Splendour in the Forest

With the new production of The Cunning Little Vixen at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Sir Simon Rattle’s long-running cycle of Janáček’s mature operas has finally reached its conclusion. The cycle, which started some fifteen years ago with From the House of the Dead (in the extraordinary production of Patrice Chéreau), has offered no shortage of dramatic high-points – not least Claus Guth’s hypnotically sinister Makropulos Affair and Robert Carsen’s enjoyably bizarre Mr Brouček 

While Janáček was drawn to unconventional sources – just try to find the through-line that connects his last five operas – The Cunning Little Vixen has some claim to being his strangest operatic subject. The co-existence of humans and talking animals will pose no major challenges to anyone raised on Warner Bros. cartoons, but the magical life of the forest…