The Cunning Little Vixen is a delightful opera that contains some of Janácek's most approachable music. This is late Janácek, so anyone who enjoys, for instance, his Sinfonietta will have no problem with the music. It is based on a Czech comic-strip and gives a rather anthropomorphic account of the lives of the forest creatures. The little vixen of the title is captured by the Forester and brought up in his home. She escapes and marries a handsome male fox and has numerous fox cubs before being shot by a poacher. The opera ends as it begins with the Forester observing a young vixen, one of her cubs, at play. The opera celebrates the endless renewal of nature and contrasts it with the sub-plot of the human-beings in the opera, the Forester, the Parson and the Schoolmaster. They get older, feebler and more disillusioned as time passes. I suppose I identify more with the human participants in this opera: if I am honest, I don't think that I find much consolation in the fact that, after I am dead, nature will renew itself the following Spring.
This production from Paris Chatelet is conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras, that champion of all things Janácek. He has even taught us how to pronounce Janácek with the emphasis on the accented syllable. I have heard him conduct this opera live in a magical production by Welsh National Opera. Sadly, this Chatelet production is not so magical. The opera presents the chance of a lifetime to the set and costume designer to create the forest and all the woodland creatures. Bob Crowley's costumes are pretty without being magical. I liked his mosquito with a blood-filled hypodermic where his nose should be and I liked his fields that becomes a patchwork quilt for the foxes' nuptial bed. Otherwise his sets are just cardboard cutouts, perhaps suggesting the strip-cartoon origin of the piece, but not really evoking a woodland scene.
Thomas Allen gives a moving performance as the Forester. Eva Jenis brings out the playfulness, sexiness and aggressiveness of the Vixen. Hana Minutillo is very funny as the rakish Fox. The wonderful courtship scene between this pair is the highlight of the production. Many of the other singers play both a human and an animal role: the Parson and the Badger, the Schoolmaster and the Mosquito. Best of all in these dual roles is Jean-Philippe Marlière as the Innkeeper and as the flea-bitten, crotch-sniffing Dog. The director Nicholas Hytner strikes a good balance between the anthropomorphism and the animal whimsy of the piece.
The one advantage this film has over the WNO production that I saw live is that it is performed in its original language, so you get the Slovak Czech speech rhythms that are so important to Janácek's music. This seems to be the only version of this wonderful opera available on DVD apart from the tedious 2003 animated film. It is well worth viewing
