Cunning Little Vixen, WNO, Cardiff, February 2013

This opera pits the timeless amorality of the natural world against the emotions and melancholy of human beings. The former is represented by the Vixen, her family, and other forest animals, the latter by Forester, Schoolmaster, Priest and Poacher.

Vixen and her Fox

In the original story by Rudolf Těsnohlídek, based on drawings by Stanislav Lolek, the Vixen lives on, but Janáček has the poacher kill her. This injects a tragic element into the story, yet the end result is the same: the natural world continues regardless of human intervention, and in the final scene where the Forester recalls true love from the springtime of his life, another vixen appears. As he reaches out to catch her, his hand clasps a little frog, who tells him he’s not the same one as before — that w-w-was his grandfather. The natural world is a constant, and while the Forester and other humans live with the memories of love they have lost, the animals know that the meaning of life is life itself.

In David Pountney’s 1980 production, with its designs by Maria Bjørnson, the natural world is pre-eminent, and a small space opens up for those moments when the humans control things: the yard at the Forester’s home, and the inn where the three friends drink together. Otherwise it is the outdoors, where Nick Chelton’s lighting shows the change of seasons and day alternating with night. At one point the snow disappears in a pretty stage trick that made me laugh — a light moment, and the opera is full of them. The story may be as deep as the sky, but the whole thing embraces three half-hour acts plus one interval. In the Czech Republic it is Janáček’s most popular opera.

Schoolmaster and Forester

Musically it’s a treat, and in Act II when the Vixen finds her Fox and opens up to the joy of life, Sophie Bevan and the orchestra rose to heights of lyrical perfection. Her love duet with Sarah Castle as the Fox was glorious, with the orchestra under Lothar Koenigs playing with Wagnerian intensity. Alan Oke made a wonderfully dry Schoolmaster with his steady melancholy, David Stout was very effective in his Act III appearance as the poacher, and Jonathan Summers was full of character and vocal assurance as the Forester. As the opera ended I wished for more intensity in those final musical chords, but Lothar Koenigs gave an intensely lyrical rendering of Janáček’s score.

Vixen’s new family

The production as a whole is a delight, and in Act I when the Vixen is tied up in the Forester’s yard, a dancer comes on to express her desire for freedom. Stuart Hopp’s choreography here fits the music to perfection, and Naomi Tadevossian showed true musicality in its performance. When the production was new it would have been a different dancer, as would be the children who played the small animals, but life goes on while human problems remain the same, and that is the point of this wonderful piece of Czech magical realism.

Performances continue at Cardiff, 26 Feb – 28 Feb; Birmingham Hippodrome, 7 Mar; Venue Cymru, Llandudno, 14 Mar; The Mayflower, Southampton, 21 Mar; Milton Keynes Theatre, 27 Mar; Theatre Royal, Plymouth, 4 Apr — for details click here.

The Cunning Little Vixen, Glyndebourne, May 2012

Standing outside in the grounds of Glyndebourne facing the ha-ha near the new statues of hunting dogs, one looks to the left and sees a green hill just like the one on stage; and in front of the stage hill is a tree made of pieces of wood.

Dragonflies, all images by Bill Cooper

The stage tree lends an air of simple magic to the forest scenes and appears in varied clothing, sometimes bare, sometimes with buds or full foliage according to the season, and this is where it all happens. Animals appear in the tree, and beneath its roots the badger makes his home, only to be evicted later by the vixen. And while the tree stays in place throughout, the inn appears from nowhere, its walls moving rapidly into place in pieces, and it disappears just as quickly.

Vixen trapped by the Forester

These wonderful set designs by Tom Pye, along with Paule Constable’s gloriously varied lighting, and Maxine Doyle’s choreography for the animals, give a marvellous sense of reality to the natural world. When the vixen and the fox meet, fall in love and get married, the dance for the forest’s inhabitants has the quality of a spring ritual, hinting ever so slightly at the Rite of Spring, and in Act I the movements for the cockerel and hens are a delight. Dinah Collin’s costumes are excellent and those for the hens, portrayed as prettily sexy girls in high heels, are inspired.

Vixen and Fox in love

Melly Still’s production has the great quality that the natural world of the forest is primary and the humans mere appendages, here today and gone tomorrow. That is the heart of this opera — humans age and cope with disappointment and loneliness, while the animals go on forever. The young vixen is trapped by the forester, taken from the wild, escapes, finds a mate, and creates a huge family. Later she is shot by the poacher, but in the end another young vixen appears, progeny of the earlier one. While the schoolmaster regrets lost love, the priest talks of Xenophon’s Anabasis, but the animals have no such emotions or history to depress or sustain them, and for them the point of life is life itself. There is wisdom in nature, and one of the great poems in Czech, Mai (meaning May) extols its mysterious powers. Janaček was strongly drawn to the natural world, and his music and libretto, written when he was nearly 70, are superb. It first became known to us through its German translation by Max Brod, which yielded the English title, but the original is Vixen Sharp Ears, and in the Czech Republic it is Janaček’s most popular opera.

The wedding

Visually this production is a knock-out, and Vladimir Jurowksi conducted the London Philharmonic with huge spirit. Lucy Crowe sang and performed the Vixen beautifully, with Emma Bell giving a fine performance of the Fox, and Sergei Leiferkus singing an excellent Forester. Adrian Thompson was a wonderfully vocal Schoolmaster, with Misha Schelomianski showing depth as both Priest and Badger, and William Dazeley singing strongly in the bass role of the poacher. The animals, portrayed by singers, dancers and children, were brilliant, and this was a great team performance, with Thomasin Trezise delightful as the main hen. None of the cast was Czech, except Lucie Špičkova, who gave a fine portrayal of the dog, but they sang in the original, so surtitles were essential.

If you saw this at Covent Garden two years ago, go again because this production is quite different, but equally valid. It’s wonderful fun.

Performances continue until June 28 — for details click here.

The Makropulos Case, English National Opera, ENO at the London Coliseum, September 2010

Emilia Marty, Ellian MacGregor, Eugenia Montez, Elsa Müller, Ekatěrina Myškin, all E.M., just like her original name Elina Makropulos. This beautiful woman, born in Crete to Hieronymos Makropulos, is now 339 years old but has not aged since she was 39. A secret formula invented by her father, court physician to Emperor Rudolf II, keeps her alive for 300 years, and it is now time to renew the dose. But the formula is locked inside a desk drawer in the house of Jaroslav Prus, whose family has been engaged in a one hundred year legal battle against the family of Albert Gregor.

This Janaček opera, based on a contemporary comedy by Karel Čapek, has a serious philosophical side, and as Janaček says in a letter to his muse Kamila Stösslova, “We are happy because we know our life isn’t too long. So it’s necessary to make use of every moment, to use it properly. It’s all hurry in our life — and longing”. For Elina Makropulos, in her present incarnation as the beautiful opera singer Emilia Marty, the urgency is to recover the formula, but after finally acquiring it, she gives up. Emilia Marty is the key to this opera, and Amanda Roocroft gave us a stunning portrayal. Her voice was strong and sure, she looked terrific, and she played the part of an alluring woman to perfection. The whole cast gave her excellent support and I particularly liked the singing of Peter Hoare as Albert Gregor, whom she called Bertiku (she was after all his multi-great grandmother in a previous incarnation). I was also very taken with Laura Mitchell as the attractive young opera singer Kristina.

Amanda Roocroft as Emilia Marty, photos by Neil Libbert

The production by Christopher Alden — a co-production with the National Theatre, Prague — has been restaged to perfection in this revival that was dedicated to Charles Mackerras, the man who really put Janaček on the map in Britain. The set designs by Charles Edwards, in steel-and-glass deco, are based on a real scene in Prague and work extremely well. The same set serves for all three Acts: the law offices, the opera house, and finally the hotel room, a metaphor for the transience of mortal life. I’m not always a great fan of opera in English, but in this case it is very effective, and I loved the use of Greek when Emilia sings of her father being iatros kaisaros Rudolphou (physician to the Emperor Rudolf). At the beginning, when the legal case is the focus, people in the lawyer’s office write a plan of the relationships on a blackboard at the rear of the stage, and this is recaptured at the end when the focus is the secret medical formula, but unfortunately they then cover the blackboard with quasi-mathematical gobbledygook. Medical mumbo jumbo would be more appropriate, but that’s my only complaint — it’s a great production.

Musically it was brilliantly performed under the direction of Richard Armstrong. He’s an expert on Janaček’s music, and was once awarded the Czech government’s Janaček medal during his time as music director of the Welsh National Opera. You will not easily find a better production or performance of Makropulos, nor a better singer of the main role, and if you want to choose between this and Faust, which is on at the same time, I wouldn’t hesitate. This is the one to go for.

Performances continue on September 24, 26, October 1 and 5. Only five performances in total so don’t wait too long.

The Cunning Little Vixen, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, March 2010

For anyone who loves magical realism this opera is one of the best, and the production by Bill Bryden makes the most of it, with forest animals on the ground and flying through the air. The dichotomy between the slow moving human world and the swift flow and change of the animal realm is brought out very well, and the springtime of Act III is beautifully portrayed. There’s a famous poem in Czech called May (Mai in Czech) extolling the mysterious powers of nature, and in his libretto, Janaček uses May as a metaphor for springtime. He was powerfully drawn to nature, and this opera, like its predecessor Katya Kabanova — also playing in London at present — pits natural forces against the contrivances of human civilization. Janaček wrote it in 1924 when he was nearly 70, three years after Katya, and both operas, along with his two final ones, deal with death in one way or another. This one in particular juxtaposes the aging of men with the cyclical renewal of nature.

Human civilization is mainly represented by three men, the Forester, the Schoolmaster, and the Priest, and at one point all three sit in a round orb suspended from above, reminding me of that nursery rhyme, Rub-a-dub-dub; three men in a tub. The three of them are, at least emotionally, frustrated, and the schoolmaster’s yearning for a gypsy girl, is like the yearning of man for nature, and parallels the forester’s original entrapment of the vixen, whom he can’t keep. In the event, the gypsy girl, whom we never see, marries the poacher, and the vixen marries the fox and produces a huge family. When the poacher shoots her, a small child in the audience burst into tears, which charmed some people, but this is not an opera for small children. It’s very much an adult work, and I think the Royal Opera have done the right thing to have it sung in English. The libretto by the composer is subtle, and worth understanding. That said, the opera first became known through its German translation by Max Brod, which gave us the English title. In Czech it’s called Vixen Sharp Ears.

The conducting by veteran Charles Mackerras was wonderful. This is the man who introduced British audiences to Janaček, and having him in the orchestra pit was a treat. The singing was very good throughout. Emma Matthews was a thoroughly charming vixen, and Elisabeth Meister gave a good portrayal of the fox, replacing Emma Bell at the last minute. Christopher Maltman was an excellent forester, and Robin Leggate and Jeremy White both did well as the schoolmaster and the priest, with Matthew Rose singing strongly in the bass role of the poacher.

But this is an opera to be seen as well as heard, and William Dudley’s designs, along with the movement directed by Stuart Hopps, have a wonderful charm. Magical realism is probably more widely known from something like One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but the Slavic version is also a joy. Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita comes to mind, and in the opera world Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges, written just three years before Vixen. If you don’t already know the opera, and even if you do, this production by Bill Bryden is a must-see.

Katya Kabanova, English National Opera, ENO at the London Coliseum, March 2010

photo by Clive Barda

The Russian writer Aleksandr Ostrovsky wrote a play in 1859 called The Storm, set in a small town on the river Volga. It inspired this opera by Janaček, and half a dozen others by Russian composers. Ostrovsky disliked the low business morality and brutality of the merchant class, and the story contains an unpleasant merchant named Dikoj, along with his nephew Boris, a weak man who hopes to inherit, for himself and his sister, money left by his grandmother on condition he obeys his irascible uncle. The Russian operas on this theme are all called The Storm, but Janaček names his after Katya, who unwisely has a very brief affair with Boris. Katya’s husband, Tichon, another weak man, is under the thumb of his mother, a widow and family matriarch called the Kabanicha. She treats Katya with brutal contempt, and when Tichon goes away on business for a few days, the affair starts. When he returns, Katya feels awful and unwisely admits her guilt. This is her undoing, and while she is left with the consequences, Boris leaves to start life anew.

The river Volga is always nearby, a constant reminder of the forces of nature, and the opera starts with the schoolteacher, Kudrjaš taking joy in the natural world. Almost at the end, after the storm, Katya stands by the river and sings, “how peaceful, how lovely” before plunging in to her death. Her awful mother-in-law, the Kabanicha has the last word, maintaining cool propriety, as if the decorum of civilization can defeat the powers of nature.

It’s a three act opera, performed here without an interval in just over 100 minutes. And what a performance! As soon as the overture started I realized this would be musically entrancing, and Mark Wigglesworth as the conductor produced vivid sounds from the orchestra. When I saw this at the Royal Opera in July 2007, Janaček expert Charles Mackerras conducted superbly, but Wigglesworth’s interpretation was no less exciting, hitting the high points with great pathos. Added to that we had a wonderful Katya in Patricia Racette, whom I last saw as Butterfly in the recent production from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Her singing was powerfully emotional and she gave a heart-rending portrayal of this distraught woman, so desperately in need of affection. It was altogether a strong cast with Susan Bickley as a very dominant Kabanicha, singing her speech melodies with a force to intimidate those around her. Stuart Skelton, whom I last saw at the ENO as Peter Grimes sang a very lyrical Boris, showing admirable weakness in his acting, Alfie Boe was also very lyrical as Kudrjaš, and Anna Grevelius was a delightfully flippant Varvara, adopted daughter of the Kabanicha, who draws Katya into the assignation that destroys her. John Graham-Hall performed well in the thankless role of Tichon, and Clive Bayley was excellent as the disagreeable merchant Dikoj. His stage presence was superb, as indeed it was when I last saw him as Bluebeard, and as the chaplain in Lucia, both at the ENO.

This was a new production by David Alden, and its spare sets and clever lighting by Adam Silverman worked very well for me. I particularly liked the use of shadows on the large wall that divides the stage. The only thing I found a little odd was the poster of the devil in Act III headed by the word proklyat’ in Cyrillic script, meaning curse or damnation — it seemed out of place, and the heading was not visible at the front of the Balcony.

But overall this dark and theatrically powerful opera is a must-see, and you would have to go a long way to find better singing or conducting — they were both virtually unbeatable.

Katya Kabanova, Holland Park Opera, August 2009

This dark and intense Janaček opera is based on a nineteenth century Russian play, The Thunderstorm by Alexander Ostrovsky, that takes place in a village on the river Volga. An excellent essay by Robert Thicknesse in the Holland Park programme magazine describes the background to Ostrovsky’s play as being an “old-fashioned feudal [society] governed by superstition and immemorial custom and ruled by a particular breed of uneducated violent despots from what was known as the merchant class”. This was a Russia quite different from the polite society portrayed by writers such as Pushkin, Turgenev and Tolstoy. The story is essentially very simple. A daunting matriarch called the Kabanicha keeps her son Tichon in thrall to her whim, while emotionally abusing his wife Katya. When Tichon goes away on business, Katya begs him to take her along, as she fears her own attraction to a young man named Boris. The household also contains a young woman named Varvara, the Kabanicha’s foster daughter, who is in love with a man named Kudrjaš. Varvara makes the running in arranging night-time meetings between the young women and men, and when Tichon returns home, Katya cannot bear not to admit her guilt. The opera ends with her suicide, drowning herself in the Volga, after which her husband manages to blame his mother the Kabanicha for driving his wife crazy, and she simply thanks the many people who have come to witness the death.

This performance was a team effort, led with great emotional sensitivity by Stuart Stratford in the orchestra pit. The young men, Boris and Kudrjaš were very well sung by Tom Randle and Andrew Rees, with Patricia Orr very convincing as Varvara, and Jeffrey Lloyd Roberts as Tichon. The Kabanicha was portrayed with calm dignity by Anne Mason, and Katya was beautifully sung by French soprano Anne Sophie Duprels. Altogether a wonderful performance of this gripping drama, which Janaček’s music so ably brings to life. Hearty thanks to the Korn/Ferry opera for putting it on stage with such a fine cast, mainly reassembled from those who were in the production of Jenufa two years ago, particularly conductor Stuart Stratford, and Anne Sophie Duprels who was Jenufa herself.