The Cunning Little Vixen

ABOUT PERFORMANCE

Nature has inscribed a circle around me which I cannot leave, so I sit within and learn to love life.

No opera is so connected with Brno and its surroundings as Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, and so the new production, which ceremonially opens the 6th year of the festival, will be the work of the National Theatre Brno’s Janáček Opera. For the first time one of the best Czech directors, Jiří Heřman, is entering the world of Janáček’s operas. Each of Janáček’s operas is original and the Vixen is no different, with human and animal lives interwoven on stage. It is lyrical and melodic, sparkling with humour, kind and with a little of Janáček’s prickliness at the same time and and taking on the earthiness and humane philosophy of life of the eternal cycle of life.

At the beginning of the story about the cunning vixen was the decision by the Brno editors of the Lidove noviny newspaper to provide their readers with cartoons with humorous texts. The Janáček household were regular readers of Lidový noviny and the drawn stories caught the composer’s interest, but from the original chapters of the series he chose only ten. Těsnohlídek’s tale ends with the wedding of Bystrouška and Zlatohřbítek. However Janáček resolved to make a significant change compared to the original draft and allowed the main character to die, since as a true dramatist he felt the need for a catharsis.

Staged in Czech with Czech and English subtitles.