Detroit Opera's 'Cunning Little Vixen' is cute and charming, but lacks energy

Detroit Opera's latest offering starts with visual surprises and lighthearted laughs but ultimately gets lost in the woods it depicts.

"The Cunning Little Vixen," the company's 2023-24 season closer, bowed on May 11 to a full house and captured imaginations almost right away. Through fun animation by Walter Robot Studios, we are introduced to a vibrant, verdant forest and a very clever, wily little vixen (a female fox, presented with playful joy by Mané Galoyan), who is soon captured by a relentlessly cruel forester (Michael Sumuel) and dragged off to his barnyard to be a pet ... that is until she plots her escape.

And that's just Act One. There's a neat gimmick afoot here: Instead of bringing all the performers onstage with elaborate sets, there's a very minimal set and only the human characters occupy it. The animals are all presented on a giant screen in animated form, with singers sticking their faces out of strategically placed holes where the cartoons' faces should be. It's whimsical as hell, and it's all very fun and charming.

But there are definite flaws in Janáček's storytelling. As the show moves into its second act, the focus shifts away to the forester and his drunken comrades for too long, and the buoyance of the barnyard and forest animals is sorely missed. The energy drops and never recovers, even after we return to the animals.

At a flowing stream, the vixen meets a handsome male fox (Samantha Hankey) and falls in love, but when the two emerge from behind the screen to court one another live onstage (in fun costumes by Ann Closs-Farley), the two singers sound lovely but lack chemistry and it feels like the story has lost its thread.

The true star of “The Cunning Little Vixen” is Janáček's gorgeous score, which is played by the Detroit Opera Orchestra at its nimble best. Newly installed music director Roberto Kalb makes a stunning first impression with his breezy yet potent conducting. The singing is beautiful all around, led by Galoyan and Sumuel. David Cangelosi (the schoolmaster) and Lisa Marie Rogali (hilarious as a barnyard dog) are particular vocal standouts.

A small but rather steady trickle of guests was seen departing early throughout the premiere performance, but that felt beside the point because the opera house was packed with children and young people who filled the lobby with smiling faces as they left after the approximately 90-minute presentation. Any show that manages to bring new, young people into opera and introduce the art form to small children is arguably a success.

Detroit Opera will return in late October with a 20th-century update on “La Traviata.”

The remaining performances for "The Cunning Little Vixen" are 7:30 p.m. on May 17 and a 2:30 p.m. matinee on May 19. Go here for tickets.

Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at dbeddingfield@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Opera's 'Cunning Little Vixen' is charming but lacks energy