By Laura Kennelly
“And now for something completely different” seems the perfect motto for The Cleveland Orchestra production of Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen conducted by Franz Welser-Most at Severance Hall. Janáček’s is a simple little operatic tale, full of folk-song melodies and arias with short, sonorous orchestral interludes between dramatic passages.
As one expects with opera, the story mixes conflict, danger, comedy, and love–and even bumps off the leading soprano at the end.
The difference is that she’s a fox, literally, a fox–not a foxy diva, but an actual cartoon fox. For this production created for Cleveland, Director Yuval Sharon cleverly employed animation by Walter Robot Studios (Bill Barminski and Christopher Louie). It’s projected onto three large wall-size screens with pop-out spaces for heads. Before the opera began, the screens blended into the Severance Hall decor; when it started they melted into a forest scene. There was also a simple stage set for the humans (when they weren’t cartoon drawings) placed above the orchestra. The final bows even allowed the conductor to “fly” into the forest scene. Documented here on YouTube, the production sounds complicated and it must have taken many hours to set up.
Was it worth it? It was certainly, as noted, different. The lively action, the clever blending of humans into cartoon figures and back again kept eyes busy. The story was based on a comic strip novella serialized in 1920. (Aside: The original “Vixen” seems designed as a fable for children, but imagine a version of Tom Batiuk’s Funky Winkerbean strip as an opera. Maybe a rock opera? Could be great.)
Soprano Martina Janková charmed as the Vixen. Alan Held (bass-baritone) showed the Forester’s mix of practical sentimentality to good effect. Bass-baritone Dashon Burton (Parson and cartoon Badger) and tenor David Cangelosi (as both Schoolmaster and also cartoon Mosquito) play well against each other when all three are “human.”
Cangelosi’s drunk scenes show he’s a master of physical comedy. Other ensemble members Raymond Aceto, Jennifer Johnson Cano, Julie Boulianne, Sandra Ross, Samantha Gossard, Brian Keith Johnson, Marion Vogel, Laura Schupbach, and Miranda Scholl amused as tuneful village or forest denizens. Both the Cleveland Orchestra Chamber Chorus (onstage behind screens) and the Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus (on the balcony) contributed pleasantly, though hard to see from the orchestra level.
But was it worth it? Maybe, just to show it could be done, even though Disney and Pixar do it so much better these days. But. One of the things that makes Severance great is that it’s a wonderful listening place. Between the three screens, the visual distraction provided by flying and shrinking perspectives, the tiny heads popping in and out above the orchestra, it was difficult to appreciate the music, to really “hear” what was going on. Give me Salome mooning over the head of John the Baptist or lovers laughing along with Mozart any day. I want to lose myself in a production and it was very hard to do with the special effects constantly calling attention to themselves. But that’s just me. YMMV.
Next at Severance things get back to normal with a non-cartoon version of Cinderella, that is, Prokofiev’s Cinderella, as well as Benjamin Britten’s charming Violin Concerto (with Janine Jansen) and Stravinsky’s dramatic Scherzo fantastique with guest conductor Vladimir Jurowski will be May 29, 30, 31.
http://www.clevelandorchestra.com
Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.Listening to and learning more about music has been a life-long passion. She knows there’s no better place to do that than the Cleveland area.
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106