Janácek: The Cunning Little Vixen (Glyndebourne)

Lucy Crowe (Vixen Sharp Ears); Emma Bell (Fox); Sergei Leiferkus (Forester); Mischa Schelomianski (Badger/Priest); Adrian Thompson (Schoolmaster/Mosquito); William Dazeley (Harasta);

The tale of a quick-witted fox and her escape from confinement for a life in the forest that is by turns joyful and violent, The Cunning Little Vixen is an unsentimental parable of death and rebirth that lives through the instinctive and immediate world of nature, animal and human, which Janácek loved so much. Melly Still's production for Glyndebourne finds the delicate balance between whimsy and mysticism (Daily Telegraph) at the heart of the opera, which Vladimir Jurowski conducts with lustrous style: you can hear the birds in the score, feel the sunshine and thrill to the starlit night sky in the final scene (Opera Today).

Reviews

"Lucy Crowe's glowingly sung Vixen ...Tom Pyes Hockneyish designs are evocative of a world of childish wonder, with animal costumes which cleverly suggest human characteristic." (The Daily Telegraph)

"I was entranced throughout. The work's humour is realized extremely well but so is its more serious side...aside from Mackerras...I've never heard the opera conducted with such colour, wit, detail and dramatic urgency...Crowe's Vixen is vocally completely secure and delightfully and sharply characterized...[in the closing scene] there is just the right sense of pantheistic rapture...an outstanding achievement." (International Record Review)

Extra features

Creating Janácek's 'The Cunning Little Vixen'; Cast Gallery