Hedda Gabler

A degree of familiarity with Henrik Ibsen's titular play will definitely help viewers appreciate this piece fashioned for the Norwegian National Ballet by theatrical director Marit Moum Aune in collaboration with Christopher Kettner (assistant ballet director), and dancer-choreographer Kaloyan Boyadjiev, along with the principal dancers, who are credited as co-creators. In adapting Ibsen’s classic of 19th-century realism to the ballet stage, Aune hews to its basic plot of how strong-willed Hedda (Grete Sofie Borud Nybakken) manipulates the people around her—her husband Jorgen (Philip Currell), her one-time lover Eilert (Silas Henriksen), her friend Thea (Eugenie Skilnand), and Jorgen’s aunt Julie (Samantha Lynch)—to her own neurotic ends, until she finds herself trapped by the equally manipulative Judge Brack (Shane Urton). But Aune toys with the chronology, while also adding a prologue showing Hedda as a girl (Erle Østraat) learning her imperious ways from her army general father (Kristian Alm). She also employs an unusual set by Even Børsum—in which furniture hovers above the stage and stairs allow performers to walk to and from the orchestra pit— a well as some surreal effects (having the ensemble wear fish-head masks at one juncture) to suggest the unsettled psychological world that the characters inhabit. Danced with exceptional skill (particularly by Nybakken) to a score by jazz trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer (who appears onstage to accompany the scene of Eilert’s death), this is a striking interpretation that cannot convey all the nuances of Ibsen's play but does represent a highly imaginative gloss on the drama in another medium. Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and PCM stereo on DVD, and DTS-HD 5.1 and PCM stereo on Blu-ray, extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette. Recommended. (F. Swietek)