This opening production with direction by Stefan Herheim as new Artistic Director of the Theater an der Wien, offers a kaleidoscope of images, associations, and subject matter which draw from and are interwoven - not just with the essence of this late Janáček work - but through a biographical thread in which the composer is granted active physical participation in the staging as an additional character.

The venue; Vienna’s Messe Palast (the Company’s temporary home for the next two years while the mother house undergoes a full renovation) provides generous (if rather elevated) space for the orchestra, a stage of impressive proportions with a revolving platform, and a deep and heavily-raked auditorium which apparently features sound enhancement, as a promising basis for forthcoming ventures.

This show opens in exposing the entire stage as a stage workshop; meta-theatre, which serves an evening of stark moments featuring Janáček himself meandering throughout the action, sometimes as participant, sometimes as an onlooker. Skittish, at times distrustful, he draws the main “forest” curtain to present a scene, on occasion taking notation of animal song, or observing the action below as he gently swings on an illuminated Crescent Moon. 

Particularly effective and touching is the scene in which a symbolic all-black ballet fitted in tutus, kilts and classical western attire frees the Vixen from the Forester’s shackles. 

Quirky, and a stab at Women’s Lib; the egg-laying hens producing costumes at a factory line of sewing machines, while the Rooster eventually finds his demise unceremoniously in a wheelie bin. 
And (in echoing the libretto reference to the Vixen one day herself becoming the actual subject of an opera) the surreal appearance of famous couples from the standard repertoire (Turandot, Butterfly, Aida, Der Rosankavalier and more) who are mowed into spiralling glitter by an enormous harvester fitted with blades of music manuscript, while just leaving sufficient flesh for Harašta to sew together a monstrous figure of his desire. 

The finale sees The Forester taking on the guise of a sculptor completing a giant human heart - which ultimately serves to enshrine an inebriated Janáček (who during his final years had lost his heart to Kamila Stösslová in unrequited love).

Herheim and Silke Bauer (staging) - who co-operated in this year’s new Peter Grimes production at the Bavarian State Opera - have, together with the company’s resident dramaturgist, Kai Wessler, produced an evening of much entertainment value and unquestionable food for thought - if not always appetizing! Taut and vital choreography by Beata Vollack, slick and imaginative costumes by Doris Maria Aigner, and atmospheric Lighting by Paul Grilj equally rose to the occasion. 

All the characters were carefully formed by the director, with French soprano Mélissa Petit as the Vixen (familiar for her recent Michaëla and Gilda at the Bregenz Festival as well as for appearances at last year’s Salzburg Whitsun Festival), oozing saucy charm in her “Blondie” T-shirt and providing a fair share of fine lyrical singing in the title role.

Ya-Chung Huang was given deserved opportunity to display his remarkably agile stage craft as the Composer as well as the Schoolmaster, the Dachshund, the Rooster, the Mosquito, and the Woodpecker - while displaying a character tenor of exceptional power and clarity.

Milan Siljanov’s Forrester impressed with his vocal brawn - if rather failing to win empathy and captivate emotionally, while Jana Kurucová’s Fox (announced as suffering a throat infection) paired confidently and charmingly with the Vixen.  

Strong contributions too by Marcell Bakonyi as Harašta, and Levente Páll in his double-up as the Badger and Parson, as well as by the ensemble which featured the Arnold Schoenberg Chor (in keeping with Theater an der Wien tradition).

Giedrė Šlekytė and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra produced a wealth of superbly-balanced support - opulent, yet finely-detailed and unfailingly magnanimous and congruent with the cast.