Opera in three acts
Duration: 1hour 30 minutes without interval
Music: Leoš Janáček (Composed 1922-3)
Libretto: Composer after Rudolf Tĕsnohlídek
Premiered: Brno 6/11/1924

Read more about the performance history of
The Cunning Little Vixen by clicking here

Catalogue Number: JW I/9


With The Vixen Janáček returned to the theatrical experimentation of Osud and Brouček, moving away from the predictable operatic story-line of Kát'a Kabanová. In 1920 the Brno popular newspaper Lidové noviny commissioned Rudolf Tĕsnohlídek to write a novel to be serialised which was to be based around a series of drawings by Stanislav Lolek telling the tale of the adventures of Vixen Sharp-ears. According to Marie Stejskalová’s reminiscences, published in 1959, it was she who introduced the Vixen to Janáček. She kept the cuttings from the newspaper, which was the inspiration for the work, and Tĕsnohlídek’s novel became the basis for the libretto. Despite the fact that many have argued its experimental basis; use of children on stage, preponderance of ballet scenes, the very use of a cartoon as the inspiration for an opera. It is also greatly indebted to operatic heritage. It follows on from the post-Wagnerian Märchenoper (‘fary-tale-opera’) tradition as made paradigmatic in Humperdinck’s operas Hänsel und Gretel and Königskinder. Equally its use of a travesti role (the Fox) to suggest youthful or sexually virile personalities (after Mozart’s Cherubino, Verdi’s Oscar, Massenet’s Chérubin or his Prince in Cendrillon, Strauss’s Octavian, Humperdinck’s Hänsel) shows a debt to tradition, which is sometimes overlooked. In its quasi-anthropomorphic treatment of the animals (some of the roles are doubled with those of the humans too) Janáček looks back with Beatrix Potter’s and Kenneth Grahame’s cuddly creations to an Ovidian world. However Janáček moves away from pure traditionalism by pioneering a fantastic musical language for the forest, based on his ‘notebook’ of animal sounds and a bitter sweet lyricism for the Vixen and the Fox (at its most heady in the Act One dream interlude and their Carmina Burana-style nuptials in Act Two). These stylistic innovations are married with a moving pantheistic close where the Forester realises, in one of Janáček’s most tender passages that nature has a cyclical basis, which goes much beyond the traditional mirrors of the Märchenoper genre, such as found in Dvořák’s Rusalka. It has, unsurprisingly received a large number of performances across the world; it is perennially popular with children as an introduction to opera and is to be animated by the BBC in the near future, to be shown on Easter Sunday 2003.


Synopsis:

Act I
The Forest. How Bystrouška was caught. Summer

The badger dozes in the heat of the afternoon, pestered by flies. The Dragonfly dances. The Forester pauses for a nap on his way home. While he sleeps, the Cricket and the Caterpillar give a concert. A young Vixen is exploring the forest for the first time. The Forester wakes, and seizes the inexperienced cub.


The yard of the Forester’s cottage.
Bystrouška grows up in the Forester’s home.
Autumn

The Vixen endures the morose sexual advances of the Dog, and defends herself vigorously against the baiting of the Forester’s children. She is tied up for her pains. The Vixens dreams of her sexual awakening and liberation. Outraged by the economic and sexual slavery of the Hens, she becomes a feminist. But the Hens’ conservatism is too much for her, and she systematically kills them all. She confronts the Forester, and escapes.


Act II
The Forest. Bystrouška acquires a home

The refugee Vixen returns to the forest, and ruthlessly evicts the Badger. She settles gratefully into his comfortable home.

The Inn. Winter

The Forester, full of drink, baits the Schoolmaster about his hopeless passion for Terynka, a gypsy girl. The Parson is pursued by his own sexual guilt and remorse. But the Forester too is susceptible when he is taunted about the Vixen that he lost, and finally rushes out in pursuit of her.

The Forest. Winter

The Vixen haunts the Schoolmaster and the Parson as they stumble home from the inn. The Schoolmaster mistakes her for Terynka, and is inspired to the single passionate outburst of his life. The Parson recalls his fatal encounter with a seductive young girl in his student days. The Forester wildly hunts the Vixen through the forest.

The Forest. Spring

The Vixen finds a mate, and is soon obliged to marry.


Act III
The Forest. Bystrouška is killed. Autumn

The poacher Harašta is going to visit Terynka, whom he is to marry. He finds a dead hare - one of the Vixen’s victims. The Forester warns him to stay off poaching, and sets a trap for the Vixen. The Vixen and her mate play with their cubs. They find the trap, and ridicule the Forester’s incompetence. Harašta returns to pocket the Hare. The Vixen at first outwits him, but becomes carried away by her exalted defiance of man, and is shot.

The Inn

The Schoolmaster bitterly regrets his lost opportunity - Terynka is to marry today. The Forester however accepts his growing age, and gladly sets out for a quiet nap in the forest.

The Forest. Summer

Inspired by the beauty of nature, the Forester’s imagination is awakened for a moment of radiant spiritual perception. He sleeps and dreams of the Vixen. A Frog reminds him of the inevitable cycle of nature.


According to the Janáček's maid, Marie Stejskalová, it was her laughing at the newspaper cartoons of the adventures of vixen Sharpears that drew her master to the subject of Příhody Lišky Bystroušky. The story which appeared in 1920 the Brno newspaper Lidové noviny was itself inspired by a set of drawings by Stanislav Lolek.

Click here to see a selection of the cartoons which inspired Rudolf Tĕsnohlídek and Leoš Janáček with the story of the Vixen Sharpears.



Bibliography:
Ed. & Tr. Tyrrell, John, Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Stösslová (London: Faber, 1994)

Tyrrell, John: Janáček’s Operas: A Documentary Account (London: Faber, 1992)

Cheek, Timothy
Singing in Czech: A Guide to Czech Lyric Diction and Vocal Repertoire
(Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2001)

Timothy Cheek is also preparing a libretto of The Cunning Little Vixen (due for publication April 2003), which will contain the original Czech, word-for-word English translations, idiomatic translations (also available as supertitles), IPA, and notes on cultural and stylistic matters.

Editions:
Universal Edition (Full Score only for hire)

Recordings:
Popp, Randová, Jedlička, VPO: Mackerras (Decca 417129)
Watson, Montague, Allen, ROH Ch and Orch: Rattle (EMI CDS 754212 2)