Opera North, 23/02/2023

Janáček :  The Cunning Little Vixen

Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North

Andrew Gourlay

Of all Sir David Pountney's Janáček cycle of the early 1980s, created jointly for Welsh National and Scottish Operas, I always thought that his Cunning Little Vixen was the best.  It's a production that has done the tour of the world, but I haven't seen it live since, I think, 1997, and to find it here in Leeds was like reuniting with an old and dear friend after a long absence.  No other production that I have seen, in person or on screen, has ever matched this one for its imaginative depiction both of the work's innocence and its humanity.  

James Rutherford (centre, The Forester) in the final scene
The Cunning Little Vixen, Opera North, February 2023
(© Tristram Kenton)

Maria Björnson's inspired set and costumes remain as fresh as ever.  The cast as a whole seemed perhaps a touch less sure-footed than I recall from the original, but the playfulness, and the sense of texture remained intact.  The animal costumes never descend into the twee, the children who depict the smaller animals and insects are funny and cute without ever tipping into the sentimental, while their adult counterparts flirt delightfully with wicked satire.  Foremost in that vein were the Cockerel of Campbell Russell and his bevy of charlady-Hens, led by Miranda Bevin who, apart from singing, clucked with entertainingly convincing accuracy.  

Of the principals other than Sharp-Ears and the Forester, I found Heather Lowe's timbre unusually bright and sharp for a mezzo, as the Fox.  While the contrast with Sharp-Ears was good, it seemed oddly reversed to me; normally the brighter voice is Sharp-Ears, and so the vocal relationship between the two was a little off-kilter.  Callum Thorpe was a good, lusty Harašta; I had liked him a great deal in Rigoletto a year ago, and was pleased to see and hear him again in this short but important role.  The other stand-out performance was from Paul Nilon, beautifully clear and melancholy as the Schoolmaster, a caricature, certainly, as both he and the Parson are supposed to be, yet a real person at the same time, pathetic but touching.  

Janáček's operas are often a little disconcerting in that the singing is not really the be-all and end-all of the affair; most of the best music is given to the orchestra, and much of the time (and increasingly so in his later operas) beautiful singing is not entirely a requirement.  The singers need to be able to cope with his conversational style, which is a challenge in itself, but the kind of beauty of tone that Western opera, certainly up to that point (and remembering that Vixen dates from 1924), almost always demanded, is rarely essential here.  In Vixen, there are two points where it is - from Sharp-Ears, in-between the two scenes with Golden-Mane, and from the Forester in his final monologue.  Elin Pritchard was the Vixen, with a lush timbre, full of sensuality, that conveyed Sharp-Ears's convictions well, although was occasionally a little matronly in the earlier scenes - it suited impeccably in the last act - and she managed the breathless wonder of that passage before the return of the Fox beautifully.

James Rutherford, the Forester, is a seasoned Wagnerian, with a fairly pronounced vibrato, like many of his ilk.  It's extremely useful, not to say essential, in order to cut through a heavily-scored orchestra, and there are moments in the Janáček score that must come close, but it can be an impediment to simple beauty of tone, which was what I found in the final scene.  Rutherford's presence, his broad, somewhat ham-handed, but good-natured Forester carried it through, but that warm, autumnal tone wasn't quite there at the end, and the transcendence of that last scene was entirely carried by the orchestra.  The Opera North strings were a little under-nourished, but the winds, so vital to almost all Janáček's orchestral music, were excellent, and Andrew Gourlay directed with a sure hand.

[Next : 24th February]