as we’ve come to know it,” Merritt said. “It’s more like one of those tributes to one of those rock stars, where the songs are oblivious to the plot.”
All in all, it’s been a positive experience for the composer, as difficult as that can be for him to admit. First there’s been the delight of watching Blair Brown rehearse wearing frog feet, which she dons for the last third of the show. And then there’s the opportunity of exploring new musical styles.
“One of the instruments we’re using is the bassoon,” Merritt said. “I’ve fallen head over heels in love with the bassoon.”