Speaking to various Glyndebourne people beforehand – you will, I trust, be pleased to learn that I unsubtly went on the offensive for easy box-office
prospects, such as Gluck and Nono, to Sebastian Schwarz, the company’s new General Director – I was told that revisions had been made. However, I cannot
honestly tell you whether my change of heart were owed to them, to a newfound sunnier disposition (maybe not), or to being able to see the entire stage
rather than half of it. I shall leave comparisons on one side, now, then, and respond to what I heard and saw, which I enjoyed very much. (In fact,
although I offer a link, I have not actually re-read my earlier review, and you may wish to follow suit.)
Still’s production nicely blurs boundaries between opera and ballet. There is, of course, a good deal of ballet music ‘proper’ in the opera, as well as
mime, but there is not always so much of a dividing line anyway, and the visual Êsthetic seen here, the animals more stylised, less realistic, than often,
strengthens the almost-hybrid impression. Paule Constable’s lighting plays just as important a role as Dinah Collin’s costumes, if a rather different one:
it helps to delineate the scenes, in conjunction with Tom Pye’s resourceful sets, themselves visually arresting even before humans and animals litter them
(sometimes in more than one sense). Whilst I do not find that the production unduly sentimentalises, and its moments of absurdist humour welcome, I missed
a stronger sense of the darkness that also lies at the heart of this tale of lifecycles and the collision of human and animal worlds. Perhaps, though, it
is that quasi-balletic Êsthetic that most characterises the production as a whole and grants its unity; perhaps it is also that to which I find myself
better able to respond, if not entirely without reservation, than I did in 2012.
Jakub Hr?öa’s conducting of the London Philharmonic seemed to me to quite close in character and sonority to that of Ji?Ì B?lohl·vek in London’s recent
concert Jen?fa. Even for a non-Czech speaker such as I, there is no mistaking not only the conductor’s apparently instinctive ease with every musical
idiom, but also the give and take between vocal and orchestral lines, not just texturally but also generatively. Having heard quite a bit of my earliest
Jan·?ek from Charles Mackerras, whose way with the composer’s music I continue to admire greatly, I often find myself intrigued that what I had taken
(perhaps naÔvely) to be somehow typically ‘Czech’ is not always the way with Czech conductors, not that they hold any monopoly on Jan·?ekian wisdom. (The
composer, just like Elgar, is far too important to be confined by national considerations.) That almost Viennese sweetness, which in that Jen?fa
performance, I hesitantly dubbed Bohemian rather than Moravian, was often to be heard again in the LPO’s playing, without that shading into any smoothing
over of lines. So maybe I should be still warier of such easy – too easy? – typologies, and simply enjoy the often golden fruits of what I have heard. That
is very much what I have done in practice, anyway. Angularity was certainly not absent; nor, on occasion, was weight of sound that looked forward to From
the House of the Dead. But, like the operatic-balletic action on stage, aural impressions were often fleeting, or at least constantly self-transformative.
Mackerras, in 2010 at Covent Garden, perhaps granted a still stronger sense of the life-arc of the whole, but a drawback on that occasion was translation
into English. This was, in any case, an estimable performance, pretty much irreproachable with respect to orchestral playing.
As with that 2010 performance, indeed as with any performance I can recall having attended, there was an unusually strong sense of the cast acting as a
whole greater than the sum of its parts. Somehow, this opera seems to inspire an especially strong sense of ensemble in those taking part; or perhaps it is
partly a matter that it would not be worth putting it on if it did not. Elena Tsallagova, who also took the title role in a Paris performance I saw in
2008, has seen neither her vocal nor her stage athleticism dim with greater experience. Quite the contrary: this was a tour de force of effervescence, and
thus very much a visual representation of the character herself as well as her deeds. Alûb?ta Pol·?kov·’s Fox proved an excellent complement, embodying
many of the same characteristics in principle, the character’s pride and affection palpable throughout. Christopher Purves made for a characterful and
soulful Forester, master of and yet also mastered by the natural world into which he found himself persistently, almost Narnia-like, drawn. Sarah Pring, as
his wife, played with, yet never merely relied upon, ‘peasant’ or at least ‘folk’ stereotype; I should never have guessed, without consulting the cast
list, that she had doubled up as an equally convincing Owl. Likewise for the other doublings. Alexandre Duhamel revealed a rich yet agile baritone as
Haraöta. Colin Judson’s turn as the Schoolmaster offered one of many ‘character’ highlights. I could go on, but should essentially be repeating the cast
list. As so often, it was the Glyndebourne Chorus, as ever excellently trained (by Jeremy Bines), which bound much of the musical drama together, almost as
well as the orchestra. No one hearing this performance would have doubted either the stature or the sheer wonder of this most singular of operas.
Mark Berry
Leoö Jan·?ek, The Cunning Little Vixen
Badger, Priest: Alexander Vassiliev; Forester: Christopher Purves; Cricket: Tate Nicol; Grasshopper: Kitty Casey; Mosquito, Schoolmaster: Colin Judson;
Frog: Krishan Shah; Young Vixen Sharp Ears: May Abercombie; Forester’s Wife, Owl: Sarah Pring; Vixen Sharp Ears: Elena Tsallagova; Dog: Marta
Fontanals-Simmons; PepÌk: Eliza Safjan; FrantÌk: Rhiannon Llewellyn; Cockerel: Hannah Sandison; Hen: Natalia Tanasii; P·sek, Innkeeper: Michael Wallace;
Fox: Alûb?ta Pol·?kov·; Jay: Shuna Scott Sendall; Woodpecker: Angharad Lyddon; Haraöta: Alexander Duhamel; Innkeeper’s Wife: Natalia Brzezi?ska; Dancers,
Fox Cubs. Director: Melly Still; Set designs: Tom Pye; Costumes: Dinah Collin; Choreography: Mike Ashcroft; Lighting: Paule Constable; Glyndebourne Chorus
(chorus master: Jeremy Bines)/London Philharmonic Orchestra/Jakub Hr?s· (conductor). Glyndebourne Opera House, Sussex, Sunday 12 June 2016.
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product_title=The Cunning Little Vixen, Glyndebourne
product_by=A review by Mark Berry