Reviews of The Cunning Little Vixen, RCM 2025
For an opera that enchants even at first encounter, the challenge of actually staging The Cunning Little Vixen is a tricky one. It can fox directors who struggle to marry the feral romanticism of Janáček’s score with the amoral instincts of its animal protagonists. Lean too far into the cute and it can become saccharine; embrace the savagery and you can snap the thread an audience needs in order to build sympathy for Vixen Sharp-Ears, her family and other animals. The only course that works is to tell the story straight - more David Attenborough that Beatrix Potter - which is what Orpha Phelan did in her spellbinding production for the RCM.
Not for one second did this feel like a student show. The professional production team took their work seriously, from the exquisitely conceived insects, buzzed in from Rambert Dance and exhilaratingly choreographed by Adam Haigh, to the designer Nate Gibson's spectacular settings, which rose up in a moving forest of chairs in order to evoke the opera's range of bucolic locations, and incidentally to accommodate the twinkling beauty of Mark Johathan's vivd lighting.
This magical production is a tribute to British musical education at the highest level.
Mark Valencia, Opera Magazine
This youthful, spirited staging of Janáček’s folk-inflected opera - the Royal College of Music opera studio’s production of this cycle-of-life work found simple solutions in a beguiling staging, conducted by Michael Rosewell and directed by Orpha Phelan. Her experience – at Irish National Opera and elsewhere, harnessed to talented performers on the threshold of careers – led to spirited results.
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen requires a certain amount of imagination from the audience, and a cast to encourage it. An ideal opera for young singers to explore 20th Century post-modernist opera, it also makes certain demands - to embody the physicality of animals, to continue a narrative through episodic storytelling and to convey the parallels and differences between man and nature. The Royal College of Music’s production met these demands, with a whimsical yet grounded performance, showcasing the compelling creativity of the ensemble.
Lauren Mcquistin, Opera Now