Hedda
Gabler
Hedda Gabler returns from success at the Bolshoi Theatre
After touring to the Bolshoi Theatre, the Norwegian National Ballet returns to Oslo to delight home audiences with its performance of Hedda Gabler.
The internationally sought-after Ibsen ballet was created by director Marit Moum Aune in 2017, with music by Nils Petter Molvær.
«With perfect lines and talking feet, the Norwegian dancers turn this into a separate work of art,» wrote the Russian daily newspaper Izvestija after the tour to Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre last fall.
«Grete Sofie Borud Nybakken not only possesses the suitable psychophysics (a type of outwardly cold, inside – an impressionable, but always ruthless beauty), but also an expressive dance that contains both transformed elements of classics and “decadent” details of contemporary dance,» wrote Russian Classical Music News.
The successful ballet production was praised by Norwegian and international critics already after the original premiere in 2017, and has also been made into a movie by the French film company Bel Air. Now, audiences will have the opportunity to experience both Hedda Gabler and Ibsen's Ghosts on the Main Stage where the Ibsen ballets were once created.
Furiously dangerous
Hedda Gabler is raised as a boy by her father, General Gabler. She is taught that she owns the world, so when she encounters locked doors as an adult, the disappointment is unbearable. She has returned home after a long honeymoon in Europe with her husband, Jørgen Tesman, and is bored. Everyone around her wants to limit her options and their expectations are beginning to suffocate her. When her former lover, Eilert Løvborg, shows up with a book manuscript in his bag and her childhood friend Thea Elvsted at his side, Hedda reacts in a manner that is dangerous for both herself and others.
Critically acclaimed
Grete Sofie Borud Nybakken personally contributed to the role of Hedda Gabler – and has been overwhelmed with words of praise on her efforts. «Borud Nybakken performs a tour de force that is fascinatingly rigid yet simultaneously velvety smooth. She is on stage almost continuously and carries the performance with her strength and expressiveness,» wrote Aftenposten.
«She is stone cold but with burning rage – yet without compromising on her tenderness,» wrote Morgenbladet. «A rare dance performance,» the international magazine Seeing Dance wrote.
Nybakken, who has demonstrated an amazing degree of fitness in recent years, claims that the role has changed her, both as a dancer and a person. Audiences now have a new chance to experience her as Hedda on the Main Stage.
- Free introduction in Norwegian one hour before the performance
- Theatrical smoke is used during this production.
- Pre-order intermission refreshments at the opera: pauseservering.no