With its statues of Wagner, Verdi and Mozart on the roof, and its grand staircase in the foyer, you'd scarcely guess that Longborough Opera House was once a farm barn. But barn it was, with "the rough lick marks on the back of the green exit door the only evidence of its former use, and a testament to the diet of 90s cattle", as the programme puts it. So with that rural background, what more appropriate work could Longborough Festival Opera stage than Janácek's The Cunning Little Vixen?

The production has one enormous advantage - Richard Studer is both director, and designer of the sets and costumes. This means that the whole concept meshes together seamlessly. He sets out his stall straight away, with a most effective set design. A number of freestanding wheels, some large, some smaller, are placed across the stage. They are rolled up and down a series of undulating ramps - which together look like a rough country path - at various points in the action, and often in time with the music. This most effectively reminds you of the theme that runs right through the opera - everything is cyclical, the seasons come and go, and birth is inevitably followed by death. The wheels are also handy during the long orchestral interludes - aided by Wayne Dowdeswell's atmospheric lighting, they provide a visual focus when nothing else is happening on stage.

Although the exact mix of characters has been altered, director Studer follows Janácek's instruction that some singers should double as humans and animals - nowhere else, perhaps, would you get a mosquito doubling as a schoolmaster.

Studer judges the mix between comedy and raw life well, with a splendid trio of clucking hens (Elisabeth Poirel, Sian Cameron, and Helen Massey), whose feet appear to be composed of yellow washing-up gloves. Meanwhile Owl (Deborah Hawksley) looks extraordinarily like a feathered Falstaff. A lively crew of local youngsters plays the small animals and fox cubs.

Fun all this certainly is, but in this unsentimental production you never doubt that Ella Kirkpatrick's Vixen (right) could polish off a chicken in a trice. Kirkpatrick's strong singing projects a determined personality, yet she softens beautifully when the Vixen first meets her handsome fox. Against her, the human characters seem a bit monochrome, but the Forester (Paul Keohone) and the Poacher (Mark Saberton) both come over as men with nasty tempers waiting to erupt. In the pit, conductor Jonathan Lyness exactly captures Janácek's mixture of edginess and melody. Altogether, Longborough has done Vixen proud.

There are further performances of The Cunning Little Vixen at Longborough tonight and tomorrow. Box office: 01451 830292.