Listen to a sample
Hedda Gabler
- Author
- Henrik Ibsen
- Publisher
- Naxos AudioBooks
- Publish Date
- 1 April 2002
- Run Time
- 2 hours 11 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Genre
- Plays, playscripts
What to expect
Critics Review
-
Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award Juliet Stevenson inhabits the title Femme Fatale with such conviction that even a lesser supporting cast would have to rise to the occasion. But the cast here is first-rate as is the insightful and resonant direction by John Tydeman, retired head of BBC Radio Drama. Not only has he made this intense stage play perfectly intelligible for audio, but he delivers the most engrossing Hedda this reviewer has encountered in any medium. The intelligent, spirited and self-absorbed Hedda has a dull but devoted husband, an ardent ex-lover and a lecherous old judge hanging around her. Her manipulations, instigated largely to spark her uninspiring existence, result in a tragically untragic shooting and her own virtual enslavement. Ibsen’s masterful, flawlessly constructed character study, though written to reflect rural Norway of the 1880s, seems vividly contemporary. Here are characters we either know or hope never to meet – far more fascinating and real than any of the Carringtons or Ewings.
Y.R., AudioFile
User Reviews
No reviews yet.
Details
- Author
- Henrik Ibsen
- Narrator
- Juliet Stevenson, Michael Maloney, Philip Voss, Emma Fielding, Robert Glenister, Brenda Kaye, Melinda Walker
- Duration
- 2 hours 11 minutes
- Release Date
- 1 April 2002
- ISBN
- 9789629546830
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Naxos AudioBooks
- Genre
- Plays, playscripts
Synopsis
Hedda Gabler, a deceased General’s daughter, marries dull George Tesman and foresees a life of middleclass tedium stretching ahead when they return from a honeymoon they could not afford to a house they cannot afford. Increasingly, she is drawn into the clutches of her admirer, Judge Brack, who seeks to establish a menage a trois. Then a former flame arrives in the brilliant but dissolute Eilert Lovborg to rival her husband for an academic post. After a drunken orgy, the manuscript of Lovborg’s treatise falls into her hands and she destroys it. Discovery traps her, her romantic ideas are shattered, and there seems only one way out of the net – the pistols of her father, the General.
About xigxag
xigxag is an independent, UK-based audiobook platform and the UK's only B Corp certified audiobook company. We offer nearly 150,000 audiobooks, all with professional human narration. No AI-generated voices. xigxag is rated an Ethical Consumer Best Buy for audiobooks and a top-rated ethical bookshop.
There is no subscription. You buy the audiobooks you want, you own them permanently, and prices start at $13.95. The more you listen over the year, the less you pay per book, and there is always a selection in Listen for Less from $7.95. You can also send audiobooks as gifts using our audiobook gift cards or in-app gifting.
Every audiobook on xigxag has honest reviews covering both the book and the narration, and our community features make it easy to share what you are listening to, discover what others recommend, and find your next listen.
Download or stream on iOS, Android, or in your browser. Browse the full catalogue at xigxag.co.uk.