This new film of Janáček's opera The Cunning Little Vixen was shown on the BBC a few years ago. It is available on DVD, and be purchased via the Discography page. This magical new version of Janáček's much-loved opera has been specially created for BBC Television. It combines the talents of international conductor Kent Nagano and acclaimed animation designer and director Geoff Dunbar. The visual style is derived from the drawings by Stanisláv Lolek in the original 1920s newspaper strip which inspired Janáček to write the opera.

Kent Nagano and Christophe Durrant have created a new edition of the music, which is performed by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and an international cast of young soloists from the European Opera Centre, including Christine Buffle, Grant Doyle, Richard Coxon and Keel Watson, with Blue Peter presenter Matt Baker singing the role of Lapák the Dog. They are joined by singers from the New London Children's Choir and the BBC Singers.


Some things you might want to know about Janáček and his opera

• Leoš Janáček was born, the ninth of thirteen children, on 3 July 1854 in a village called Hukvaldy in the Northern Part of the Czech Republic. His father was a teacher at the local school. Although he spent the first years of his life deep in the Czech countryside, he went to boarding school in the city of Brno, where he was a choir boy at the Monastery. After finishing he studies Janáček himself took over running the choir and started composing music for them.

• Although Janáček spent most of his early life writing music, it wasn’t until his 1904 opera Jenůfa that he was really well-known. After the opera was performed at the main National Theatre in Prague in 1916, Janáček became a celebrity and his music soon started to be performed further a field. Spurred on by his success, Janáček started to compose countless more pieces, of which the opera The Cunning Little Vixen is one.

• The Cunning Little Vixen is based on a cartoon which was printed in Janáček’s local paper in Brno. He found out about the cheeky little cartoons when his maid laughed so loudly it disturbed him from composing in the next room. He then went on to collect all the cartoons, and the following year, when a novel of the cartoons was published, the composer started to write his opera.

• When Janáček began writing an opera about little Vixen Sharp Ears he went back to his birthplace in Hukvaldy (where he had bought a small cottage) to listen to the birds singing and watch the foxes playing in the woods. Janáček wasn’t used to being camouflaged so the animals couldn’t see him and one time he set off dressed in a white suit. His friends laughed at his clothing, so he changed into something less bright. When they eventually found the foxes Janáček fidgeted so much that he frightened them all away.

• Janáček completed The Cunning Little Vixen in 1924 at the age of seventy. He went on to compose two more operas, The Makropulos Case, about a 335-year-old woman, and From the House of the Dead, about a prison in Siberia in Russia, but The Cunning Little Vixen always remained very dear to him. When he died in 1928 the final scene of the opera was played at his funeral. Today, near where Janáček was born in Hukvaldy (and where he went to see the foxes playing in the woods) there is a statue of Vixen Sharp-Ears.


Order the new DVD of the film by clicking here

The DVD also includes:
• Award-winning animator Geoff Dunbar and the making of The Cunning Little Vixen
• Illustrated booklet in three languages (GB/D/F)

More information on the DVD can be found at the BBC Opus Arte website.