The Cunning Little Vixen is an almost Orwellian account of the circle of life and the inextricable relationship between humans, animals and Earth. This work was inspired by the serialised novella by Rudolf Těsnohlídek. The story of Rudolf is worth reading about, in fact, it almost seems like a tragic story-tale in itself. Most of his works seem to be a reflection of his life – pessimistic, lonely and dark – except for the Cunning Little Vixen or Vixen Sharp-Ears. This optimistic tale sat somewhere between children’s fairy tale and adult satire and illustrated all the adventures of the Vixen, culminating in her marriage to the Fox. However, the opera goes a little differently. Janáček’s version begins with the Vixen as a cub being captured by the Forester. A little while later we see the Vixen tied up in the Forester’s house, she breaks free from her rope, attacks a flock of hen’s, and escapes into the forrest. In the forrest, multiple adventures ensue, and she does in fact, meet the Fox, with whom she falls pregnant with and marries. I particularly love the human ideals around children and marriage being imposed on animals. Years later (I assume), Harašta, the poacher, shoots the Vixen. This is the big difference between these two stories. The profundity is in the fact that Janáček does not end the opera here, he continues on with another two scenes that are nostalgic and deeply sensitive. The Opera ends with the Forester in the forrest alone, just as he was when he first caught the vixen. He has survived his wife and his children have grown up, at this point, he finally sees the circle of life in the animal kingdom and the beauty of nature. There is a cute adaption of this for kids written by Australian author Ursula Dubosarsky, called “Brindabella”, which features a kangaroo instead of a Vixen.
In our production at the Royal Northern College of Music, I performed the roles of Chocholka, the Head hen, and Mrs Pasek, the Inn-keeper’s Wife. The photo featured at the top of this blog is me as a child pretending to be a chicken. Clearly, having grown up with chickens and foxes my entire life, I have been preparing for this for sometime.
Sadly, this production was a little different as we could not have an audience due to the Covid-19 Lockdown. In fact, the whole production was up in the air for a moment, as the government imposed a new rule that forced universities to close 2 weeks early so that students could get home for Christmas within a set travel window, and our show fell in that window. This meant we had open early, and we lost one show at the end.
We’ve had big days of rehearsals and costume fittings in the past few weeks, hence, I’ve been a little off-the-grid. I wanted to share some photos and write about the process in these past 2 weeks, as it was very different with Covid-19. Let me start by saying that the Royal Northern College of Music was the only school of music in the UK to put together a fully staged opera providing role/cover/chorus opportunities in The Cunning Little Vixen to 44 students, whilst other schools had many difficulties due to Covid-19. We have worked hard to not have a single case of Covid-19 within our cast or crew during production.
My costume fittings were completed behind a glass window with the costume department on the other side, all of us wearing masks, and me measuring myself – YIKES! Every surface I touched was sanitised and my costumes were quarantined for 3 days after wearing them before the team worked on them again.
We staged scenes with masks on, the director and choreographer had to work with a Tetris board of sort: 2 meters apart when not singing and 3 meters apart when singing, and 6 meters when singing in the direction of someone else. They actually had something to measure this, and we had a lot of markings on the stage to help. We cut our own wigs and masks and some cast members even had to alter their own costumes last minute – the poor costume department must have been cringing at our technique, but we certainly learn a thing or two.
During the shows, I begin by wiping down my dressing table and getting out of my clothes, leaving all my personal clothing items in a plastic bag under the table that was closed securely in order to avoid contamination. I then get ready as usual, and make sure to put my mask on when walking around the dressing rooms. There is, of course no warming up allowed. We do not have to wear our masks side-stage, although we do keep 2 meter distance and all props are wiped down before and after use. I also sanitise before going on and when coming off stage.
I learnt something pretty powerful in this production. I always thought that there was no point performing without an audience, and in some sense, that is true, but on opening night, I realised how much I really love this craft. Standing side-stage, right before going on, despite the fact that it was really just like any other dress rehearsal, I got the butterflies in my stomach as if it were a show. It is dark in the audience, so normally, you don’t know how many people are actually watching. My mind allowed myself to imagine that the audience was bigger than it really was, and I still came off stage with a beaming case of euphoria. It was also lovely to receive and give pre-show cards and gifts as usual… I even had a knock at the door before leaving home with a bunch of flowers from Australia. We have one more show this afternoon and then it is all over for me, but my gosh, it’s been fun. I’ll show upload of the professional photos when I have them.
Toi, Toi, Toi to my cast for today and the alternate cast for Monday night. Xx
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