In a new Hungarian language book about ABBA, Köszönet a zenéért!, page 125 states: "Rice had a long held plan to write a musical about the game of chess, which was a love story at the same time. This project could only be started in 1983 after ABBA had finished. In February they travelled to Moscow, where they met Alla, the most famous singer in the USSR. They wanted to ask her to accept the female lead part in the new musical (the role of Svetlana), but this had to be turned down due to political reasons. Later the singer called this incident the biggest mistake of her career."
(B&B footage begins around 4.15)
Thanks to Jozsef, Marnix ten Brinke, Jun Seo, Petri Kaasalainen and Dimitry Shipov