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The Cunning Little Vixen
“Gerald Finley's Gamekeeper is a triumph...” The Evening Standard
“…but no one, can outsing or outact the ever wonderful Gerald Finley…” The Independent
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Composer |
Leoš Janáček |
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Librettist |
Adapted by the composer from a serialized novella by Rudolf Těsnohlídek |
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Venue and Dates |
Royal Opera House, London 21, 25, 28 February, 3, 5 March 2003 |
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Conductor |
John Eliot Gardiner |
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Director |
Bill Bryden |
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Performers |
Vixen Sharp-Ears: Dawn Upshaw Gamekeeper: Gerald Finley Fox: Joyce DiDonato Badger/Priest: Jeremy White |
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Production |
William Dudley |
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Notes |
Sung in English |
What the critics say
Anthony Holden, The Observer, March 2, 2003
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,905462,00.html
Music to die for (and that may include the composer)
Shostakovich sends a message to Bush and Blair via a superb performance by the Philharmonia
…Given all the operatic roles on offer during her rise to fame, and her rare ability to get bums on seats, the title role of The Cunning Little Vixen seems a strange choice for Upshaw to make for her long overdue Covent Garden debut. She scores a triumph, but an odd one, in that this talented, versatile diva takes her London bow in the cutesiest of disguises, prowling the stage in pointy ears and circus-clown make-up as Bill Bryden's anthropomorphic production unfolds, oblivious to the darker side of Janácek's cautionary tale. In her native America, Upshaw has sung Mozart, Stravinsky, Poulenc and Messiaen, as well as roles written specially for her, from Daisy in John Harbison's The Great Gatsby to Mary in John Adams's El Niño (to be heard at the Barbican in June). Yet she chooses to arrive in the UK all but incognito.
The charitable option is to credit this resourceful singer with characteristic courage, both vocally and theatrically, for taking on so testing a part in so naïve and superficial a production. As if to prove the point, John Eliot Gardiner conducts with undue caution, as if keeping his singers on a tight leash rather than setting them free to explore the full range of Janácek's chillingly double-edged score. There are times Upshaw seems to champ at the bit, but she is too often inhibited by the antics required of her in Bryden's tricksy staging.
She may be commendably keen to choose roles for more than merely their vocal opportunities, but how many divas of her international standing would permit a director to deprive them of quite so much dignity?
Like the Leiser-Caurier version of Rossini's La Cenerentola, Bryden's show is fun to watch at the expense of the composer's deeper intents. William Dudley's ingenious designs reflect the remorseless passage of time as cleverly as they conjure the most charming of flying insects, especially the aerial ballerina representing the Vixen's dreaming self.
Children swarm around in cute costumes as charmingly as hens strut their stuff and animated beer bottles point the way to the pub. But this ravishing piece should be more than merely charming; it is a morality play, not a panto, drawing sober parallels between human and animal life, nature's seasonal cycles and man's mortal span.
With the lightest of touches, Janácek is plumbing considerable depths; it does not require too heavy a hand to sink us a fathom or two deeper than Disneyland.
That said, Upshaw alone is worth the price of admission, along with Joyce DiDonato's dashing Fox and Gerald Finley's affecting, beautifully sung Gamekeeper, a Tony Blair lookalike given due pause by his exposure to the laws of the jungle. In this production, they may run only fur-deep. But it's worth exploring just for the foxy lady.
Brian Hunt, Evening Standard 24 February 2003
brush with death
"In the midst of life we are in death," the Bible tells us, and Janacek's opera The Cunning Little Vixen is an affirmation of life in which death is ever present.
Reconciling nature's apparent chaos of creation and destruction into a harmonious whole is a challenge for all of us. But Janacek achieves it, not in an analytical way that proposes answers, but by withdrawing from intervention and being willing to understand.
The epiphany is conveyed to the audience by the unsophisticated but perceptive character of the Gamekeeper. What he says at the end of the opera is poignant but not especially profound - we grow old, the flame of love and life fades in one place and is rekindled elsewhere. It is the surge of the music that turns this into revelation.
A producer with ideas is therefore on dangerous ground. Bill Bryden's production, interlocked with William Dudley's designs, is least successful when it is most visible; for example, at the beginning of Act Three, when the hare killed by the Vixen is tricked up to resemble a schoolgirl. This is clearly an attempt to manipulate emotion, to bring us down to earth after the wedding of Fox and Vixen. But if the whole production were less cutely anthropomorphic (with its conventional but unsanctioned doubling of human and animal roles within the cast) the gesture need not be made.
Nevertheless, one should not deny the ingenuity and attractiveness of this revival, with its flying-machine insects and sets alive with wheels-within-wheels. The allusions to Eastern European graphics and to clockwork - as if the universe were a vast, spinning mechanism - are spot on.
Gerald Finley's Gamekeeper is a triumph; the Canadian baritone sings beautifully and, though young for the role, offers a satisfying character study. American soprano Dawn Upshaw, making a surprisingly late Royal Opera debut as the Vixen, sang briskly and brightly on the first night but seemed tentative, maybe lacking confidence in the conductor, John Eliot Gardiner, who sounds out of his depth.
In Janacek, a conductor needs to give performers the security to take risks; Gardiner reins them in as if trying to stem indiscipline.
Joyce DiDonato (Fox) and Jonathan Veira (Poacher) are impressive in a strong cast. The opera is sung in English, for which there are many pros, and slightly more cons.
Ruth Elleson's Letters from London March 2003, Opera Japonica
http://www.operajaponica.org/archives/london/londonletterpast03.htm
At the beginning of March I finally got around to seeing the Royal Opera's revival of The Cunning Little Vixen, in Bill Bryden's 1990 staging - a revival which was very cute and enjoyable, but which lacked much of the social satire and human philosophy intended by Janacek.
Dawn Upshaw was a lively Vixen Sharp-Ears, singing clearly and often radiantly, particularly when partnered by Joyce DiDonato's Fox. Gerald Finley was a very young-looking gamekeeper, slightly lacking in stage presence, but in possession of beautiful vocal tone. The children were well-drilled and engaging to watch (the Young Vixen was sung by Caroline Wise, last season's remarkable Flora in Britten's The Turn of the Screw). The animal costumes were imaginative, but not in the same league as those in the company's recent Zauberflote. The most memorable aspect of the performance I attended was the set, with its whirling wheels and clocks, above which dancing creatures soared in aerial harnesses. The whole affair was extremely enjoyable, but it had nothing new to say about the piece.
Rupert Christiansen, Telegraph, 25 February 2003
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/02/25/btvix25.xml
The Royal Opera at its world-beating best
Memory may play tricks on everyone, but this is plain embarrassing. I distinctly recall seeing Bill Bryden's production of Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen in 1990 and thinking it rather hideous and misconceived - an over-complicated mechanistic mess unreflective of the energy and joy that cascades through the score.
Thirteen years on, I was bowled over. Perhaps it was a change of seat, perhaps it was the better lighting and smoother scene-changing offered by the new Covent Garden, perhaps it was the relative wisdom of my years, but this Vixen miraculously reappeared as a total visual delight.
William Dudley's designs have become magically inventive, and the wheels, cogs and clocks which in 1990 had seemed like an irrelevant homage to Russian Constructivism now looked like aptly suggestive images of the cycle of the seasons. The walking Moravian beer-bottles were good for a chuckle, the animal costumes were darling and the aerial dancing (Tom Sapsford and Lyn Routledge) was so beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes.
Bryden had rehearsed his exuberant production to a tee - it's not often that one sees opera so crisply executed. I bet that the conductor John Eliot Gardiner had something to do with this: he is a notoriously hard taskmaster, but by golly, he gets results. The orchestra was responsive to every nuance of orchestration and flick of rhythm, and the singers were kept relentlessly on their vocal toes. Yet Gardiner never drove the music too hard - the cleanness and precision of texture didn't preclude warmth or humour, and the Act 2 duet for the Vixen and the Fox rose to almost Wagnerian heights of ecstasy.
There were no weak links in the large cast, singing in English. Gerald Finley shone brightly as the Forester, Joyce DiDonato made a testosterone-charged Fox, Jeremy White did a splendid double-act as the Badger and the Priest. Hurrah, too, for children who sing rather than shout (again, I'm sure Gardiner had given them a good talking-to in rehearsal).
A few niggles. Dawn Upshaw, in most respects a charming and vivacious Vixen, occasionally indulged in a smoochy portamento more appropriate to Jerome Kern. The surtitles were an insult to the cast's excellent diction. And given the shortness and tautness of the drama, an interval is redundant. But this is an absolutely glorious revival - the Royal Opera at its world-beating best.
Edward Seckerson, the Independent, 26 February 2003
http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/reviews/article120418.ece
A timely debut for a foxy lady
There's a lot of conspicuous recycling in Bill Bryden's environmentally friendly, cleverly emblematic staging of Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen. Time turns on an outsized bicycle wheel, dwarfing animals and humans alike. The rust tells you that it's been a long time turning. Almost as long as the wait for the American soprano Dawn Upshaw's Covent Garden debut. Quite why that is, I cannot say, though in times past, the Royal Opera has often been slow to take up the rising stars of the day, often missing the boat in the process.
Then again, Upshaw is extremely choosy about what she sings and where and with whom, favouring new work over old, preferring to create something fresh and personal from scratch. All of which begs the question, why choose Vixen – not anyway the showiest of roles – in a production well over a decade old?
The answer is undoubtedly to be found in the simple truths contained at the heart of Janacek's wonderful piece. The text has always interested Upshaw more than the noise it makes. Hers is one of the most distinctive voices in the world today – but that's not to say it's a great or even special voice. No, it's the whole Upshaw package, the delivery, the intensity and engagement that characterises all her work. Here, she was gamely throwing herself into the physicality of the role (movement: the aptly named Stuart Hopps), animating the words, telling the story. She was somewhat defeated by the size of the house, it has to be said (Janacek himself was over-optimistic about word audibility in this piece), but in a single phrase such as, "Can it be that I am lovely?", she could send out tingling lines of communication, drawing us instantly into her confidence. That's a different kind of artistry.
The foxy lady was wooed here by her compatriot, Joyce DiDonato, as the foxy gentleman, a performance of real spirit in a mezzo role written impossibly high; and there was Gerald Finley bringing warmth and authority to "Spring's hymn of love" in the closing scene. But this is essentially an ensemble piece, an intimidating collection of children and animals (and we all know the old Hollywood maxim), wittily characterised by the designer William Dudley. They wear surprisingly well, the dragonfly aviator, magnificent in his flying-machine, the battery-hen dinnerladies, the dancing beer bottles ushering in the tavern in a rolling barrel. The whole show seems to have been recycled from scrap, which is a wonderfully clear metaphor for continuity in nature. Clear, too, are the intricate parallels between man and beast so key to the piece.
Presiding over all of this is the conductor, John Eliot Gardiner, bringing to bear his baroque bounce, his insistence upon keen, viable rhythm to keep the inner workings of Janacek's intricate score alive and kicking. But those deeply affecting kernels of lyricism are given room to breathe, too – none more so than the glorious Act I, scene 2 interlude in which Vixen, captured and chained up by the Gamekeeper, dreams that she is free again. In the production's most inspired coup, Bryden imagines Vixen's other self as a trapeze artist soaring against a night sky. Theatre meets circus. How much more apt can you get in this of all pieces?
Anna Picard, the Independent, 2 March 2003
http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/reviews/article121184.ece
…Another refugee from the early music annexe can be heard at Covent Garden this month, though conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner has not taken to The Cunning Little Vixen like a duck to water. Ensemble problems which, to be fair, are seemingly intrinsic to this score were rife in his first performance, while the lack of anything approaching luminosity, or blood, or mud, or heartbeat to bind Janacek's fleeting orchestral colours made heavy weather of this brutal yet cloyingly sentimental opera.
Though William Dudley's clever sets – a busy cocktail of commercial, mechanical and natural motifs from the 1920s – still produce genuine gasps of pleasure, Bill Bryden's fussy, cutesy, over-populated production tries far too hard to be likeable. (Dancer Tom Sapsford's Blue Dragonfly in particular made me long for a very large fly swatter.) But this is Dawn Upshaw's show and she sings the role of Sharp-Ears sweetly and plainly, milking her naturally sympathetic sound and direct diction for all their worth. Though Upshaw's stage-manner is noticeably more self-conscious than those of Joyce DiDonato (Fox), Jonathan Veira (Harasta), old hands Stuart Kale (Schoolmaster) and Elizabeth Sikora (Innkeeper's wife), and the up-and-coming duo of Rachel Nicholls and Sarah Fox (Pepik and Frantik), and though no one, but no one, can outsing or outact the ever wonderful Gerald Finley (Gamekeeper), hers is a most welcome and long overdue house debut.