Donizetti - Maria Stuarda (Salzburg, 2025)

Gaetano Donizetti - Maria Stuarda

Salzburger Festspiele, 2025

Antonello Manacorda, Ulrich Rasche, Kate Lindsey, Lisette Oropesa, Bekhzod Davronov, Aleksei Kulagin, Thomas Lehman, Nino Gotoshia

ORF2 broadcast - August 2025

For the little that they reflect reality, there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to stage a historical opera in period setting and costume. There may be something in the drama that can be spun out to reflect the world we see around us today and the direction of contemporary politics, as in 2024 Vienna production of Don Carlo directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, but not all operas are suited to such treatment. Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, based on Friedrich Schiller's drama of the jealous female rivalry that exists between two English queens, Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I for the heart of one man, is probably no more significant than feuding contemporary British Royals and as such likely to be something of deep indifference to most. What it does have to offer however is plenty of high operatic drama that is open to grand gestures and dramatic stylisation. We certainly get that in the 2025 Salzburg Festival production directed by Ulrich Rasche.

In fact it's an ultra-stylised production that has little of naturalism, much less historical accuracy. The stage bears two horizontally tilted spinning circular lightbox discs, each with a counter rotating centre, with no other props of any kind other than a third vertically tilted disc for lighting and occasionally projecting moody cinematic black and white closeups. The queens at the centre of the drama stand on each of the two horizontal discs, pacing against the rotation in stylised movements, Elizabeth and her court all dressed in black clothing, while on Mary Stuart's side they all dress in glowing white.

With its minimalist sets, bold swathes of lighting and stylised movements it's somewhat Robert Wilson like, but the gestures here are more operatic, slightly exaggerated, the intent different. There is scarcely a moment in the opera when they aren't pacing slowly, methodically, deliberately. It's perhaps an attempt to reflect determination of purpose, or you can the figures on a wheel of fate, where, as Elizabeth notes at one point on reading Mary's letter of supplication "Al ruota della fortuna tant’orgoglio impallida” ("On the wheel of fortune, even pride disappears"). Personal feelings and choices are not wholly determined by fate, but there seems to be some effort made to reflect their inner impulses in the male figures that pace the stage alongside Mary and Elizabeth. They aren't merely courtiers, not even chorus (the chorus remains off-stage), but as dancers (from SEAD, the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance) making minimal movements and pacing perhaps in some way extensions of their emotional state.

There isn't exactly much in terms of real dramatic action in the first Act anyway to necessitate anything more in the way of props or movement. Essentially Mary, Queen of Scots, having been imprisoned for an attempt to overthrow Elizabeth and make her claim for the throne, sends the queen a letter via Talbot to the Count of Leicester asking for a meeting. Elizabeth contrives to bring this about during a royal hunt on the grounds where Mary is imprisoned, where emotions run high and verbal assaults are unleashed. It's all characters in deep personal conflict with their duty to the court and their own personal desires, with Leicester caught up between them. It's not much to go on, but Donizetti makes something great of it with huge dramatic swirls of orchestration that captures the personal torment and conflicted emotions of the characters. Even the jaunty rhythms seem to capture the furious beating of hearts. This staging doesn't try to make anything more of it than finding a way to express that on a physical level, personifying and bringing to the surface all the underlying explosiveness of the encounter.

Kate Lindsey as Elizabeth and Bekhzod Davronov as Leicester go a long way to bringing that circumstance to a head, Lindsey striding imperiously, extending hand gestures forbidding approach or entreaty, her furious glances towards Leicester and powered delivery alone capable of striking anyone down. If the white robed soprano is going to win hearts and minds over the black costumed mezzo-soprano in this quasi-historical situation she's got a real battle on her hands, but you wouldn't rule it out with Lisette Oropesa as Mary. Which of course is really what Maria Stuarda is all about. As I suggested earlier, battling opera divas is not much more interesting than battling jealous royals (of any era), but Donizetti's musical development and pacing has you gripped, not least because you know the Act descends into bitter recrimination and accusation that results in one of the most famous insults in all opera. As Mary delivers the killer punchline ‘Vil bastarda', even I felt trepidation at how Kate Lindsey's Elizabeth was going to take it.

Not terribly well obviously, history at least recording Mary's fate on the executioner's block, but Donzetti's intention is rightly to focus on depicting this as pure operatic entertainment and that is exactly what we get here from the fine singing and the musical direction of Antonello Manacorda, leading up to that showstopping confrontation and its delivery as a sextet. Yes, it's the centrepiece of a great work, a thrilling outpouring of a fictional dramatisation of naked anger that you could not imagine playing out this this way in reality in private or in public (yes, that's sarcasm), but it's the masterful way it is played out in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda and in the effective staging here that reveals it for the brilliant work it is.

The second Act has much to deliver as well, even though it's just a long build-up to the inevitable execution. And even though there is again little to differentiate the dramatic stage presentation and lack of props established in the first Act, the production (and singing of course) still manages to draw all the internal emotional intensity that underlies the scene. The wheel indeed seems just as appropriate here, the relentless march of history, the enmity and rivalry between the two queens setting them on a path towards an inevitable conclusion. It perhaps lacks the fire that was lit in the first Act, a consequence of how the drama is written rather than any flaw in the presentation, but the second Act has a compelling purposeful drive in Mary’s acceptance and in Elizabeth’s unwavering determination to carry though on her decision to execute her rival.

Despite Mary delivering the decisive blow in Act I for a standing count rather than a knockout one, personally I thought Kate Lindsey was winning this first round on points. (No, I'm no more a fan of boxing than battling opera divas). More accustomed to seeing her in trouser roles, Kate Lindsey is now a formidable mezzo-soprano leading voice, her delivery - under difficult stage directions where she never stops pacing - powerful and controlled, bringing real depth to the character despite all the stylisation of movement. Lisette Oropesa however commands the audience's sympathy for Mary in the Second Act, delivering all the passion of the prayer (preghiera) and aria del supplizio ('D'un cor che muore reca il perdono'), ensuring that both women have the opportunity to show the challenges of their respective political and personal positions, in dramatic terms at least, if not in terms of historical reality. There were superb performances also here from Bekhzod Davronov as Leicester and Aleksei Kulagin as Talbot, and from Thomas Lehman and Nino Gotoshia in supporting roles as Cecil and Anna.

External links: Salzburger Festspiele

Weber - Der Freischütz (Munich, 2021)

Carl Maria von Weber - Der Freischütz

Bayerische Staaatsoper, Munich 2021

Antonello Manacorda, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Golda Schultz, Anna Prohaska, Kyle Ketelsen, Pavel Černoch, Boris Prýgl, Bálint Szabó, Tareq Nazm, Milan Siljanov, Eliza Boom, Sarah Gilford, Daria Proszek, Yajie Zhang

StaatsoperTV Live - 13 February 2021

One sure thing you can count on with an opera production by Dmitri Tcherniakov is that it's never going to be short of talking points and in some cases (Dialogues des Carmélites) downright controversy. Tcherniakov is still the only opera director I know to have had one of his works actually banned by the courts on the objection of the estate of the work's original author for subverting the true intentions of the work. You will definitely question whether he is true to the spirit of Romanticism in his setting of Weber's Der Freischütz in the executive room of the owner of a large corporation.

Furthermore, rather than opening the opera with a traditional shooting contest Tcherniakov has the competitors being urged to train a gun on and take down an unsuspecting member of the public from a window vantage point high on the office block of businessman Lord Kuno. Sure, you expect a modern director to find a new way to express the intentions of an old fashioned opera (albeit one of the most important in the history of German opera) but does this really conform to the original intentions and meaning of the original? Is Tcherniakov not again just seeking to be controversial by overturning and subverting a reactionary agenda?

For Tcherniakov, evidently the idea of a work that extols any kind of nationalist sentiment, superstition, romanticism or dealings with magic can't possibly be played straight to a contemporary audience and have the same impact as it might have had for its original audience. On the other hand there are deeper human qualities brought out in Weber's opera, and likewise Tcherniakov's intention is not to subvert the work, but use a similar exaggeration and shock factor to highlight an underlying idea. How far would someone go to impress the boss and marry into an influential family?

Well one thing you don't want to do is strike up a deal with the devil, or in the case of this production, get too friendly with and take the advice of the office weirdo, Kaspar. What he really does is encourages Max to pull the trigger that will open up his future destiny. He seems powerful and in control, but has strange ideas and hears voices and seems to be possessed, conversing with a split personality that he calls Samiel. He's also a bit of a gun freak. Too late, Max worries what he has got himself into and he has good reason to be concerned when he agrees to follow Kaspar to Wolf's Glen.

It does take a little twisting of the narrative to make this work, and where some might have more of an objection is in the director constructing his own narrative to put it into a quite different context from the original. In the gaps between scenes and in instrumental passages, Tcherniakov inserts subtitles that enter into the mind of the people involved and even creates a new narrative that you would think adds little, such as Agathe having previously been in a same-sex relationship with Ännchen, who dresses in a masculine if somewhat dandyish fashion. His take on the shock conclusion of the Hermit's forgiveness being a mere delusion and Agathe indeed being a victim of the magic bullet, is like Carmélites revisionism again, but it's enormously effective and appropriate here.

The more Romantic outlook on Der Freischütz would be the question of how far you would go for love when the path of virtue is the only road to salvation from the dark forces in the world, but Dmitri Tcherniakov's take on it as ambition and social climbing corrupting the soul can sit alongside that. You can debate whether that really gets under the skin of what the opera is all about, but there's no doubt - as is always the case I find - that he fully brings dramatic power and conviction to whatever he works on. If you didn't already know what a masterpiece Der Freischütz is, you would definitely feel it from the treatment here.

It also helps that the opera is played beautifully with Antonello Manacorda conducting the Bayerisches Staastorchester and there are some excellent singing performances. Golda Schultz in particular is impressive as Agathe and Pavel Černoch perfect as the rather unfortunate Max who falls under the spell as a wonderfully deranged Kyle Ketelsen as Kaspar/Samiel. It's also a very handsome production as most of Elena Zaytseva designs are for Dmitri Tcherniakov. In his latest mode of using elegant, tasteful wooden panel lined rooms to satirise middle- and upper-class luxury homes and offices (La Traviata, Tristan und Isolde, Pelléas et Mélisande), they could be showcase exhibits for interior design. In every respect, Tcherniakov's aim is perfect and his shot unerringly finds its true target.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, StaatsoperTV

Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (La Monnaie, 2018)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte


La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels - 2018

Antonello Manacorda, Romeo Castellucci, Ed Lyon, Sabine Devieilhe, Sophie Karthäuser, Georg Nigl, Elina Galitskaya, Gábor Bretz, Dietrich Henschel, Tineke van Ingelgem, Angélique Noldus, Esther Kuiper

ARTE Concert - 27 September 2018

As if you couldn't already guess from the fact that it's Romeo Castellucci at La Monnaie, the opening pre-musical sequence alerts you pretty quickly to the fact that this is not going to be a 'traditional' Magic Flute by any means. A man walks onto the empty stage and throws a steel bar at a glowing glass neon tube until it breaks plunging the stage into darkness. Yeah, you think, it's The Magic Flute, we get it; light/darkness, enlightenment/obscurantism, a lot of ritual and symbolism. If you think Castellucci is going to be that obvious, you quickly realise that you're going to have to think again.

But yes, certainly Castellucci tends to find the big underlying contrasts or forces in conflict within an opera and brings them to the fore to the point where they are what the opera is all about. The actual stage directions and dramatic narrative are soon left behind as Castellucci usually starts to push those ideas even further into god knows where. (See his recent Moses und Aron or Tannhäuser). You might take for granted that Die Zauberflöte is all about masonic rituals with fairy tale characters and situations, but you're not going to see any of that in a Castellucci production. Doesn't that mean you lose something of the essential character of Mozart? Unquestionably yes, but can we trust Castellucci to give back something of equal worth?

Maybe not of equal worth, but there is something here in the La Monnaie production, no matter how obscure it gets, that approaches Mozart's work in a new way and provides a commentary on it as well as interacting and highlighting less familiar aspects of the work. There are perhaps no major new revelations and it might not all fit together in any way that is entirely comprehensible, but Castellucci does relate Mozart's Magic Flute to our experiences of the world today and that is bound to be more meaningful than any play on ancient masonic rituals, magic and obscure symbolism (not that Castellucci doesn't have even more obscure symbolism of his own).

So no, there's no serpent slain by Tamino and there's no traditional depiction of the three ladies. There's actually four here in the first Act and four boys too which totally screws up the numerology which is often considered to be important in the work. But is it really? By changing the numbers, Romeo Castellucci is able to steer the work in a new direction, one where symmetry and mirroring takes its place. There is certainly this contrasting of two sides of one human nature (an important aspect that Castellucci takes pains later to ensure is not neglected) in the divisions of the Königin/Sarastro, Tamino/Pamina, Papageno/Papagena, in male/female, in lightness/darkness, in rationalism/obscurantism, in good/evil.

It's also there in the division and structure of the opera itself and Castellucci contrasts the two Acts in a way that highlights aspects of the opera quite unlike anyone else has done before. Act I is all elegance, beauty, balance and symmetry in a uniform haze of brilliant white; by no means the obvious way to reflect this half of the opera, but if you like you can see it as a visual representation of Mozart's music itself. That's emphasised by the costumes which are period 18th century frock coats and powdered wigs. Papageno is indistinguishable from Tamino in identical elaborate costumes and there isn't a single scene, action or gesture that reflects the familiar course of the opera's dramatic action. You can be damned sure that there's going to be no actual magic flute or glockenspiel.

Instead figures move around in an elaborately choreographed display of symmetrical precision, with rotating patterns of white masked dancers, some topless with feather headdresses and fans like something out of the Crazy Horse in Paris. Architect Michael Hansmeyer's set designs however continue to accumulate detail, building up into an elaborate wedding cake or the stucco interior of some impossibly grand white cathedral. It is an extraordinary display, utterly beautiful, daring to ignore adherence to any traditional depiction of the drama in favour of just highlighting the elegance and beauty and symmetry in Mozart's music. It's something that is enhanced - or works both ways - with the nimble musical performance from the orchestra pit under Antonello Manacorda emphasising the melodic brilliance and effervescence with a wonderful lightness of touch.

As extraordinarily beautiful as it all looks, it's also a very cold and sterile way to approach Mozart and The Magic Flute, but of course that's only half the story. In direct contrast to elaborate representation of the music in Act I, Castellucci brings the work down to earth in Act II with a depiction of the human reality that can also be found in Die Zauberflöte which might otherwise be lost amidst all the comedy, symbolism and ritualism. Similar to his last production at La Monnaie, Orphée et Eurydice, Castellucci brings the experiences of real ordinary people in to highlight the underlying human reality of the questions of the trials endured by Tamino and Papageno. A group of six women talk about their personal experience of blindness and living in darkness, and a group of six men talk about surviving horrific burns in a 'trial of fire'.

In contrast to Act I the second half is depicted in mundane real-world terms in a warehouse environment, the glamorous fairy-tale white period costumes swapped for identical yellow-brown factory worker overalls and yellow-blond wigs. The performances are more dramatically realistic, you can at least sometimes tell characters apart from the labels on their back and there's even an actual flute! Inevitably there's a lot more than this in the production and as is often the case with Castellucci it goes off in all kinds of weird directions. Mirroring/contrasting the opening of the first Act, for example, the second part opens with lactating mothers pumping breast milk - for real - into it bottles that are subsequently emptied into another glass tube by the Queen of the Night, the action accompanied by some obscure text that presents a different perspective on the less than flattering idea of motherhood traditionally represented by Königin der Nacht in the opera.

In this way, Castellucci actually deconstructs Die Zauberflöte entirely, separating the work down into its component parts, none of which on their own are convincing or satisfactory but which when played through to the end do nonetheless still manage to capture the totality of what is in the opera. It's highly doubtful that the work needs to be deconstructed in this manner or even benefits from it in any way when it's all there already in the genius of Mozart's blending of all its elements, but it does highlight aspects that we (or other directors) might neglect though familiarity. The 'real-people's lives' human element while looking initially like a frustrating diversion, turns out to be very moving, so there is a case to be made for it.

Evidently as far as stage direction, concept and interpretation go this is not a Magic Flute for everyone and, despite its fidelity to the themes in the work and its underlying humanity, it can't be said that it respects Mozart's intentions. In terms of musical and singing performances however it's hard to fault. The orchestra highlight that compositional and melodic brilliance in the first half and seem to find the human warm in the opera in the second half. The casting is an outstanding collection of lyrical Mozartian voices with Ed Lyon as Tamino, Sabine Devieilhe a lighter than usual but eminently capable Königin der Nacht, Gábor Bretz a fine Sarastro, Sophie Karthäuser an impressive Pamina, Georg Nigl and Elena Galitskaya fulfilling the roles of Papageno and Papagena well, each of them at least brilliantly distinguishable from their voices if not always in appearance or role-playing.

Links: La Monnaie-DeMunt, ARTE Concert

Mozart - Lucio Silla (Brussels, 2017)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Lucio Silla

La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels - 2017

Antonello Manacorda, Tobias Kratzer, Jeremy Ovenden, Lenneke Ruiten, Anna Bonitatibus, Simona Šaturová, Llse Eerens, Carlo Allemano

ARTE Concert - 9 November 2017

I'm all in favour of a bit of imaginative reinterpretation when it comes to Mozart's early opera serias. There are musical pleasures and much to admire in juvenile works like Lucio Silla, but without some creative direction the plots can be more than a little hard to digest. There's not a great deal in the way of psychological insight into human behaviour in Lucio Silla other than generalisations about the exercise of power and the strength of true love. There's little dramatic action and the sentiments and situations are drawn out to tortuous length in repetitive da capo arias. As my most recent experience of Lucio Silla at the 2017 Buxton Festival confirmed, it can be tough going if there's not a bit of thought put into making it relevant, interesting and engaging.

If it's radical adventurous reinterpretation and modernisation you are looking for, La Monnaie in Brussels is the place that is likely to not only provide it but push it to its limits and often succeed in revitalising works in the most unlikely of ways. Tobias Kratzer's production - modern inevitably - attempts to put the work in a context that we might be more familiar with than the historical events in Rome in 82 BC, because evidently, Lucio Silla, composed by a 16 year old Mozart in 1772 is much more than a history lesson; it has wider and usually somewhat more generalised points to make about the nature of power, love and conscience. Tobias Kratzer's job is to make that feel a bit more real and immediate.

There's a short video sequence that plays out during the overture, a montage of jump cuts that blend images of Kennedy, Putin, Trump and Kim Jun-Il mixed in with nightmarish and seemingly random elements that are going to play a larger role in the La Monnaie production - oysters, knives, blood, security cameras and cross-dressing dolls. Essentially, the impression it gives is one of power, indulgence and violence, and that certainly characterises the lifestyle of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, or Lucio Silla, or whichever modern face you want to put on him. Silla's petulant warning that "Whoever refuses to love me should fear me" certainly has a sinister resonance with some of those figures mentioned above.

The set itself exerts a suitably imposing presence. In the opening scene, Cecilio, the exiled Roman Senator, approaches a set of security gates patrolled by a guard dog protecting the grounds of Lucio Silla's residence. The majority of the subsequent drama - mainly between Silla and Giunia who the dictator has been trying to woo by letting her believe that Cecilio is dead - takes place within the elegantly fitted rooms of this mansion. The stage rotates to present different views of rooms, with plenty of visual variety to make up for the lack of drama. The graveyard where Cecilio and Giunia meet is at the back of the house, presenting another sinister dimension to the mood of the proceedings.

I say 'lack of drama' and that at least is usually the case with Lucio Silla. Not much happens apart from confrontations and declarations that never really come to anything, either on the part of Giunia and Cecilio's threats, or between Cinna and Celia whose loyalty to Silla conflicts with their own interests/love. Celia indeed has a strange role in this production, playing with dolls and a doll house, and she seems to have a rather disturbing idea of happy families. It's not always clear what the purpose of some of the ideas are, but clearly Kratzer wants to make sure that realise that all these feelings come from a very real place. Using security camera footage depicting physical abuse and even rape, the production really gets to the true nature of Silla's attempts to what is usually described rather more circumspectly as 'win' Giunia. The reality is a lot uglier than this phrase suggests.

None of this matters if you can't put on a musical performance that is just as engaging and invigorating, that puts a real human experience behind the rather manufactured drama. La Monnaie's cast fortunately are exceptionally good at keeping up with the driving rhythmic intensity of Antonello Manacorda's musical direction. More than anything you can put into modernising the production or even in any depth that you can seek to bring out of Mozart's musical score, it's conviction in the dramatic and the singing performances that count here. In opera seria, the sentiments around love are almost life or death matters and you really feel that here.

There are no opera seria mannerisms in the singing here, each of the performers are fully involved in the roles, projecting the challenging arias (and challenge of dramatic conviction) with extraordinary intensity. This is a production that is centered on Giunia and so particularly reliant on Lenneke Ruiten's performance to give a sense of something really meaningful being at stake. It's an outstanding performance, Ruiten utterly committed and engaging, impressively navigating the fiendish coloratura in arias like 'Ah se il crudel periglio'. Her intensity is matched however in Jeremy Ovenden's Lucio Silla, in Anna Bonitatibus's Cecilio and in Simona Šaturová's Cinna.

As much as the director tries to make this relatable in a modern-day context there is one aspect of human behaviour from ancient Roman times that proves impossible to 'translate'. It may be true that Lucius Cornelius Sulla had a crisis of conscience, regretted his actions and stepped down from power for the greater good, but it's hard to imagine Trump or any other modern politician doing the decent thing in the present day. If La Monnaie production does no more than gives pause to consider the implications of what that says about us as a civilised society today, then it's still made a significant point.

Links: La Monnaie-De Munt, ARTE Concert

Janáček - The Cunning Little Vixen (Brussels, 2017)

Leoš Janáček - The Cunning Little Vixen

La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels - 2017

Antonello Manacorda, Christophe Coppens, Andrew Schroeder, Lenneke Ruiten, Sara Fulgoni, John Graham-Hall, Alexander Vassiliev, Vincent Le Texier, Yves Saelens, Mireille Capelle, Eleonore Maguerre, Maria Portela Larisch, Logan Lopez Gonzalez, Marion Bauwens, Kris Belligh

ARTE Concert - March 2017

In theory I like the way that La Monnaie actually take the animals out of their 2017 production of Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen, since the anthropomorphised creatures of the opera are really meant to teach us about human life. Yes, I'm aware that this seems to go against the whole purpose of the work being an allegory in the first place, but the danger with The Cunning Little Vixen is that the baby animals either make the work too cutesy trying to talk down to a younger audience or risk missing the point entirely. The Cunning Little Vixen can be a good opera for young children, but making the opera suitable for that particular audience can involve some amount of compromise.

In practice however, director Christophe Coppens' modernisation and de-animalisation of the work does also involve some measure of compromise with the original intentions of the work, to the extent that it almost - but not quite - distorts the meaning of the work; if you can even figure out what it is trying to achieve. In recognition perhaps that this version doesn't present the work entirely the way that Janáček intended, and does involve some reworking of the libretto (in the translation at least, but not in the actual sung text), the La Monnaie production of The Cunning Little Vixen is prefaced by the title Foxie!

It's not long before you recognise how much the original storyline is distorted in 'Foxie!'. The Forester in this version is something of a security guard for a school, with monitors in his office to keep an eye on the children going wild outside on a summer evening. The groups of children have their own little groups and cliques that match the creatures of the animal kingdom. Foxie is a young red-head girl phoning home for her 'Mami', but unable to get through, so the Security guy takes her across the way to a cafe. When he sees that Foxie still hasn't been picked up and is somewhat in distress, he brings her back to the control room and leads her to a backroom. Then it all goes a bit David Lynch.

The immediate problem that tends to go against the grain of the original to a worrying degree is that it changes the Forester capturing a fox into what looks like a case of child abduction and molestation. Foxie is introduced not into a yard with hens and a cockerel lording it over them, but some kind of surreal brothel from which she eventually escapes. This is definitely not a 'kiddie' version of The Cunning Little Vixen. Arguably, you could wonder whether that is not the underlying context of Janáček's version, which does indeed have a sexual undercurrent that is often played upon in other productions, but it still doesn't feel comfortable in this presentation. But I don't think it's meant to be comfortable, and Janáček's opera certainly doesn't offer any illusions about the harshness and cruelty of nature, and the nature of men.

While some of the imagery is indeed Lynchian, looking like it is a nightmare taken from 'Inland Empire', it's used to suggest a conflict in generational outlooks rather than attempt to probe split personalities or a mind in conflict with itself. There is also something of a Stefan Herheim feel to the production that is similar to his treatment of Rusalka at La Monnaie, where the water nymph was also a prostitute in an similarly elaborate street-scene production. The key difference however is that Herheim uses such techniques to delve beneath the surface of the fantasy to attempt to probe the underlying source or psychology of the story, either from what it tells us about the origins of the fairy-tale or what it tells us about the author and composer. In The Cunning Little Vixen the allegory is already there to allow us to explore and consider the underlying meaning, so any attempt by Christophe Coppens to change that risks altering its message.

But perhaps that's for a good reason. If there is a way of making sense of this production it's perhaps viewing the older Foxie as someone who is being persecuted by society for living an alternative lifestyle. That certainly is one notable change that is made in the subtitles, when Foxie accuses the poacher Harašta of wanting to kill her simply because she is different. That works with Foxie's back-to-nature fondness for the woods, living outside of conventional society. There also seems to be an emphasis on how her unconventional relationship with Goldie scandalises the neighbours, since there is little attempt here to make Goldie a male fox. You have to wonder whether the composer didn't intentionally score the role for a female to provoke just such a scandalous pairing, so there is validity in the production taking this path. The rather heavy petting that goes on between the two women does push this further than you might expect, so definitely not for the kids this one.

The question of how they produce cubs - such an essential element of the cycle of life that is the central theme of the work - is neatly covered by Foxie going on to become a gym teacher for a sports team of young girls. And it is all about allowing the younger generation to live free from the shackles of the tradition and morality of the previous generation, something that doesn't always come across in a more literal adaptation. Whether you find this all as an awkward attempt to fit an unwieldy, contradictory and often inexplicable concept on top of a work that has no real need to have any additional levels added to it, or whether you view the concept as having something meaningful to say about social change and tolerance being a necessary part of the cycle of life from one generation to the next, it does come up with a number of clever ways to make it work together, even if it takes it all a little further than Janáček might have intended.

The unconventional production certainly doesn't interfere in any way with the quality of the singing and musical performance. If anything, it gives the performances a youthful freshness and an extra edge. The role of Vixen/Foxie is sung exceptionally well by Lenneke Ruiten - one of the best performances I've heard of this role in recent times. The Forester is a rather more ambiguous figure in this production, but even there Andrew Schroeder makes it work and even come across as quite touching. There are no weak points anywhere else, all of the roles sung tremendously well. Antonello Manacorda's conducts the orchestra of La Monnaie and it's a vibrant, detailed and sensitive reading of the score that retains the rhythmic pulse and also recognises the folk elements of Janáček's brilliant, hypnotic score.

Links: La Monnaie-De Munt, ARTE Concert