The Escape of Sharp Ears

            Operas have long been an expression of art, emotion, and certainly a cherished form of entertainment. Moreover, an opera utilizes stage arts and designs of costumes to visually and audibly excite the audience. As civilizations and cultures have developed higher quality productions, the elements used within operas became no longer limited to a few stage props and masks for actors, but has become beyond this due to the proliferating opera industry. Along with this, higher quality productions can manifest a foundation for game designers, in which it not only gives them ideas for the plot of their game but also the characters and their strengths/weaknesses within the game design. This transition from a sophisticated opera to a playful video game can be exemplified in the opera, The Cunning Little Vixen.

The Cunning Little Vixen was created by Leos Janáček in 1923 and was first publicized within a Czech newspaper; the opera’s first production was in 1924. The story lit up Janáček’s life and inspired him to turn the newspaper column into a libretto opera. “Janácek was clearly captivated by the story and the illustrations, and his original newspaper cuttings, together with the story as published in book form the following year, still exist today, complete with his copious annotations” (Clements, Andrew). Janáček was born in Hukvaldy, Moravia, where he adopted a love for Moravian culture and music. To comprehend the cultural value of this opera, it is important to understand how Janáček incorporated his passion for the traditional music he grew up on. He used his knowledge from his childhood education to transform the folk music he grew up on into an individualized style of his own, which made him one of the most prominent Czech composers. The original title and script of the opera was written in Czech but was later translated to The Cunning Little Vixen in the English language.

Although there is no typical Janáček piece, in some ways this opera is a summation of his life and his work. In the context of an extraordinary late-life productivity, this work is not only a lovely piece of music, but one which meant so much to the composer he requested that the conclusion be played at his own funeral (Dorsey, Sarah).

Therefore, the stage art, singing, and dialogue of this opera not only showed Janáček’s cultural background but also his passion for what he did as a composer.

The opera begins within a forest setting, where a female vixen, Sharp-Ears, happily dances around a forester. The forester ends up capturing the vixen and tying her up within his cottage. Sharp-Ears dislikes being held captive and is ridiculed by the hens and other animals, but the vixen questions why the other animals do not try and escape. After, the vixen makes his escape and the forester’s wife witnesses her leave out of the cottage. Undeniably, the vixen is much happier now that she is a free animal and settles for a home in a badger’s pit. Sharp-Ears ends up meeting a male fox, who she falls in love with and becomes pregnant with his cubs. However, the forester is searching for Sharp-Ears and yearns for her presence in his life again. Because of this, the forester is convinced by a poacher to set up a trap with a dead hare to catch Sharp-Ears. The opera transitions from a light note of a happy vixen family to somewhat of a tragedy.

Unaware of the trap, Sharp-Ears’s cubs were playing around it where the poacher crept up on them. Sharp-Ears threatened the poacher to not come near her babies, but the poacher took out his rifle and killed her with a bullet. “Elements of the dramatic closing music are heard at two other high points in the opera, once in a love scene between the vixen and the fox (act III, scene 1) and later in that scene after the vixen had been killed” (Dorsey, Sarah). Janáček enhanced the emotion of both of these scenes by linking them together with the beautiful melodic music. The next scene opens with the same setting as the first scene: the forester within the woods. However, this time it is not Sharp-Ears dancing around him, but her cubs, who were left behind. In my opinion, the meaning of the story is within the forester’s ending decision. He desires to capture the cubs because they remind him of Sharp-Ears. Instead, he lets the babies go and realizes that like must go on. The subtle message within the forester’s decision to let them go is that there is a circle of life where Sharp-Ears’s cubs can be free in the wild.

To create a game design using The Cunning Little Vixen’s plot and characters as a foundation, the game would be divided into levels, which have different tasks within them. The main character that would be controlled by the player is the vixen, who the player can make into either the female vixen, the male fox, or choose from her two cubs. The vixen’s cubs will look the same but have different strengths and weaknesses from one another. For example, one cub will have very high endurance while another cub is quick with changing directions. There will also be a setting that can be unlocked that the allows the player to go on “blackout bonuses” where they are allowed to use all three cubs to get away from the enemies but the game brightness will be very low.

The first level is within the forester’s cottage, where the goal of the level is to dig a hole from the place where the vixen is chained to the fence on the other side of the cottage. To successfully do this, the vixen must get to the other side of the cottage without the hens or the forester’s wife seeing. The level would be in a maze-like establishment with hens and the forester’s wife walking in different directions; if the vixen is seen by any of these characters it will lose one out of three lives. When three lives is over, the vixen must restart from the beginning no matter what level it is on. Each level also alternates from daytime to nighttime, in which during the nighttime it is harder for the vixen to recognize a poacher or other enemy.

Once the vixen successfully gets to the other side, the player will be brought to the next level. Within this level, the vixen is within another maze-like setting but within a different scene. The vixen must find the other vixen while the poacher is on the loose. The poacher lurks around and, once the vixen is caught by the poacher, the player will lose a life. The vixen has the option to use a badger hole to hide from the poacher but must do it in time before the poacher can catch him.

The game has options as to whether the player desires to play a quick game, which just hardens levels as they get higher, or the player can choose to play the leveled game, which takes the player longer to accomplish. I believe it is important for the player to feel in somewhat control of their path within the game and this is why there are choices as to speak with a “guider” or just continue on to the next level. Once the three levels are unlocked within the full-leveled game, the player is opened to the entire forest and can roam around freely with no restrictions. The game will give the player goals to complete to gain more points and the player can also interact with all of the wild life within the forest setting. Within the forest, there will be a store in which the player can enter and buy new features such as buying more endurance throughout the game or a shovel to dig more holes that can hide the vixen from enemies. The sound effects of the game will be parallel to what happens to the player. For example, if the player makes the vixen jump into a badger’s hole to hide from a poacher it will make a squishing sound.

Through this exercise, I was able to get in touch with the technological side of my artistic abilities. I used the plot of The Cunning Little Vixen to create a game that would be visually stimulating as well as being directed to a large audience. Because there is no graphic material within the game design, all ages can play this game and can control which direction they would like to pursue within the options given. I believe that the gaming industry benefits greatly from using previous concepts made by other creators, regardless of if these ideas are taken from a composer, musician, story-writer, etc. Taking advantage of the technological advancements society is grasping can create a more modernized piece of art and most definitely receive more applause for outstanding use of effects. However, it is when technology blinds the eye of the creator that makes technology a negative effect on the imaginary mind of an artist.

Works Cited

Clements, Andrew. “The Cunning Little Vixen – A Musical Guide”. theguardian.

Guardian News and Media. 4 June 2012. Web. 16 February 2016.

Dorsey, Sarah. “Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen”. The Opera Journal 29, No. 4. 1996:

28-41. Print.

Opusarte. “Janáček: The Cunning Little Vixen (Glyndebourne)”. Online video clip.            Youtube. Youtube, 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.