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This was an utterly wonderful experience! I had read that its emotional power was very considerable but the extent to which this proved the case was quite remarkable here. I think a part of this is the fact that it is a story which explores emotions and relationships in two ‘areas’ ,human and animal. Its not sentimentally anthropomorphic - where the animals are simply shown to have human emotion a la Wind in the Willows - - but rather is a story where humans have the emotions of animals at the same time as animals demonstrate the emotions of human - and by each feeding off and being parallel with the other, the emotional impact of the story is doubled. The wooing scene of the foxes was a marvellous example of this - and of course the ending, of which more later. Love, death and sex are woven intimately together and the sense at the end of an endless cycle of these aspects of experience is what I think made it so powerful and moving. For the animals (the foxes in particular) a marvellous balance was maintained between the human and animal characteristics, as shown through body language and acting.
The human world and the animal world are shown to be intimately connected. The darkness and harshness of aspects of both of these - the Forester’s unrequited love, the death of the vixen, the gathering of the flies around the corpse of a killed rabbit and the vixen - were painfully powerful.
The music was remarkable with the composer’s typical plangent lyricism playing its essential part, its characteristic melodic brevity being all the more powerful for having thees characteristics.
Costumes and movement are centrally important in this work and of this is not convincing then the whole piece could fail - and I include making the creatures too anthropomorphic. This error was not made here. All the creatures from the moment of their first appearance, were totally convincing as wildlife in terms of how they moved and the superb, dazzling costumes. There was much wonderful detail - the white tube held by the mosquito with which he sucked up blood, the minuscule repetitive movements of many of the insects such as the ladybird and the preying mantis (?) and the grasshopper. The observation shown was superb. Well, I am perhaps not wholly qualified judge on this exact point but the key thing is that it convinced.
the setting on which the action took place was not the expected forest clearing but rather a series of rising curved furrows which worked well as showing man’s impact on the environment of the animals and which was admirably versatile. Lighting was excellent with the night-time scenes being particularly beautiful and powerful with vividly coloured planets and stars in the night sky and a deep rich blue-black for night scenes.The simplicity of the set meant that the focus could be on the creatures, human and animal, and the story was not distracted by elaborate forest realism. The horses pulling the plough were particularly powerful and effective with their massive uprightness and dark gleaming colours.
The ending had a remarkably powerful effect - almost transcendental which really astonished me and took me aback. It managed to give a wonderful balance between joy and tragedy - and emotional honesty too and it was this aspect which finally, I think was the greatest achievement of this performance. the power was from the music and the production, while wonderfully imaginative and creative, always seemed to be totally at the service of this. Clear sighted emotional honesty was this productions greatest strength as it truly saw what was there in the work and managed to bring it out superbly well.
CAST
Revírník (Boswachter) Dale Duesing
Paní Revírníková (Boswachtersvrouw) Ellen van Haaren
Rechtor (Schoolmeester) John Graham Hall
Farár (Pastoor) Alexander Vassiliev
Jezevec (Das) Patrick Schramm
Harašta, stroper Robert Poulton
Pásek, waard Tom Haenen
Paní Pásková, waardin Annett Andriesen
Bystrouška (Het sluwe vosje) Rosemary Joshua
Lišák (Vos) Hannah Esther
Minutillo Frantík Tomoko Makuuchi
Pepík Janine Scheepers
Lapák, hond Monique Scholte
Kohout (Haan) Pascal Pittie
Datel (Specht) Madieke Marjon
Sova (Uil) Marion van den Akker
Chocolka, hen Fang Fang Kong
Komár (Mug) Terence Mierau
Sojka (Vlaamse gaai) Ineke Berends
Kobylka (Sprinkhaan) Myra Kroese
Crvcek (Krekel) Maartje de Lint
Conductor: Marco Ivanovic