By Thanassis Vavlidas
Following a series of successful productions, such as “Gioconda’s smile” by Manos Hadjidakis and “Tristan und Isolde” by Richard Wagner, the Greek National Opera presented a marvelous new production of Leos Janacek’s “The cunning little vixen” in collaboration with the “Welsh National Opera” and the “Scottish Opera”. This opera, composed by Janacek between 1922 and 1923, is based on a serialized novella written by R. Tesnohlidek and illustrated by St. Lolek, which was first published in the newspaper “Lidove Noviny”. The composer himself wrote the libretto, creating a fairy tale suitable for the whole family. A female fox is captured by a forest ranger and is obliged to learn to live among humans. The vixen finally escapes to freedom, grows up, falls in love, creates a family and finally meets an unexpected death. The forest ranger is the only person who really feels sad for her death. Each animal in the opera has its own behaviour and is not just a naturalistic or smart sketch of an animal. The colourful music includes folk music and rhythms, leitmotivs transformed skilfully and themes of a nostalgic atmosphere created by instruments such as harp, celesta, horn and viola. It is an insightful study of the relationship between the restrictions of human life and the freedom of the animal kingdom.
There is a lot of discussion regarding the opera’s name. There is no mention in the Czech title of a diminutive ("little"), although this term appears since the 1980s in both the German (Das schlaue Fuechslein) and the English version of the opera's name. It was, however, the German name, used for a movie (1965), which established the English "cunning little," ignoring the important double meaning in "Sharp-Ears" of the original title. The first three audio recordings, all from the Czech company Supraphon (Neumann 1957, Gregor 1972, Neumann 1980) used, naturally, the original Czech name. Then, Decca recorded the opera with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1981, and this widely circulated release made the “cunning little vixen” its standard name.
The director David Pountney, assisted in the wonderful sets and costumes by Maria Bjornson, created a land of dream, a symphonic fantasy of voices and colours. At the same time, the cunning vixen becomes the model of a woman who is trying to emancipate at the beginning of the 20th century, trying to control her own life without external restrictions. There is a fine line between tragic and comic actions and Pountney decided to move this line back and forth. The choreography of Stuart Hopps created a moving vision of the music and we are thankful to Elaine Tyler- Hall who revived successfully both the director’s and the choreographer’s ideas.
The young conductor Ondrej Olos took advantage of most melodies in order to show the broad range of orchestral colours while keeping in touch with every single note of the voices. It is not surprising that he was rewarded for conducting this very opera in 2006. All the singers, as well as the choir, made every effort to give an excellent performance. Although it was the first time this opera was staged by the Greek National Opera, one can certainly admit that the vocal parts were successfully performed.
The composer himself described “the cunning little vixen” as “a comic opera with a sad ending”. However, we left the theatre with a feeling of love for nature, as well as a feeling that we love life more than ever!
Thanassis Vavlidas
Member of the “Union of drama and music Greek critics”
