Life goes on.

by Susanne Krekel

Munich, 12 February 2022In this new production, Barrie Kosky does the contrary of many annoying stage directors who try to explain away the symbols in fairy tale stories, depriving the works of all their magic: instead of putting the protagonists into animal costumes and creating idyllic prospects of woods and brooks, he lets the animals be human; stage designer Michael Levine has created forest images of most beautiful glimmering glittering black and silver curtains.

The performance begins in total darkness, not even the orchestra pit is lit, and the conductor can sneak onto her podium without fuss or applause. As the orchestra begins to play, a faint light comes to the stage, where we see a group of people, and finally we understand that someone has been buried. The game keeper gives his thanks and greets the assembly, and we gather that it is he who has been bereaved. We shall never know who has died, and maybe it doesn’t matter. We have learned to associate this character with loss and grief, even if we forget all about the funeral as the story unfolds: The magic forest curtains come down, the game keeper is on the job. He catches the little Vixen and takes her home. Soprano Elena Tsallagova is the Vixen and she is amazing. Clothed in a very short light summer dress and a pair of matching shorts, light of voice and of build, long dark hair streaming freely, she jumps and dances and sings, the very picture of youthful innocence. At the game keeper’s house, the Vixen will meet the farm animals, she will be pushed around by the mistress of the house who wants her out, pretending she is flea-ridden. Orwell’s Animal Farm comes to mind, when the animals discuss their conditions and their longing for freedom. After raiding the chicken yard - and that is one hilarious scene, the amazing costume designer Victoria Behr has dressed the chicks in yellow feathery costumes with long-legged pantyhose, and Kosky has them perching in a row, the rooster in their midst, black evening suit complete with top hat, and a laced corset, the very image of a chorus line of revue chicks, as it were; and when after the massacre a surviving egg comes stalking along on revue chick legs, we find ourselves giggling hysterically - after her raid on the chicken yard, the Vixen is to be tied up, so she flees into the forest. Here she meets a beautiful fox - elegant, foxy and sweet of voice, Angela Brower - and the two of them get married and have lots of little foxes. They don’t live happily ever after however, for the Vixen will eventually be shot dead by the poacher Haraschta. Then, one day, as the Gamekeeper is again napping in the forest, a little vixen will sneak out of her foxhole and begin to play around with him. We have come full circle, life goes on.

What is so ingenious about this staging is that by dispensing with animal costumes and stage play, it opens several ways of reading the work. The Vixen’s story can be seen as a coming-of-age tale, youthful innocence maturing through hardships into woman- and ultimately motherhood. Her interaction with the humans, and especially the poacher, might be interpreted as an image of man’s destructive behaviour towards nature. The game keeper’s and the poacher’s guns are the only real objects that can be seen onstage and of course they can be read in the usual Freudian way, and the Vixen in her fearless femininity as the symbol of the men’s obsession with the gypsy girl Terynka. And of course, the whole story is about the wheel of life itself. And so on…

Janáček’s wonderful music follows the text closely, it is borne out of the words as it were, and the stage movements and playing rhythm are following the music in their turn, everything is organically interwoven. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducts the Staatsoper Orchestra with elegance, subtlety and grace, guiding the wonderful cast - Wolfgang Koch as the game keeper, and Lindsay Amman, his wife, Jonas Hacker, the schoolmaster, Martin Snell, the priest, Milan Siljanov, the poacher Angela Brower, the fox, Elena Tsagallova, the vixen, to mention only the leading roles - through the maze of the music.

When mind and soul, ears and eyes, are equally fulfilled then we have seen a night at the opera as it should be, and tonight, this was the case.

Bravi tutti and thanks to everyone who made this moment happen!