With "The Cunning Little Vixen", the Landestheater Detmold brings a poetic yet profound masterpiece by Leoš Janáček to the stage. In a multifaceted mixture of animal fable, social satire and nature symbolism, an opera full of vitality, melancholy and musical lightness unfolds - a touching experience for opera lovers of all ages.
A young vixen is captured by a forester. On his farm she grows up to be a strong and independent vixen, stirs up the chickens to revolution and bites the rooster's throat. She escapes into the wild, drives the badger out of his cave, marries the fox, gives birth to an incalculable number of offspring and is finally shot by the poacher.
A vixen shows people what it means to live: Behind the seemingly naïve events of the opera lie great thoughts on (in)transience and the eternal cycle of nature and life, which Janáček poured into a score in 1924 at the age of almost 70. No other of his works is as imbued with humor and naturalness as this one. You can hear insects buzzing, chickens clucking and frogs croaking - the whole of forest life is set to music. Janáček's cheeky and melancholy music, which has grown out of Moravian folk music, holds up a mirror to us: How do we treat nature? How do we want to live together? An opera for young and old.
Premiere December 5, 2025
Further performances: December 7, 10, 11, 19 and 26, 2025, January 14, 28 and 31, February 1 and 7, March 18 and 21, 2026
