NEW YORK — ABBA sold hundreds of millions of records but they would have been even bigger if they’d paid more attention to the United States. Benny, Björn, Agnetha and Anni-Frid at some point decided they were happy with being the rich dancing queens of Europe and that the tough Stateside nut was just not worth the work to crack. So in the U.S., they were widely seen as a Swedish novelty act, a fad band.

Even the arrival on Broadway of “Mamma Mia!” in 2001 didn’t immediately change that. The show went cautiously to Toronto (ABBA was bigger in Canada) after London for its North American premiere. New York still worried everybody. No reason. It ran on Broadway for 14 years.

Almost a quarter century later, anyone sitting in the Winter Gardens Theatre, or merely reading the boffo grosses of

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