My operatic grand tour brought me this week to Leoš Janáček’s Príhody Lišky Bystroušky (The Cunning Little Vixen). I have listened to this opera once before, but this week I watched a staged performance for the first time.
The opera doesn’t fit neatly into a genre: it is part barnyard-and-forest fable, part dark human drama, part opera, and part ballet. The story concerns a fox which torments a forester. We spend a good deal of time in the forest with the fox and other animals, a good deal of time with the forester and his neighbours, and the rest of the time somewhere in the middle. It is that middle ground which gives the opera surrealist overtones.
The Cunning Little Vixen has one big problem: it has not a single memorable melody. The orchestral music is lovely enough, often delicate and with plenty of detail and rhythmic vitality, but the vocal lines I found flat and drab. This was disappointing.
When listening to the opera my favourite portions were the orchestral interludes. When viewing a performance on DVD, however, even these sections were ruined by forest animals prancing about on the stage. I am something of a curmudgeon when it comes to ballet and related forms of dance, and this dancing did little to dissuade me from my insouciance. This, too, was disappointing.
Given all these disappointments, I am at a loss as to how to choose an excerpt which I can call a “great moment in opera”. The scene which made me happiest (albeit for all the wrong reasons) was the very last scene of the opera. Here it is, from the DVD performance which I viewed. Thomas Allen sings the forester (and he does a great job with thankless material). The green thing with ball-shaped warts is supposed to be a frog. The excerpt ends about 1 or 2 seconds too soon, cutting off the opera’s final chords.
There have also been a couple of animated versions of the opera made, including at least one in an English translation. Here is a short excerpt (from this DVD). I like this well enough, but once again the clipped and plain manner of singing puts me off.
January 28, 2010 at 10:04 am
If you are ever in Moravia (eastern Czech Republic), check out Janacek beer. It’s named after the composer and is fantastic. Here’s the link:. http://www.pivovar-janacek.cz/en/
January 29, 2010 at 8:44 am
Thanks for the tip, Matthew. I wonder if I would like it better than I liked the opera? Probably yes.
January 29, 2010 at 9:17 pm
I bet you can actually get it at the LCBO…Good suggestion, Matthew!!
January 31, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Christina, if you can get Janacek beer anywhere in Canada, let me know. I’ve never seen it carried at the LCBO, but they do sometimes carry something even better: Jelinek Slivovice (slivovitz). It’s old plum brandy, the Czech national drink, and the Czech version is less sweet and more fruity than the Polish version the LCBO traditionally carries. Jelinek is the best of the Czech slivovitzes. Here’s the link to the distillery: http://www.rjelinek.cz/?LANG=en
My wife’s father is Czech, so these things are of primary importance when we go visit the in-laws in Toronto. The best beer we’ve found at the LCBO is Lasko (Zlatorog), a Slovenian beer. Her dad gave us a case of it for Christmas.
February 1, 2010 at 12:02 am
Hi Matthew,
Yes, I am quite familiar with slivovice! Have had it a few times and like it. The most memorable was when about to attend an unheated church in Litomerice in January and the grandmother of the family I was staying with suggested that we each drink a shot to keep warm with. She then offered me a second shot for my “other leg”.
Incidentally, we were drinking Staropramen with dinner tonight here. I don’t remember whether I tried Janacek beer when I was in Cz Rep and I haven’t seen it here.
I don’t have any familial connection to CzRep, just an ongoing interest and fascination with the country.
Na zdravi!