Janácek - The Cunning Little Vixen / Nicholas Hytner · Sir Charles Mackerras · Thomas Allen · Eva Jenis · Tháâtre du Chatelet

Sharp-Ears is not only cuddly and anthropomorphic, attuned to nature, capable of love, and even maternal, she is also clever, mischievous, and utterly unscrupulous, willing to massacre a whole flock of chickens when the opportunity arrives. In short, one of opera's great, ambiguous female characters and one of the most difficult to portray. Eva Jenis does a marvelous job, as do Hana Mutillo as her foxy lover and Thomas Allen in the leading human role. Some of the music's best moments are wordless, as might be expected in an opera with more animals than humans in its cast. Much of the production's attraction depends on the dancers, costumed as a dog, a frog, a mosquito, chickens, dragonflies, etc. Being danced by humans, these varied species are all of roughly the same size, but clever costuming makes their identities generally clear. Particularly impressive is a mosquito who has a red-tipped hypodermic needle for a nose. --Joe McLellan