by Henrik Ibsen with Margaret Leighton Michael Gwynn and Haydn Jones
The action takes place at Rosmersholm, an old manor house near a small town on a fjord in western Norway in 1886. Produced by CHARLES LEFEAUX
Third broadcast
' Quite contemptible ' — ' Must nauseate any properly constituted person ' — ' Morbid, impracticable rubbish ' ... these were among the comments which greeted the first production of Rosmersholm in England in 1891: yet the architecture of the play is superb, and Ibsen's anticipation of later psychological theories remarkable. The play has a quality of infinity and we do not reach certainty, but did not Ibsen say: 'It is the dramatist's business to ask questions rather than answer them.'
DURING THE INTERVAL in the performance of the play:
9.5*-9.15 Janacek
Movements from
Suite for string orchestra played by the Prague Chamber Orchestra on a gramophone record