Janáček's Vixen Sharpears has been making streamlined runs between eight Irish cities and towns, no doubt winning new admirers for this singular take on man, nature and the cycle of life. The chamber concept has some problems, but the 13-piece orchestra still makes beautiful work of a ravishing score under Charlotte Corderoy, the voices all project perfectly over it and the basic set design by Maree Kearns is impressive given its need to fit into diverse smaller theatres.
It's always a tricky work to bring off in all its aspects: not really a children's opera, despite the picturbook costumes by Saileóg O'Halloran, and problematic when Janáček wants to stress the disillusionment and ultimately the reconciliation with nature of ageing humankind. That couldn't really be stressed here given a young, robust Forester and a Schoolmaster who is anything but dried-out and stick-thin, though both baritone Benjamin Russell and tenor William Pearson (pictured below centre and right with William Platt's Priest left) sing handsomely.
Fortunately, despite the casual sexism of the men, the women are perfect in every respect even when one of them is a feminine male fox, filling the Pavilion Theatre Dún Laoghaire with passion and tenderness. Amber Norelai's Vixen gets her prefect mate in Vixen Goldspur, the equally ardent Jade Phoenix (the two pictured below). No abrupt vulpine rutting here; the courtship is moving to tears, as it should be. It's eventually set against the threat of the dark huntsman/poacher Harašta, the resonant bass James Platt, who also gives us a truculent Badger and a disillusioned Priest (usually those two roles are doubled, not the third as well).
One of the gaps in Sophie Motley's hit-and-miss production is when Harašta takes aim at an overconfident vixen. In the libretto, he fails and only accidentally hits her, concealed in a cloud of feathers, with another shot. Here she's standing there for about a minute, crying out "shoot me", so he does. But then the pithiniess of Neil O'Driscoll's projection design kicks in, with more bloodsplatter. That's amusingly applied to the unlucky hens of the Forester's coop in Scene 2 - usually the Vixen's picking them off is unclear - and O'Driscoll does a splendid stream of piss when the Vixen sprays the Badger's lair to take it for her own. The silhouettes have the naive charm of Hans Christian Andersen's woodcuts, a contrast to the more Franz Marc-like tableaux; Sarah Jane Shiels' lighting also conjures the necessary seasons. It's also a joy to hear the text in pithy English translation - good craic, as Motley puts in - with a few lively tweaks applied to the words of Robert T. Jones and Yveta Synek Graff. And yes, the audience did laugh a lot.
This is a real triumph for Corderoy and her chamber ensemble (the size of Britten's made-for-touring masterpieces, one of which, The Turn of the Screw, Corderoy conducted for ENO). Tempi in the first scene are very broad, allowing for an exquisite flute cadenza from Meadbh O'Rourke, but the action picks up and the drunken antics of the blokes wandering through the sunflower field, who can usually outstay their welcome, get brisk and vivacious treatment. The string quintet gives us some special beauties, though as the textures open up more in the great last act, we do miss the full orchestra. But it's all beautifully prepared, exactly the sort of thing ENO should have been doing this season instead of entrusting all its work to big theatres.
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