Janacek - Příhody lišky Bystroušky: The Cunning Little Vixen/La petite renarde rusée, at the Bastille in Paris

ONP Bastille, Tuesday January 21 2025

Conductor: Juraj Valčuha. Production: André Engel. Sets: Nicky Rieti. Costumes: Elizabeth Neumuller. Lighting: André Diot. Choreography: Françoise Grès. The Vixen: Elena Tsallagova. The Fox: Paula Murrihy. The Forester: Milan Siljanov. The Schoolmaster, the Mosquito: Éric Huchet. The Priest: Frédéric Caton. Harašta: Tadeáš Hoza. The Dog: Maria Warenberg. The Innkeeper: Se-Jin Hwang. The Innkeeper's wife: Anne-Sophie Ducret. The Cockerel, The Jay: Rocio Ruiz Cobarro. The Hen: Irina Kopylova. The Woodpecker: Marie-Cécile Chevassus. The Badger: Sławomir Szychowiak. Sova, The Owl: Marie Gautrot. Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. Prague Philharmonic Children’s Choir.

Photos: Vincent Pontet / ONP

Though I’ve sometimes complained that the Paris Opera, while supposedly short of cash, changes its productions nearly as often as the rest of us change our socks, André Engel’s Cunning Little Vixen first appeared there 17 years ago. At the time it was billed as ‘new’, though it actually dates back further still, to 2000 at the Lyon Opera. I saw it when it arrived at the Bastille, and wrote it up at the time.

Looking back at that old blog post, I’m surprised to see how much of the text I could, if I wanted, simply recycle, so similar were my impressions this week to those I had in 2008. But first, I’ll say a few words about the staging. I noted, in my 2008 article, that the cameras were there in force, and supposed a video would soon appear. So it did. Many people may therefore have seen the production by now. But for those who haven’t, here goes…

The one permanent feature of the set is a railway track running across the stage, though we never see a train. When the curtain rises, the broad space behind is filled, from left to right, with rolling fields of sunflowers, along with a couple of telegraph poles against the blue sky. Later, depending on the needs of the plot, we encounter functional-looking railway buildings - the forester lives in a concrete silo or water tower - suspended lanterns, or a hazy moon in the night sky. After the interval, the bare landscape lies deep in snow, till spring coaxes the sunflowers back.

In this production, the various creatures are more human than animal, but the colours and markings of the costumes combine with wings, horns and accessories, such as the mosquitoes’ giant, blood-filled syringe, to suggest beasts and insects. There are schoolboy flies, there’s a centipede flying a kite, and the local bourgeoisie pose in their Sunday best as stags, goats, owls and so on. The badger, in a magnate’s fur coat and spats, lives in a length of concrete piping on a flatbed wagon, while other creatures pop up with a cheery wave among the sunflowers, or emerge through traps in the floor. And then there are all the hens, in frothy, frilly, flowery housecoats, magenta stockings and shoes, clucking, flapping and strutting under the eyes of a rooster proudly displaying his genitals: an audience favourite.

As this is an established production and I was there well into the current run, the acting this time round ought to have been well-oiled. Yet it often seemed stiff and unconvincing. The children, especially, recalled the awkwardness of a school play, lacking spontaneity and frank gaiety. And the constant letting-down of a cartoon curtain to hide scene changes gave the whole evening the same disjointed feel as before. I wonder if this was made necessary by technical limitations in Lyon. If so, surely at the Bastille at least some of the changes could now be done in full view: the backstage area there is, after all, six times bigger than the stage, and whole sets can be rolled on and off on its motorised platforms in minutes.

Musically, the performance suffered from exactly the same issues as before. Nicky Rieti’s handsome sets, beautifully lit, are wide open, doing nothing to reflect sound back from that gigantic stage area into the house. As a result, the children of the Prague Philharmonic children’s choir could only be heard when singing together; individually, they were inaudible, apart from the odd, faint squeak, even from my seat in the middle of row 10. So, too, were most of the singers in supporting roles. 

And as in 2008, the principals lacked impact. Back then, I wrote that they ‘were obviously putting a great deal into it, Elena Tsallagova in particular (I could well imagine her in Le Coq d'Or) but even so we strained to hear them.’ I can’t say I could still imagine the self-same Elena Tsallagova (the Vixen) in the Rimsky, as her voice has matured and hardened. Paula Murrihy's singing (as the Fox) was at times liquidly, elegantly phrased, but at others seemed a touch monochrome. While both worked hard to put across perky charm, they never radiated the vocal charisma needed to carry off such marvellous moments (here, sadly, lost opportunities) as their first encounter, and the rhapsodic love scene that follows.

Milan Siljanov (the Forester) has an interesting, warm, velvety bass-baritone voice, he’s familiar with the role, and you feel he sings Janacek idiomatically. But again, he sounded frustratingly distant, until at one point he appeared through a doorway to the side of the pit and demonstrated, with a wall at last behind him, what we had been missing until then. Eric Huchet, once a regular in Offenbach, was great fun as the mosquito, and did his best, in the unsatisfactory acoustic circumstances, to bring the schoolmaster to life.

Fortunately, as occasionally happens, one singer eventually came along, almost out of the blue, to galvanise the proceedings. After the interval, young baritone Tadeáš Hoza, in his house debut and perhaps out to seize the main chance, put in a suddenly striking performance as Harašta the poacher. This seemingly goaded Milan Siljanov into delivering a genuinely moving monologue as he grieved over the vixen and Terynka, before spring, the thaw, and the return of the sunflowers.

So, things got a bit better at the end. But Juraj Valčuha’s conducting lacked colour, contrast and relief all evening. Not once were we swept away on exciting waves of sound: his reading was plodding, pedestrian and bland, without a single spark of electricity. I think, as just one example I was peeved at, of the bizarrely nerveless opening of act three. And as I remarked afterwards to a sweet little old lady in New York who knows about this kind of thing, Janacek without thrills isn’t Janacek at all.

Note: an edited version of this post may be published on Parterre.com.