'Let It Go' Is Just the Beginning: A Musical 'Frozen' for Wounded Adults

"Let it go~ let it go~"

In 2013, everyone from children to adults hummed those words. For some it meant freedom; for others, courage — a conviction that one could break through the swirling pain of despair and take a step forward.

"Let It Go is not the ending."

The Broadway musical "Frozen" picks up where the Disney animated film left off, rewriting unresolved guilt and unhealed wounds. Songwriting couple Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, who composed the music for the original film, spent a decade revisiting Elsa's inner world for the stage.

In a written interview ahead of the musical's Korean premiere — opening Aug. 13 at Charlotte Theater — the Lopezes said "Frozen" is "at its core a very private and personal story about tragedy and trauma within a family."

A silver-magic ice kingdom. A beautiful fairy tale blooming within it. Two sisters setting off on an adventure, a lovable snowman named Olaf, irresistibly catchy melodies — "Frozen" builds toward the liberating moment of "Let It Go." But the composing couple's gaze was fixed somewhere else entirely.

The two were actually approached about adapting the story into a musical before the film had even opened. Their experience turning Disney's "Finding Nemo" into a stage production led to the "Frozen" connection. They spent countless days wrestling with how to build the musical's own sonic universe, and the direction they chose was inward — toward the work's deepest psychological core.

"'Frozen' is a story about how a family freezes over in the wake of unexpected trauma, how each family member takes on a defensive role around that trauma, and how those frozen, fixed roles are passed down into adulthood as negative patterns and fears that shape a person's entire life." (Kristen Anderson-Lopez)

Recalling that period, the couple described it as "days of wringing out every idea." Above all, they wrestled with one central question: what to do with the famous "Let It Go." After two days of workshops, they arrived at a conclusion — "Let It Go" had to be the Act 1 finale. That decision, reached by digging into the work's true essence, became the foundation of the entire production.

Kristen said that in writing the musical score, "behind every song choice, I laid down the work's essential psychological narrative."

That therapeutic perspective became the firm framework for designing the character voices and musical placement of sisters Elsa and Anna. Their distinct deficiencies and fears were written out in notes and lyrics on the page.

Kristen emphasized that "every song Anna sings is 100 percent connected to the emotional world of 'Do You Want to Build a Snowman?' from the film" — the loneliness of a small child abandoned without even knowing why, knocking on a closed door that no one answers.

Anna's sense of lack springs from that loneliness. Her inner world — "desperate to connect and communicate with others" — unfolds onstage in a "fast, loud, excited voice." The couple conceived Anna as a quintessential extrovert who "uses language as vivid and intense as a flame to announce her existence to the world."

Elsa is a completely different figure. The couple saw her as someone "held hostage by the terror that her uncontrollable power nearly hurt and killed her beloved younger sister." Fear is the foundation of every note and lyric Elsa sings.

"Elsa carries an overwhelming sense of guilt — that she is a bad person who should never have been born, and that she has no right to be near anyone. Throughout the entire score of 'Frozen,' she goes through a desperate struggle against that enormous inner wound." (Kristen Anderson-Lopez)

Unlike Anna, Elsa neither offers her voice to the world nor wants the world to hear it. She keeps her inner self thoroughly hidden and contained until the moment she is left alone in her own space and finally lets go. That is why Elsa's lyrics are "filled with quiet, secretive language drawn from nature," the couple said.

In the film, Elsa finally sings "Let It Go" and breaks free from the castle. But with the musical's restructured narrative, the stage demanded a new musical arc. Robert Lopez recalled completing that moment as "a nightmarish, chaotic scene in which Elsa touches the proscenium and freezes the entire stage." The sequence — where emotions packed with fear and dread reach their musical peak — has been reborn onstage as a breathtaking showstopper.

Act 2 brings even more compelling changes. Where the film stopped at Elsa finding solitude and a sense of liberation alone on a snowy mountain, the musical goes further. Elsa grows by confronting the harsh consequences of the escape she chose. The newly added solo "Monster" is a sharp, unflinching monologue that dissects the moral dilemma of someone who possesses power yet must never use it. Elsa asks herself: "I can't just run away and survive on my own. How do I take responsibility for the destruction I've set in motion?" That anguish rewrites the musical as a coming-of-age drama.

The melodies the Lopez couple had sketched at a single piano were given rich color by orchestrator Dave Metzger.

Robert Lopez called Metzger "the most underrated unsung hero across both film and musical theater, and a true master of the art of orchestration."

Metzger does more than arrange instruments brilliantly — he uses the unique timbre of each instrument to convey a character's psychology and drive the story forward.

"'Dave, I'd love the flute to carry this melodic motif — the flute has that distinctly innocent, childlike quality. The oboe feels too knowing, too mature for this moment, so let's leave it out.' Dave intuitively understands those emotional intentions perfectly." (Robert Lopez)

There was no need to waste time on technical talk. The musicians read each other's language instinctively. Robert said that when they asked for something to "feel like rage here," "let the emotion burst out here," or "sound like a child here," Metzger's orchestral sound translated it with pinpoint accuracy.

The orchestration was designed to deliver an auditory catharsis to match the overwhelming visuals. The couple used bass trombone and tuba — instruments that produce a grand, heavy low end — to anchor the bottom of the stage sound. Kristen said the arrangement "elevated the epic score to the level of true epic poetry," while Robert noted it was "the first time we've ever used both instruments in one of our shows."

For a couple who said they "scrapped and rewrote more than 20 versions" just to finish the opening number, music is another actor, another character, a living art form and a translator of emotion. They said the true turning point in finding "the real Frozen sound" came "when Dave orchestrated 'For the First Time in Forever' for the film," adding that audiences "will feel as though an enormous amount of story and visual and musical impact is being poured over them all at once."

The Lopez couple is also eagerly awaiting the moment they meet Korean audiences through "Frozen" — a fairy tale reborn as both a psychological balm and a story for wounded adults. "The moment of sharing something artistically vast and deeply felt with an audience is what excites us most," they said. "Korean audiences are going to receive a catharsis in that theater that is far greater and deeper than anything they can imagine. As creators, we can't wait to encounter that sense of wonder and pure emotion on the Korean stage."