In many ways, The Cunning Little Vixen should be the perfect fit for Glyndebourne, with its idyllic countryside setting in the rolling Sussex hills. Yet it has only staged the opera twice: Jonathan Miller’s staging (in English) in 1975 (revived two years later); and Melly Still's in 2012, revived for the first time this summer. Janáček’s opera itself is far from idyllic, a “red in tooth and claw” account of Nature’s cycle.
Still’s production has quite a ‘cartoonish’ feel about the sets. How deliberately, I wondered, was she trying to echo the comic strip original published in the newspaper Lidové noviny that had inspired Janáček’s opera?
“When I first began to 'picture' the production," she explains, "I saw a tree and earth, one solitary tree to represent the forest in a perpetual state of regeneration and though we weren't trying to echo the cartoon strip deliberately, it's true that the recollection of vital and colourful characters plus a strong sense of fiction, brought to life by Lolek and Tēsnohlídek, was on our minds.”
For this production of Vixen, Still collaborated with designer Tom Pye, costume designer Dinah Collin and lighting designer Paule Constable. What is the process of putting on an opera at Glyndebourne actually like? “There are three things,” she explains. “Firstly the score. When I first tried to follow it I was overwhelmed by what felt like frantic shifts of time, impossible to keep up with. But after repeated efforts, the pleasure of being swept along by the score was exhilarating. It is an extraordinary evocation of forest life and actually a documentation of all life, of living, and of being aware of living and being aware of death. I was struck by the existential heart of the opera.
“The second starting point was the quirky relationship between the animals and the humans. The wild animals flaunt their indifference to mortality and the relative freedom they experience because of that. They are uninhibited by time and this was central in informing the design: you'll notice that the animals traverse the decades and look down their noses at linear time; they bloom with colour and insolence which is expressed through their somewhat anachronistic dress code, as if playing a game of if I were a human, what kind of human would I be; the humans on the other hand are afraid of time passing, are stuck in time, (as arguably we all are) in this case the world of the opera's first production in 1923. When we think of 1923 or if we were to research the period we would recall black and white photographs and it's this monochrome aesthetic that conveys the human world in our production. As in the music, the human presence contrasts sharply with the natural world.
“The third starting point was Janáček's (probably unrequited) love for a much younger married woman, Kamila Stösslová, which inspired the tension between The Forester and The Vixen. He saw Kamila as a free spirit, a gypsy (she wasn't) and his unbearable yearning for the love and lust of youth is played out musically and dramatically in the opera when the Forester captures the playful and beautiful little vixen. Bystrouška has spirit and rebellion in her blood and bones and he wants what she’s got.”
Tinkering with a revival
When revisiting a production, though, how much Still likes to tinker with it? “As much as possible in this case! Tom, Dinah and I began discussions immediately after the last production and have had sporadic meetings since to ensure we can address any developments that are both manageable and necessary. There is no extra budget nor is there time to do anything extensive.
“Any changes are probably not hugely evident and are about focusing and finessing storytelling: we've been looking at some costume and choreographic details in order to clarify the world of the animals and some set details to enhance clarity of location. For example I wanted the steeply almost vertically raked path, that spirals up the back of the stage, to double as the inside of a badger's sett or fox's lair as if viewed in cross section. However our tree (representing the ever changing forest) sculpted of recycled wood was too dense to allow enough visual access to the upstage path/burrow, so at a bauprobe [a mock-up of the stage design] in March we addressed this. I'm also keen to shift the interval from after the snowscape scene when the Forester attempts to shoot the Vixen, to after the wedding. This takes considerable planning given that we must now segue from Winter to Spring in a matter of seconds rather than over a leisurely long interval.”
The rehearsal period for Vixen spans four weeks including the technical and orchestral rehearsals on stage. Still comments that “although Glyndebourne offers luxurious rehearsal periods compared to other houses, it will still feel like a squeeze.”
A challenging set
Tom Pye’s set was steeply raked, showing a cross-section of the Badger’s sett beneath a huge tree. What challenges did this pose for directing the singers?
“It's undoubtedly a physical challenge and there is a a lot of substage activity as the performers negotiate the warren of traps and holes to dive in and out of. On the steep rake there are discreetly placed hand holds for clinging onto or hanging off and the tree is customised for easy climbing and perching. They enjoyed it. There is something about singing from the top of a tree that is quite liberating. It's designed to allow us, playfully, to share the the point of view sometimes of a bird (when a performer is walking perpendicular to a vertical surface) and sometimes of a rodent or burrowing mammal (when the 'path' becomes a cross section of the underground).
Singing animals? Avoiding Disney
Presenting singing animals on stage is always a challenge. Still deliberately veered away from a ‘Disneyfied’ animal kingdom. “Janáček’s animals – as in the cartoon strip they are drawn from – take on the attributes of humans: they express conflict, love, lust and rebellion, they gossip and complain. Above all, as mentioned above, the Vixen is fuelled by Janáček’s enduring infatuation with Kamila. Though she wasn’t a Gypsy, he seemed to imbue her with his idea of one living at that time: concerned (like the vixen) more with seasons and survival than social mores. A narrow and romanticised portrayal it might be, but it sparked Janáček’s imagination and something of the spirit of this preoccupation has found its way into our production as we draw, for inspiration, on the nomadic people of Europe struggling to survive.