The Cunning Little Vixen, Komische Oper/From The House of the Dead, Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Thorny issues: ‘The Cunning Little Vixen’

With two Janácek premieres in two days, Berlin’s opera season kicked off with a density of content that bodes well for the months to come.

Andreas Homoki’s The Cunning Little Vixen at the Komische Oper was that rare thing, a production
of this autumnal opera that recognises it is neither a story about fluffy animals nor a tale for children. Janacek’s forest animals and humans deal with fundamental issues of love and death, birth, decay and the cycle of life. There is loneliness and grief, violence and passion; these are adult themes.

Christian Schmidt’s revolving set shows the same public-house room in a variety of different conditions, allowing the dozing forester to dream himself backwards and forwards through time. The animal roles are denoted by masks, worn sporadically; these creatures are clearly people, invested in the forester’s mind with some temporary animal characteristics.

Schmidt’s designs are clever, profound and infused with muted melancholy. Homoki fills them with movement, inciting his figures to a village-green style of overacting that weakens the strong concept; less would have been more. His cast, singing in often incomprehensible German, almost uniformly fails to rise to the heights that Janácek demands, sounding bothered by the busy complexity of their lines, never finding the moments of aching lyricism that the score possesses. Only Karolina Gumos, in the thorny role of the Fox, sings with a consistently beautiful tone and makes us feel with her. The house orchestra plays scrappily for Alexander Vedernikov, not helped by the mercilessly dry acoustics

Like so many “premieres” in the new Staatsoper season, From the House of the Dead is, in fact, an old production dusted off and scrupulously polished.

When it opened at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien in 2007, the sheer perfection of Patrice Chéreau’s production, with Pierre Boulez on the podium, left me dazed and euphoric. It went on to Amsterdam, Aix, New York and Milan. New for Berlin are Simon Rattle on the podium and Willard White as the aristocratic prisoner (Olaf Baer’s role at the premiere).

The staging has retained its fastidious detail and shattering emotional impact. Rattle – unsurprisingly – takes a more hot-blooded approach than Boulez, emphasising the score’s harsh and bitter atmosphere, but he still gives the poignant moments space. The orchestra rewards him with playing that is warm, precise and eloquent.

Here, a consistently strong cast gives Janácek all the lustre that was missing at the Komische Oper. John Mark Ainsley’s tormented Skuratow and Eric Stoklossa’s clear-toned Aleja leave vivid memories, but all roles are sung with fervent excellence.

Komische Oper
Staatsoper