Fleet Street journalist and lyricist Herbert Kretzmer has been awarded an OBE in the 2011 New Years Honours List.
He has been seen on television a couple of times recently in connection with the Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert as he is the English lyricist for the musical.
Kretzmer wrote lyrics for the BBC’s TV satire show “That Was The Week That Was” and won an Ivor Novello Award for the Peter Sellers-Sophia Loren comedy hit “Goodness Gracious Me”. Other award-winning Kretzmer lyrics include “Yesterday When I Was Young” and the chart-topping “She” written with the French singer Charles Aznavour.
In 1985 Kretzmer’s collaboration with Aznavour came to the attention of producer Cameron Mackintosh, who invited him to write an English version of a French musical Les Misérables by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg). Kretzmer’s lyrics extended the two-hour Paris original into a three-hour show.
In 2008 Kretzmer wrote the lyrics for “Marguerite” (from an original text by Alain Boublil) starring Ruthie Henshall. It was set in Nazi-occupied Paris to the music by Michel Legrand.
Kretzmer’s latest musical project is Kristina which premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in April. It is based on Vilhelm Moberg’s novels about Swedish emigrants to Minnesota in the 19th Century. The show was originally conceived and written by Abba lyricist Bjorn Ulvaeus and composer Benny Andersson .
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