Funding for this program is provided by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.

The Daniel and Ann Krumm Charitable Trust, supporting programming for citizenship, education and the arts.

♪♪ Support for this program has been provided by the David Gooch family, in loving memory of Joan Gooch, to support programming that highlights performance arts on Iowa PBS.

♪♪ ♪♪ [David Neely] The opera begins with a yearning orchestral interlude with this little kind of prickly almost insect kind of sound.

It feels like we're being drawn into a natural world of some sort.

[Kristine McIntyre] This was an exercise in world building.

All good theater is an exercise in world building.

But something like this, creating this forest with these animals I think even more so than other things that we've done.

♪♪ [Michael Egel] We're always looking for new pieces to bring to our audiences that they have never seen before.

We know that Iowa has a substantial population of Czech and Czech descendants.

And so, doing works by a very distinctive Czech composer is always an appealing thing.

Janacek in particular is a remarkable composer.

He's actually one of my favorites, completely distinctive, and this particular opera, The Cunning Little Vixen, is even more unusual than all of his operas.

♪♪ [Neely] Janáek composed his first opera at 40 years old.

He was one of the greatest opera composers of all time.

Janáek's music is always extremely difficult for orchestras.

The technical aspect of it is always highly demanding, but takes a wide imagination, it takes an incredible technical command, it takes incredible stamina.

[McIntyre] Janáek loved nature.

I feel like some of the animals have more humanity than the humans in the piece are able to express.

It's almost like the humans have forgotten their nature.

You actually go through two complete years in the course of this opera.

It's amazing how we can now integrate all of these digital technologies into our theatrical storytelling.

[Oyoram] You know, the introduction of LED image panel on stage, it means for me as a visual artist, that I can follow the music.

We have behind the actor, behind the singer a background that is moving and I think that this is the most challenging and also innovative approach that we can see in this production.

We have the upper scale, which is the human scale, and then the camera goes down to discover the insect and animal scale.

All of this is very complex work actually.

This art, this visual art that I'm doing is leaning on technology that we have to master as well.

♪♪ [McIntyre] Vita's animal clothes are very vibrant.

The human clothes are by design a pale imitation of that.

It is reflected in what Janáek gives them to say and to sing.

♪♪ [Vita Tzykun] One of the most exciting elements of the profession of a designer for a stage is that place where the imagination has to marry the functionality.

(singing in Czech) [Tzykun] In the Vixen's costume as well as in the Fox's costume there was a lot of Czech inspired detailing that I really enjoyed.

(singing in Czech) [Hera Hyesang Park] Janáek's The Cunning Little Vixen was the most challenging role I've ever sung in my life.

When I'm on the stage, I give everything.

I'm not wasting anything.

And I play fully because I don't want to regret, I don't want to fake, I want to be the Vixen.

(singing in Czech) [Park] In the beginning of the scene it's like, you know, Korean rapper.

(laughs) It's so quick, so fast.

♪♪ [Park] That's the first one.

And this was so difficult.

(singing in Czech) [Sun-Ly Pierce] I think singing the role of the Fox is a huge bucket list item for me.

My experience performing in Czech for this show was very positive.

I think everyone recognizes the challenges that come with this language.

(singing in Czech) [Pierce] Like it's a slow cooked brisket bake I think to get a language like this because it just, you need time.

There's so many sounds and like consonant formations that we just don't have in English.

(singing in Czech) [Roland Wood] It's a heightened and stylized world.

The way that the digital panels work in relation with the physical parts of the set, it's a magical performance space.

(singing in Czech) [Wood] I think we've created a very clear telling of the story.

The chemistry within the cast, the casting, the quality of the singing, the quality of the music making is very high.

And I think it's the kind of experience that you don't get very often and I'm very, very grateful to be part of it.

♪♪ [McIntyre] If there's one thing I could tell people, especially maybe non-opera or opera curious people, about Vixen it is that this is a magical world and if you give yourself over to it I think that this production in particular and Janáek in general and always will take you some place you didn't even know that you wanted to go.

It's really about creating a place where you can be transported.

♪♪ And now, Des Moines Metro Opera presents The Cunning Little Vixen.

And now, exclusive insights from some of the creators and principle cast members of Des Moines Metro Opera presents The Cunning Little Vixen.

Then, stay tuned for the entire cast to take the stage for the curtain call.

♪♪ [Kristine McIntyre] There are a lot of ways of looking at The Cunning Little Vixen, but my favorite is that it is the journey of a woman's discovery of herself and her purpose in the world.

You know, we meet her as a child, take her through adolescence and then to motherhood.

It feels like a very complete story in many ways.

We have worked very hard and brought incredible resources to bear to create a really complete and immersive world for the audience.

[Michael Egel] This is the second opera that we have worked on with Oyoram, who is a visual composer, together with Kristine McIntyre and the rest of the design team.

We have Luke Canterella, who is an incredible scenic designer and Kate Ashton, a remarkable lighting designer.

Their work has to all unite harmoniously with Oyoram's work.

We always want to be stretching and trying new things and pushing the artform.

Technology is a part of our world and it needs to be part of the opera world as well.

Some operas lend themselves to that more than others and certainly Bluebeard's Castle, which we did in 2023, was one of those.

And we believe that The Cunning Little Vixen is an opera in which the technological aspects of the production are additive to the storytelling.

♪♪ [McIntyre] One of the great things about working with Oyoram here in Des Moines is that he has a digital film studio right in his house.

And he loves having us come up and see what it is we can film with all of his fancy technology that we can then integrate into the opera.

[Vita Tzykun] Designing the dragonfly was particularly interesting because this costume went on a professional dancer that actually dances a lot throughout the show.

And one of the more challenging pieces that we had to figure out how to develop is her head mask because dragonflies have these large eyes, but then the dancer also needs to see where she's going.

[Oyoram] I think that it's important to create balance and the balance to the viewer is the storytelling.

So, when the background should not move, it doesn't move, because then we are in front and we see our fantastic actor and singer performing.

We are submitted to the time that is given us by the orchestra and the singer and the breathing.

It's biological events, you know.

So, this for me was discovering that actually the whole movie is fragmented to smaller clips that are touched to each other and in this way allowed us to master time.

(singing in Czech) [David Neely] Most of the vocal writing is actually based on the melodies and rhythms of speech.

In a lot of opera, you might take one word and sing that word over several notes.

But in Janáek there is usually a one to one note to syllable correspondence.

(singing in Czech) [David Neely] It's a collective storytelling experience and opera is always like that, but it feels particularly visceral here in our theatre and I feel blessed to get to work with such talented and engaged musicians.

[Sun-Ly Pierce] There is no bad guy.

Everyone is coming at this messy world that collides from a very real experience that isn't necessarily good or bad.

The moral of the story and the cyclical nature of the story it invites the listener to contemplate the impact that our different perspectives have on each other.

I think the opera is really at its core like a really empathic story.

[McIntyre] We first meet the young vixen as a child and then we meet her daughter in the final scene and so you get built right into the storytelling this amazing sense of the cycle of life.

The little frog that sings at the end is meant to be the grandchild of the original frog, a revelation that sends the forester into a state of kind of Buddhistic bliss as he understands that there is this interconnectedness of all things.

[Roland Wood] The line, is it a fairy tale or is it real, it comes in the final scene of the opera.

When he finds out that the vixen has been killed, I think suddenly feels very old, very alone and depressed.

And then when he arrives in the woods, he finds himself reenergized and recharged.

By the time he gets into the woods it's like, you know what, life isn't that bad.

Yes, I'm not 25 anymore, but actually I've gained a wider knowledge and experience and appreciation of the life and the world around me.

[Hera Hyesang Park] We are such important individuals.

Everybody is so special.

But we are also very small compared to the world.

There is always greater than us.

The most fascinating thing in this entire performing in my opinion, at the end of Vixen's death there is no grand finale because music has to continue and life has to continue.

I think everyone has their wild in us.

I think that is the metaphor of this opera, just bring your wildness, bring your freedom.

Don't be so wimp in life.

Be vulnerable and dare to live fully and love it, then you will find your peace.

♪♪ Funding for this program is provided by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.

The Daniel and Ann Krumm Charitable Trust, supporting programming for citizenship, education and the arts.

♪♪ Support for this program has been provided by the David Gooch family, in loving memory of Joan Gooch, to support programming that highlights performance arts on Iowa PBS.

♪♪