Performance Date
Saturday, May 11, 2024, 2:30pm
Friday, May 17, 2024, 7:30pm
Sunday, May 19, 2024, 2:30pm
Location
Detroit Opera House
1526 Broadway St.
Detroit, MI 48226
Detroit Opera's 2023–24 season closes May 11–19 with Leoš Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen. Human and animal worlds collide in this enchanting, cinematic modern fable about a clever vixen who tries to outwit her captors. Music Director Roberto Kalb conducts, and Artistic Director Yuval Sharon directs his production from The Cleveland Orchestra, which uses playful projections to transform singers into forest creatures, with hand-crafted animations that evoke the fable’s comic-strip origins.
"We are inviting the audience into a deeper reflection of how we interact with nature, think about nature, these forces—animals, trees, the seasons, our relation to the ever-shifting natural world,” says Sharon.
This will be the first Detroit performance of one of Leoš Janáček’s great works; the score features some of the most beautiful music ever written.
“This is incredibly family-friendly, and is so fun and mesmerizing,” says Kalb. “And the cast is spectacular—I truly think that no theater in the world can boast a better cast than Detroit Opera.”
Sung in Czech with English supertitles
A Cleveland Orchestra production
Creative Team
Music by: Leoš Janáček
Director: Yuval Sharon
Conductor: Roberto Kalb
Libretto by: Janáček, based on a story by Rudolf Těsnohlídek
Animation creation: Walter Robot Studios (Bill Barminsky & Christopher Louie)
Projection and lighting design: Jason H. Thompson
Costume design: Ann Closs-Farley
Mask design: Cristina Waltz
Cast
Michael Sumuel, bass-baritone, The Forester
Samantha Hankey, mezzo-soprano, Fox Golden-Strip (Lisak)
Mané Galoyan, soprano, The Vixen (Sly Little Fox)
Alex Rosen, bass, The Parson
David Cangelosi, tenor, Schoolmaster/Mosquito
Andrew Potter, bass, Harasta
Rehanna Thelwell, mezzo-soprano, Forester’s Wife/Woodpecker
Elizabeth Polese, soprano, The Rooster