Die schlaue Füchsin

Janáček got the inspiration for the story about a young vixen who comes into contact with the human world from a newspaper comic. Nevertheless, The Cunning Vixen is not a playful fairytale opera, on the contrary. Two worlds collide, that of the animals and that of the humans. The community around the forester and his family as well as the other villagers is cruel and at the same time full of longing for a better life - but who has the answer to the question of what a real life is like? Janáček succeeds in exploring the animal in man and the human in the animal, thus holding up a mirror to us. Almost 101 years to the day after its premiere in Brno in 1924, Stephan Kimmig now turns his attention to an opera full of contrasts and the longing to find a place where one can live free of rules, following The Prince of Homburg and Das Rheingold. But does this place even exist?

Opera in three acts
Libretto by the composer based on the story Liška Bystrouška by Rudolf Těsnohlídek

by Leoš Janáček