Das schlaue Füchslein

In the organizer's words:

The Cunning Little Vixen

by Leoš Janáček (1924)

A moment of carelessness leads a young vixen into captivity. She grows up on a forester's farm, among the forester's children who tease her, a dachshund who feels misunderstood and a flock of chickens whose eagerness to serve only invites the vixen to give in to her hunting instincts even more. After escaping to freedom, she meets a fox with whom she starts a family - not without many a forest dweller commenting indignantly on the young couple's courtship. But it's not just foxes and badgers who say goodnight in the forest, sometimes foresters and schoolmasters also say goodnight when they meet on their way back from the pub. And when human and animal paths cross, the animals often get the short end of the stick...

Leoš Janáček's empathetic fable follows the ins and outs of human and animal life, which go through different cycles but are so similar at the crucial points: when it comes to learning, loving and dying. Although the vixen dies in the end, her offspring ensure that the cycle of life is preserved.