For Emmanuel Villaume, The Cunning Little Vixen provides a connection between his two favroite places to work — Prague and Dallas
RICH LOPEZ | A&E writer
Rich@DallasVoice.com
Next week, The Dallas Opera (TDO) will present Leoš Janáĉek’s The Cunning Little Vixen for the first time in more than 25 years.
Not only does it mark the North American debut of Australian director Barrie Kosky’s signature production, it also marks a first for TDO’s longtime conductor and Mrs. Eugene McDermott music director, Emmanuel Villaume. After having conducted many of Janáĉek’s other operas, Villaume will finally take on this work.
Vixen opens Oct. 30 and runs through Nov. 7 at the Winspear.
The composer has had a fascination for the openly-gay French-born out conductor since first working professionally on one of Janáĉek’s pieces at the Spoleto Festival in Italy in the late 1980s or early ’90s. Since then, Villaume has conducted almost all of Janáĉek’s works – except this one.
“I have conducted almost all of his symphonic music, which I find fascinating. But on my list was The Cunning Little Vixen, which I have seen a couple of times but never performed,” Villaume said.
“What attracted me right away in Janáĉek’s work is an incredible connection between theatricality and musical integrity,” he continued. “The music is intellectually complex and at the same time totally efficient theatrically. With Janáĉek’s, there is always this sense of life pulsing in connection to an incredibly sophisticated and satisfying compositional gesture and spirit.”
The opera follows a young fox and the humans around her as they experience the clash between nature and humanity. Villaume conducts the cast, The Dallas Opera Orchestra, TDO Chorus and Greater Dallas Choral Society in this production, which will be sung in Czech with English supertitles.
Coincidentally, he has also been the chief conductor at the Prague Philharmonic since 2015. The irony that he hasn’t played Janáĉek’s piece in his home country isn’t lost on Villaume. But he finds a certain distinction in helming the work, which he described as a universal opera, outside of Czechoslovakia.
“It’s totally anchored in Czech culture, language and folklore, but they also have a real ownership over their own,” he said. “So it’s fantastic for me to play that repertoire outside of the Czech Republic because I can put together the two places I work the most and love: Prague and Dallas.”
Villaume expressed how he has grown over the years as an artist, particularly in his 13-year tenure at The Dallas Opera. He also commented on the notion of getting older. But was Fate perhaps waiting for him to conduct Vixen at this particular moment in time?
“That’s a good question. Janáĉek’s wrote this piece when he was around 70. It was a time for him to accept, without bitterness, that ultimately leaving this world was not a tragedy, but a natural movement. Accepting that inevitability is what gives you life. That’s something that is resonating with me,” Villaume articulated. “Things are easier for me on the podium now in some ways. I don’t have that craving for advancement in my career anymore; I have a desire to make my years meaningful through creation and connections with people.”
Or perhaps, in short: It is what it is.
For tickets, visit DallasOpera.org.