Chamber Opera of the Music Faculty of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, Brno
Composer: Leoš Janáček
Libreto: Leoš Janáček
Conductor: Nikol Kraft
Director: David Kříž
Set and costume design: Sylva Marková
Videoart: Jakub Kříž
Choirmaster: Klára Roztočilová
Choirmaster – Children´s choir: Valéria Maťašová
Students of production of the opera: Michaela Bóková, Michal Grombiřík, Mária Žilecká
CAST:
Forester: Jiří Miroslav Procházka, Jan Kučera
Forester’s wife: Kateřina Hloušková, Pavla Radostová
Schoolmaster: Vít Habernal, Otakar Souček
Priest: Martin Frýbort, David Szendiuch
Harašta: Jiří Ullrich, Petr Karas
Pásek: Jiří Ullrich, a choir member
Vixen: Marta Reichelová, Aneta Ručková, Zdislava Bočková
Mrs. Pásková: Klára Varmužová, Eliška Ouředníčková, Pavla Mlčáková
Fox: Romana Jedličková, Jana Melišková, Jana Jelínková
Frantík: Jana Vondrů, Eliška Ouředníčková
Pepík: Monika Kaštanová, Pavla Mlčáková
Lapák: Kateřina Hloušková, Pavla Radostová, Jarmila Balážová
Rooster: Irina Shevchuk, Ivana Pavlů
Hen: Mária Havriláková, Barbora Čechová
Woodpecker: Jarmila Balážová, Pavla Radostová
Mosquito: Vít Habernal, Otakar Souček
Badger: Martin Frýbort, David Szendiuch
Owl: Irina Shevchuk, Ivana Pavlů, Mária Havrilaková
Jay: Jana Vondrů, Monika Kaštanová
The Cunning Little Vixen
On November 6 of this year we celebrated 90 years since the premiere of Janáček’s “forest idyll”, the opera The Cunning Little Vixen. “I captured Vixen Sharp-Ears for the forest and the sorrow of later years,” wrote Janáček to his muse Kamila Stösslová. And indeed it is the masterpiece of the composer’s old age, written when he was almost in his seventies. The start of the composer’s interest in this subject matter goes back to the year 1920, when his housekeeper Mařa drew his attention to the tales of the crafty vixen from the pen of Rudolf Těsnohlídek, which were being serialized in the newspaper Lidové noviny. However, another two years elapsed before he set to work on it. In the meantime he studied nature, noted down the “speech melodies” of birds and frogs, and observed a family of foxes. His transformation of Těsnohlídek’s novella into an opera libretto was very effective; he shifted the political satire and the historical context into the background and instead built the whole story around the simple tale of the vixen, the forest’s inhabitants and human figures from the area around Brno, with an emphasis on the justice of the natural order, determined by a higher power, and the beginning and end of (not only human) life. The premiere took place in the City Theatre in Brno on November 5 1924, directed by Ota Zítek, with brilliant costumes by Eduard Milén, in a concise musical rendition by František Neumann. These days the work is performed literally all over the world and finds an audience across the generations, from young people to their parents and grandparents.
