Opera North’s The Cunning Little Vixen – Leeds Grand Theatre

Music: Leos Janacek

Director: Sir David Pountney

Conductor: Andrew Gourlay

Back in the days when he was merely David Pountney, before his years in the ENO powerhouse, Sir David directed a Janacek cycle for Scottish Opera in association with Welsh National Opera. In this cycle, this production of The Cunning Little Vixenfirst saw the light of day in 1980. 43 years on, it still comes up remarkably fresh, even if the shock of realising Janacek’s greatness, also prompted by the near-contemporary recordings by Charles Mackerras, has faded a little.

The Cunning Little Vixen is a strange work, the product of Janacek’s astonishingly fertile old age. Based initially on cartoons by Stanislav Lolek, it retains the sense of mischief in Vixen Sharp Ears – as she kicks the Badger out of his comfortable home, taunts the Parson and Schoolmaster on their way home from the inn or ridicules the incompetence of the Forester’s attempts to capture her – but adds an extra dimension in her death and continuing life through her cubs. The Forester in the end sleeps and dreams of the eternal cycle of nature.

Besides the Vixen the male characters, desperately seeking escape from the bareness of their lives, drink desperately and long in the inn. The Vixen represents sexual maturity as the Forester bemoans the termagant his wife has become, the Schoolmaster mourns his ineffectual courtship of Terynka (by then about to become the bride of Harasta the poacher) and the Parson reflects upon the scandal of a first love.

Pountney populates the late Maria Bjornson’s set of rolling hills with overhanging forest with animals, from time to time breaking off to reveal a grim-looking interior: the Forester’s house and the inn. A vast cast of professionals and children plays these animals in semi-realistic costumes (Bjornson again) and, as the seasons change, the woods are filled with new life.

The professional cast is enormous, from Chief Hen to Spirit of the Vixen (a danced part), and all make their mark, notwithstanding an occasional problem of masks muffling words. Elin Pritchard manages the fun of Vixen Sharp Ears admirably, has a great time proposing her left-wing sentiments, and avoids unduly mawkish moments. These are probably most likely in the courtship and marriage with the Fox and here she is aided by the forthright masculinity of Heather Lowe as the Fox.

The humans are, for the most part, splendidly lugubrious. The Forester, with his song taunting the Schoolmaster, is as cheery as it gets at the pub as all three bemoan the passing of the years. James Rutherford is a splendidly robust Forester, always suggesting a little torment behind his eyes. Paul Nilon, tortured by Terynka, and Henry Waddington, taking refuge in Latin tags, complete the sort of threesome that Stuart Laing’s Innkeeper must have been glad to see the back of! Callum Thorpe’s Harasta is the antithesis of their world, marrying Terynka and, as the Innkeeper’s Wife says, giving her a brand new fur!

Andrew Gourlay, in his Opera North debut, conducts a disciplined performance, all too necessary given the fragmentary nature of the opera, and conjures up the magic of the forest, not least in the horn calls that introduce the final Spring.

Well aware ofThe Cunning Little Vixen‘s wide appeal, Opera North are performing various projects based on it, including MiniVixen,a 40-minute family show with three opera singers, an accordion player and a violinist. You wonder what Stanislav Lolek would have made of it all.

Runs until 4th March, 2023, in repertory, then tours.