All you need to know about Janáček’s bittersweet fairy tale — right here…
What is the story?
The Cunning Little Vixen explores the connection between the human and animal worlds. It tells the story of a young fox cub, Vixen Sharp-Ears, who is captured by a Forester and taken home as a pet. But she is treated cruelly by the Forester’s family, and eventually manages to escape – by inciting a rebellion in the chicken coop and then slaughtering all the hens!
The Vixen then makes her home in the forest, while the Forester drinks at an inn with a Schoolmaster and Parson. As they drunkenly stumble home, the Schoolmaster sees the Vixen and mistakes her for a girl he loves, while the vengeful Forester takes a shot at her.
Vixen flees, and later meets and falls in love with a charming Fox, finds she is expecting cubs, and the two have a hasty wedding. Will it be happily ever after?
Elin Pritchard as Vixen Sharp-Ears and Heather Lowe as Fox © Tristram Kenton
Who are the key characters?
Vixen Sharp-Ears (soprano)
Fox (mezzo soprano)
Forester (baritone)
Schoolmaster (tenor)
Poacher (bass)
Parson (bass)
There are many other roles, both human and animal, including a Badger, Owl and Woodpecker. The hens are sung by ladies of the Chorus, children play the fox cubs and other creatures, and Blue Dragonfly is played by a dancer. It’s a visual feast!
James Rutherford as Forester and Callum Thorpe as Poacher © Tristram Kenton
What is the music like?
Janáček’s score for The Cunning Little Vixen’s is playful – especially the music for the animals – and bursting with colour. It is also very much influenced by Moravian folk music and rhythms, which the composer spent his life studying.
Musical themes are used to draw parallels between different parts of the story. For example, the mournful melody when Vixen is first captured returns right near the end of the opera to symbolise human longing.
Listen out for different birdcalls in the orchestra painting the woodland wildlife (Janáček was a nature obsessive and liked to listen to and notate the birdsong)! A real highlight is the radiant finale – the forester’s hymn to creation and the cyclical nature of life.
What is this production like?
This production is a true classic that has stood the test of time, directed by Sir David Pountney and designed by the late Maria Bjornson (best known for designing the original West End production of Phantom of the Opera)! The stage becomes the green forest which short scenes flit across, teeming with life and energy.
The forest then opens up to reveal the Forester’s home, and the inn in which the human characters meet, within it. There is a lot of choreography, not only for the dancers but the singers also, who leap over flowers and roll down hills, costumed as a dazzling array of woodland creatures.
Elin Pritchard as Vixen Sharp-Ears, Heather Lowe as Fox and Kathryn Sharpe as Woodpecker © Tristram Kenton
Who was the composer?
The Cunning Little Vixen was written by Czech composer Leoš Janáček (1854-1928). Janáček was something of a late bloomer – his greatest operas were written in his sixties.
He had several passions: nature, Czech folklore, and an unrequited obsession with the much younger, married woman Kamila Stösslova, to whom he wrote 700 love letters! The influence of all of these can be seen in his work.
Vixen is Janáček’s lightest opera – a move away from the harrowing subject matter of his Jenůfa, Katya Kabanova and others…
Leoš Janáček
How did it come about?
The Cunning Little Vixen was inspired by a comic strip published in the local Prague newspaper in 1920! The story goes that it was Janáček’s housekeeper giggling in the kitchen that drew his attention to it – “Wouldn’t it make a marvellous opera?!” she suggested.
Janáček was fascinated by the animal characters, who sometimes lived in harmony and sometimes in conflict, exactly like humans, and began work. Transforming the cartoon into an opera allowed him to satirise newly-established Czechoslovakia’s political upheaval after WW1, but most of all, to reflect on the circle of life. The opera still retained the “snapshot” character of the comic though, a sequence of very short scenes or little stories.
Vixen premiered in 1924. Janáček loved it so much that he requested the music be played at his own funeral. Today, it is his most popular opera and performed all over the world…
The Cunning Little Vixen is sung in English with English titles and lasts approx. 2 hours 15 minutes.
