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The Story and Music of Act III

SCENE I

9. Sharp-Ears gets the better of Harašta, the poacher.

10. Sharp-Ears meets her death.

11. Sharp-Ears’s pelt provides a muff for Terynka.

12. Life is renewed in Sharp-Ears’s cubs.

With the first notes of the prelude one immediately senses a new mood, a new atmosphere, the overtones of tragedy: the relentless No. 113 on viola and bass-clarinet

No 113

and its grim, compelling, fatalistic companion theme beginning

No 114

and continuing in a descending sequence.

A middle episode begins with a lighter version of 114 (flute and clarinet) but the mood quickly darkens with a heavily dramatic presentation of the threatening No. 114 followed by trumpets declaiming No. 113 like a fanfare of doom.

9. SHARP-EARS GETS THE BETTER OF Harašta

At the Edge of the Wood, in Autumn, at Noon

When the curtain rises we see two men; one is the familiar figure of the forester, gun on shoulder, coming down the hill: the other is new to us he is Harašta, a poultry dealer from Lisen, who does quite a bit of poaching as a sideline. He is a jovial, carefree fellow: a typical Moravian peasant type. An empty basket is strapped to his back: he slowly trudges up the hill singing a song... a rather lugubrious ballad beginning

No 115

about a lover who had to leave his sweetheart. "Why not come along with me", the song runs "and I will buy you a g-g-g-green (yodelling) pleated skirt? You shall have a ring too, and wherever I wander, you shall w-w-w-wander yodelling) with me. "With the magic touch which never fails him, Janáček turns No. 113 into a gay little waltz tune for strings which he inserts between the verses of Harašta’s plodding song as a short orchestral interlude.

The forester greets Harašta somewhat brusquely. Harašta replies that he would be all right if it was not for his worries. "Can’t imagine how you get along without a wife!" continues the forester, unbending a little. Harašta assures him that he manages well enough although, as a matter of fact, he is going to be married soon (a skittish variation of 114), He takes a swig from a bottle and confidentially tells the forester that his bride-to-be is Terynka, "the best girl in the world! "Terynka-we remember-is the woman from whom the schoolmaster, the parson, and-we suspect-the forester, have been eating their hearts out. Terynka! The forester can hardly believe his ears-the desirable Terynka! (a slow, rather mysterious passage, again, somewhat reminiscent of the opening bars of the opera), the fabulous Terynka! Terynka throwing herself away on this worthless fellow! Harašta triumphantly assures him that Terynka has indeed promised to be his wife. Thinking it best not to pursue the subject further, the forester says sternly that he hopes Harašta has not been poaching. Harašta pretends to be outraged at such a suggestion! Poaching! No, no, no! thanks be to God he has given that up long ago, although, he adds mysteriously, perhaps he ought to, when only a moment ago he found a dead hare lying on the ground simply asking to be lifted. (A new simpering slippery 6/8 figure on violas.) But something inside him said: Don’t do it, Harašta! Don’t touch it or you’ll be sorry! The forester, disbelieving him, handles him roughly for a moment-"you’d better not or you’ll be sorry"-hurries over to examine the dead hare. (Harašta’s shifty, shallow, hypocritical character is admirably pictured in the wailing chromatic syncopated theme on oboe, clarinet and viola.) He also sees the tell-tale tracks of a fox. Taking an iron trap from his bag he sets it, remarking that it is the work of Sharp-Ears all right: no doubt she’ll be back soon to collect the trophy. He sullenly turns into the wood while Harašta, chuckling slyly to himself goes off in the opposite direction.

Sharp-Ears and the fox rush in, followed by their pack of cubs who play around, gaily singing and dancing. Their song is two verses of a gay quasi-Moravian folk-song (note again the characteristic augmented fourth) to nonsense words. Their merry piping tune

No 116

is introduced with eight bars orchestral vamping, and, either on voices or orchestra or both, continues throughout the scene, piquantly scored with celesta, harp and piccolo prominent, in polka rhythm.

Sharp-Ears smells out at once that someone has picked up the hare and then put it down again. She sees the iron trap, sniffs at the chain, remarking sarcastically that the old chap must take them for a pack of fools. The cubs hop around singing gaily "What a funny thing! What a funny thing!" Even the youngest cub can tell that it is a fox trap. "He must be a dunce! He must be a dunce!" they sneer in chorus.

Sharp-Ears sniffs stale tobacco and knows that it is the forester who has laid the trap.

The cubs continue their play in the background as the fox and the vixen lie down together. He fondles her lovingly, asking her how many children they have and how many more they can expect to have.

no 117

The vixen tells him to speak more quietly: the forest is full of animals and everyone knows what terrible gossips they are (A of 117 in equal quavers). "You are as lovely as ever", the fox continues ardently. "Do tell me how many more cubs we will have." "Just wait till May comes", replies Sharp-Ears in one of the loveliest phrases of the opera, "We’ll talk about it again in the springtime." "I’ll wait! I’ll wait!" exclaims the eager fox: "Yes, we’ll talk about it again when May comes" he rhapsodizes (to a passionate "Springtime" phrase in the score).

At the same time we hear, in the distance, the voice of Harašta singing another rustic ballad. He approaches, with the basket on his back, now full of chickens. The fox and the vixen are alarmed and become immediately on the alert. Harašta stops suddenly when he sees the foxes and puts his basket on the ground. He pulls a poacher’s folded gun from the basket and stalks after the foxes. To act as a decoy Sharp-Ears rubs across the path, limping awkwardly as if her leg is injured. Harašta pursues her, raising and lowering his gun according to the clever manoeuvring of the vixen. As she dodges, Sharp-Ears sings the eternal song of all foxes, the ageless reproach of all foxes against inhuman man-"Beat and kill. . . just because I’m a fox!"

No 118

Harašta rushes downhill after the vixen, stumbles, falls, dashing his nose on the ground (suitably coarse trombone noises). He curses, and Sharp-Ears-never renowned for her polished manners-tells him to look after his nose and she’ll look after his basket. The cubs have already fallen on the chickens and are devouring them greedily. Rubbing his injured nose, Harašta wonders how he will explain himself to Terynka (quick waltz) as Sharp-Ears continues to scream at him "Beat and kill . . . just because I’m a fox!"

Full of rage and fury Harašta fires his gun wildly among the foxes, who scatter in a cloud of feathers. But Sharp-Ears has been hit and she lies dying on the ground. (Music of breathless excitement and intense agitation rising to a powerful climax: then silence.)

Janáček has written a most moving Coda for the death of his beloved Sharp-Ears ending with the ‘Beat and kill" motif of the vixen thundering out reproachfully in the orchestra.

SCENE 2

11. SHARP EARS'S PELT PROVIDES A MUFF FOR TERYNKA

The prelude opens dramatically-resentfully-and has a variety of contrasted motifs. Most important is No. 119

No 119

the second half of which chains off a sequence of new motifs: (a) the bustling semiquaver pattern which follows on immediately, (b) the plaintive adagio middle-section and (c) the allegretto seherzando theme when the curtain rises-and elsewhere.

The scene is a bowling alley in Pásek’s inn. There is an unusual stillness about the place. The forester is sitting, beside the schoolmaster. The innkeeper’s wife brings him a mug of beer. He asks her where her husband is. "In town", she replies; "We are busy décorating the place, you know-haven’t any spare time now", and hastily retires. The forester continues his conversation with the schoolmaster, telling him he followed the tracks of the foxes to their den but found it abandoned. (The little foxes’ dance-tune appears in a wistful wholetone scale setting.) He’ll catch up on Sharp-Ears yet and when he does his old woman will get her muff and the schoolmaster will get her tongue.

No 120

Perhaps it will help him when next he goes a-courting among the sunflowers! But the brooding schoolmaster is in no mood for jokes. He has just learned that his Terynka is getting married today (A of 120). The innkeeper’s wife re-entering adds that Terynka, too, has got a new muff. The schoolmaster goes to the fence quickly, wipes a tear from his eye and stares desolately into the neighbouring garden. The forester turns to the schoolmaster and grasps his hand (A of 120 again, firmly, in equal notes). Fancy a dry old stick like the schoolmaster squeezing out a tear Never mind! he is much better off without Terynka: he could never have managed such a wanton! "He is missing the parson", he confides to the innkeeper’s wife (violas softly play No. 119) and asks her how the parson is getting on in his new parish. She replies that he, too, feels lonely.

No 121

The forester suddenly decides to leave and pays for his beer: the schoolmaster, somewhat surprised, asks him why he is leaving so early. He’ll take a stroll through the woods, replies the forester, then home. He cannot take his dog for a walk any more: Lapák has bad feet and cannot really walk far. He’s getting old like the rest of them. Now he’d like to find a quiet corner-put up his feet and have a nap.

The curtain falls as the forester departs.

SCENE 3

12. LIFE IS RENEWED IN SHARP-EARS'S CUBS

The last orchestral interlude begins with the softly intoned regret-motif, then switches to this energetic "earth" tune

No 122

which in turn gives way to a hunting-horn fanfare.

The last scene of the opera takes us back to the dark, forbidding mood of Act I, Scene 1.

There is a watery sunshine. The forester is climbing the sloping path rather ponderously. He displays a large mushroom he has just picked. It reminds him of a girl he once knew who possessed a similar chestnut brown head and was also tall and slender (more hunting-horn fanfare music). How many years have passed, he meditates wistfully, since she and he, her lover, wandered here in springtime? They also picked mushrooms but ground the best ones underfoot for they were blind with love. And the kisses they gathered-they were without number.

He and his wife were then newly-wed; both so young, both so happy (another ‘; theme rather like the very first bars of the opera. When the forester reaches the crest of the hill he sits down on a stone, resting his gun on his knee. But for the buzzing flies it would be easy to fall asleep (strange, mysterious, melting chords tremolo). "Yet", he concludes in a rare Right of poetic fancy, "I am glad when after rain the sun shines through. How lovely this forest is, where-deep in the woods-new life is always stirring, and the creatures of the forest begin life anew each springtime answering the call of love." (Broad, sweeping, grandioso diatonic music with a touch of Richard Straussian romanticism about it.)

No 123

Once more life will pour the bliss of honey-dew into the blossoms of primroses, violets and anemones, and people will bow their heads humbly, knowing that they are surrounded by a divine bliss which knows no end.

He falls asleep with a smile on his lips (forest music, accentuated) as animals from the undergrowth reappear as at the beginning of the opera-dragon-fly, woodpecker, owl, cricket, grasshopper-"all are there", says the forester rousing himself from his dream, "all except Sharp-Ears". (The tune of the little foxes trips gaily into the music, including the "vamping "introductory bars.) A small fox-cub runs up to him and he exclaims delightedly that the vixen is here after all. A second glance tells him that it is one of Sharp-Ears’s cubs who greets him. Wait till he catches her! This time he will bring her up properly. He stretches out a hand to catch the vixen but, instead, catches a little frog. Can this be the little frog which once jumped on to his nose? "Hello! It’s you again, is it? "he exclaims. "No, no", squeaks the little frog, "that was my grandfather. He used to . . . used to tell me. . . ab-b-b about you" (a delightful little solo in the tiny piping voice of the baby frog). The forester, astonished at the miraculous cycle of rebirth, falls contentedly asleep and his gun drops to the ground.

The animals crowd around, as the music gradually swells to a wonderfully satisfying, harmonious conclusion. Sharp Ears had died, but she lives on in her cubs: youth, life, is eternally renewed. This is the noble, pantheistic theme on which this inspired Czech woodland symphony ends.

Note

In telling the story of Sharp-Ears the Vixen, I have made no attempt to cross the humans with the animals as seems to have been Janáček’s intention: the badger who was thrown out of his den, with the parson who, for apparently too heavy drinking, has been transferred to another parish: the querulous shrew who is the wife of the forester, with the irritable and scandalized owl: the superbly natural Sharp-Ears herself, with the much-sought-after gypsy girl, the mysterious and almost legendary Terynka.

I cannot see how such parallels can add to the appreciation of the charming story and the wonderfully inspired music of the opera. One notes that in the 1958 Brno Janáček Festival programme of the opera, no mention is made at all of these rather far-fetched symbols, nor is any attempt now made to have the same singers undertake the double roles of man and animals: just imagine the tall and modest schoolmaster trying to act a midge!

Max Brod accentuated the symbolism to a quite incomprehensible extent. The novel of Tesnohlidek, on the other hand, contains no parallelism at all, and it is surely better, clearer and more natural to accept the humans and animals at their own level, as they are. The rough and, at heart, good-natured forester (although perhaps not so good-intentioned towards Sharp-Ears as some commentators would have us believe: not only does he say that he would like to make a muff for his wife from her pelt, but he actually sets a trap for her and in other ways would appear to wish her evil); the bashful schoolmaster in love with an illusion; the scandalized parson who is too fond of the bottle; the cunning, shallow but humorous and realistic poacher; the "healthy" instincts of the two boys whose curiosity leads them into cruelty; the harassed, shrewish wife of the forester and all the wonderful collection of delightful animals-the faithful dog who has never known love, the scandal-mongering owl and jay, the strutting cock, the dutiful hens, the gruff, conceited badger, the innocent baby frog, the devoted dragon-f y and all the small fry of the forest-gnats, crickets, squirrels. Above all, the fully revealed and altogether loveable character of Sharp-Ears, herself, growing from a naughty little vixen into a responsible mother and wife, depicted with deep understanding, humour, pathos, compassion, tenderness and unerring sympathy in a score abounding in a thousand delicate shades and delineation of character, mood and fantasy, by the almost 70-year-old composer.

After Janáček had completed his score in March 1923, he journeyed to Bratislava to hear Kátja  Kabanová: while staying for a few days at Bratislava he conceived the idea of writing a symphony on the River Danube. In the same ear he wrote his first string quartet, the "Kreutzer Sonata In the following year, his seventieth birthday was celebrated in Brno and Prague when the opera Sharp-Ears received its first performance in Brno on the 6 December 1924, again conducted by František Neumann and produced by Ota Zítek. The work was warmly applauded by the audience but the press was inclined to be critical of certain aspects of the opera.

 

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