The Cunning Little Vixen

Leoš Janácek's marvelous 1924 beast-fable opera, juxtaposing the lives of rural villagers and animals while drawing a parallel between the change of seasons and the cycle of life, receives an uneven but largely successful reading in this 2012 production from Glyndebourne. Musically, the outstanding element is the playing of the London Philharmonic under the inspired leadership of Vladimir Jurowski, who rivals Charles Mackerras (VL-3/11) in his ability to convey the score's combination of delicacy and spikiness, as well as its folksy Eastern European flavor. The vocalism, by comparison, is good here but not remarkable, with Lucy Crowe singing decently in the lead role but without the sense of wildness called for by the character, and Sergei Leiferkus solid but bland as the forester who captures and tries to domesticate her. Emma Bell is more vivid as the fox who romances the vixen, and the other human figures are mostly well drawn. Tom Pye's staging—marked by a huge tree at the center—is magical, but Dinah Collin's costumes for the animals are disappointingly unimaginative, often consisting of a single element (like the title character's tail). Largely because of Jurowski, this mounting captures much of the light and shade of this charming but profound work, but it's not quite equal to the Mackerras version. Presented in DTS 5.1 (DTS-HD 5.1 on the Blu-ray release) and LPCM stereo, extras include a “making-of” featurette and a cast gallery. Recommended, overall. (F. Swietek)