Tobias Picker: Fantastic Mr. Fox
BMOP/sound

It's a rare opera that can entrance children and adults, but Tobias Picker's Fantastic Mr. Fox is that very thing. That this delightful work is capable of captivating children comes as less of a surprise when photos of one stage production show the singers in brilliantly coloured outfits and made up to suggest the story's creatures. Adding to its charm, Donald Sturrock's libretto keeps Roald Dahl's tale moving at a brisk pace, and at eighty-three minutes, the family opera's not so long it threatens to outlast the patience of its audience. For this recorded version, the work's brought vividly to life by musicians of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), members of Odyssey Opera, the Boston Children's Chorus, and vocalists, including tenor John Brancy and mezzo-soprano Krista River as Mr. and Mrs. Fox.

The work's initial Los Angeles Opera production in 1998 included nine performances, eight for regular audiences and the ninth for children only. Picker recalls that while the kids were rambunctious before it began, they fell silent once the overture started and the action ensued. They were even, apparently, heard singing the “Boggis, Bunce, and Bean” song outside the theatre after the show. One guesses that moment was as gratifying for Picker as any of the glowing reviews published in the days after the opera's presentation.

Certainly Picker's creation benefits from the awareness Wes Anderson's popular stop-motion treatment brought to the story, even if the opera's creation predated its release by eleven years. Commissioned and premiered by the Los Angeles Opera in 1998, Picker and Sturrock's three-act adaptation hews closely to Dahl's narrative in recounting showdowns between Mr. Fox, driven by the desire to feed his family, and the three farmers, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, who are determined to kill the predator devouring their chickens and drinking their cider; aiding our titular hero are Mr. Porcupine, Miss Hedgehog, Mavis the Tractor, and others. Picker acknowledges that deeper meanings can be read into the opera “for those who want to find it,” but experiencing the work at its immediate level proves amply rewarding on its own terms. If anything, the work would lose some of its charm were one obsessed with digging deeper.

It's packed with fun and slapstick (see the insults hurled between Bunce and Boggis in Act II's “A Glade Near the Devastated Den”), and in tone Picker's comic opera has something in common with Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, and Mozart's The Magic Flute, even if all are dramatically different on other grounds. Fantastic Mr. Fox also represents a clear departure from some of Picker's other operas, among them Thérèse Raquin, Emmeline, and An American Tragedy. His extensive background—in addition to operas, Picker's composed numerous symphonic works and concertos—enables him to weave into Fantastic Mr. Fox multiple elements, with everything from neo-classical Stravinsky and tango to klezmer and hoedown finding their way into the score. While the tone is largely buoyant, there are tender moments, too, one memorable example arising during the first act's “The Foxhole” in Mrs. Fox's expressive plea to her husband, “I want to say take care, my love / There are dangers out there that might hurt you, my love / And I love you too much to lose you, my love.”

On vocal grounds, Brancy and River acquit themselves admirably in the lead roles and complement one another splendidly. The vocal contrast between the stooge-like farmers—bass-baritone Andrew Craig Brown (Boggis), tenor Edwin Vega (Bunce), and baritone Gabriel Preisser (Bean)—makes for easy and effective differentiation; an added treat comes from hearing Bunce snootily sprinkle his lines with occasional French words and phrases. Countertenor Andrey Nemzer and mezzo-soprano Tynan Davis make memorable turns, respectively, as Agnes the Digger and the bookworm Rita the Rat, as does soprano Elizabeth Futral as the lovelorn Miss Hedgehog; in an opera that largely downplays arias and extended solo turns, her “I have now reached the age / When spinsterhood beckons” solo in the second act's “The Foxhole” leaves a strong mark (near opera's end her romantic salvation arrives in the form of tenor Theo Lebow's Mr. Porcupine).

After the impish “Dawn in the Valley” sets the scene with Picker's musical imagination in full flower, Mrs. Fox (River) gets the story going by describing the conflict between her husband and the farmers, with the moment triggering the first round by her Foxcubs (“Boggis, Bunce, and Bean! / One fat, one short, one lean! / These horrible crooks / So different in looks / Were all of them equally mean!).” Scene changes occur rapidly throughout, guaranteeing that listening attention never flags; while some extended instrumental sections do appear, Picker generally tends to reinforce the vocal performances with brilliant orchestral backing. He typically tailors the mood and character of the material to match the story, with moments of turbulence emerging in counterpoint to levity and peacefulness. As an operatic composition, his material is, naturally, sophisticated, yet it also teems with child-like joy, energy, and delight and is refreshingly free of cynicism and condescension.

March 2020