The Fantastic Mr Fox: the opera

Odyssey Opera presented a concert version of Tobias Picker's 1998 opera, The Fantastic Mr Fox, borrowing costumes (and most of the cast) from San Antonio's recent stage production. This was a family-friendly performance: two kids could attend free with each paid adult ticket. Yet it is hard to consider this a children's work; the words come faster than the ear can register, and I would have been lost without the projected surtitles. I can't imagine what the youngest listeners were able to pick up.

Tobias Picker was on hand to hear the show, this being the first American revival of the fully orchestrated score since the Los Angeles Opera premiere. He had made subsequent chamber versions for fifteen and then seven musicians to accommodate smaller productions. The full score was most effective when depicting the destructive power of Agnes the Digger, a juggernaut of an excavating machine bent on rooting out Mr Fox's den. While the role of Agnes was written for a mezzo-soprano, here it was performed, brilliantly, by countertenor Andrey Nemzer. This put a double-reverse gender twist on Agnes the Digger's romantic sparks with Mavis the Tractor.

The vocal star of the evening was soprano Elizabeth Futral, in her fully engaged portrayal of Miss Hedgehog. She has an Act Two lament about her incipient spinsterhood but radiates rapture in an Act Three duet with her newfound love, Mr Porcupine. Incidentally, Theo Lebow, who sang Mr Porcupine, was one of the foxcubs in the original LA production sixteen years ago. He has grown up into an admirable lyric tenor.

Other singers brought varying degrees of acting ability to their roles. John Brancy's Mr Fox was, if not fantastic, at least jauntily approximating the hero's charm. Krista River's Mrs Fox was pleasant, but not dramatically present. Ironically, this concert performance would have benefitted by one of the composer's reduced orchestrations. The full complement of onstage musicians frequently overpowered the singers in this lively but word-heavy score.