William Tell (opera)

William Tell (also known as *Guillaume Tell* in French and *Guglielmo Tell* in Italian) is a four-act opera set to a French libretto by Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy and L. F. Bis. The music was composed by the Italian Gioachino Rossini, and the story is based on Friedrich Schiller’s play *Wilhelm Tell*, which itself drew on the legendary figure of William Tell. This opera was Rossini’s final work, even though he lived for nearly four more decades. According to conductor Fabio Luisi, Rossini intended *Guillaume Tell* to be his last opera from the moment he began composing it. The well-known overture is divided into four sections and includes a storm scene and a lively finale called the “March of the Swiss Soldiers.”

The original orchestral score was discovered by Paris Opéra archivist Charles Malherbe in the possession of a second-hand bookseller. It was subsequently acquired by the Paris Conservatoire in 1898.

The opera premiered at the Paris Opéra’s Salle Le Peletier on 3 August 1829. Cuts were introduced after just three performances, and within a year only three acts were performed. The work’s length—roughly four hours of music—and demanding casting requirements, such as the high tenor range, have made it difficult to stage. When performed, the opera is often cut, and productions have been given in both French and Italian. Political factors have also affected its popularity.

In Italy, the opera’s glorification of a revolutionary figure caused trouble with censors, limiting the number of productions. The Teatro San Carlo staged it in 1833 but did not mount another production for about 50 years. The first Venice production at Teatro La Fenice did not occur until 1856. In contrast, the Vienna Court Opera gave 422 performances between 1830 and 1907, despite censorship issues there. In London, the opera was first performed at Drury Lane on 1 May 1830 in English under the title *Hofer, or the Tell of the Tyrol*. An Italian production followed in 1839 at Her Majesty’s, and a French one at Covent Garden in 1845. New York saw its first *William Tell* on 19 September 1831. The Metropolitan Opera revived it in 1923 with Rosa Ponselle and Giovanni Martinelli, and further revivals occurred in the 1930s in Milan, Rome, Paris, Berlin, and Florence. During a performance at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu in 1893, an anarchist threw two Orsini bombs into the theatre.

Major later-20th-century productions took place in Florence (1972), Geneva (1979 and 1991), La Scala (1988), the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (1989), Covent Garden (1990), and the Opéra Bastille (2003), as well as at the Sportspalace in Pesaro in 1995, where the performance lasted over five hours.

A significant revival occurred in 2010, when the opera opened the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia’s season under Antonio Pappano. This performance used the French version, with some cuts to the fourth act that Pappano noted Rossini himself had approved. A live recording was released in 2011, and the production moved to The Proms that July, featuring Michele Pertusi as Tell, Patricia Bardon as Hedwige, Nicolas Courjal as Gessler, and Mark Stone as Leuthold. It received strong reviews and marked the first full performance of the work in Proms history. A co-production by the Dutch National Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, in the original French, opened at the Met in October 2016 with Gerald Finley in the title role.

According to an anecdote, when an admirer told Rossini he had heard the opera the previous night, the composer replied, “What? The whole of it?” Another version of the story refers only to act 2. In 1864, Offenbach quoted the patriotic trio from act 2, “Lorsque la Grèce est un champ de carnage,” in his opera *La belle Hélène*.

The famous overture is often performed separately from the opera. Its high-energy finale, the “March of the Swiss Soldiers,” is especially familiar from its use in the American radio and television series *The Lone Ranger*. The overture also featured prominently in the 1935 Walt Disney cartoon *The Band Concert* starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Several portions appear in the films *A Clockwork Orange* and *The Eagle Shooting Heroes*, and Dmitri Shostakovich quotes the finale’s main theme in the first movement of his 15th symphony. The overture has four connected parts: the slow “Prelude (Dawn)” for cellos, double basses, and timpani in E major; the dynamic “Storm” for full orchestra with trombones in E minor; the “Ranz des Vaches” (call to the dairy cows) featuring cor anglais and flute in G major; and the finale, “March of the Swiss Soldiers,” a fast galop heralded by horns and trumpets, played by the full orchestra in E major.

The opera’s instrumentation includes a piccolo, a flute, two oboes (the first doubling on cor anglais), two clarinets in A, two bassoons, four horns (two in G and two in E), four trumpets in E, three trombones, two timpani, triangle, bass drum, cymbals, bell, tam-tam, first and second violins, viola, cellos, double basses, two harps, and four onstage horns.

The story is set in 13th-century Switzerland, under Austrian occupation. Act 1 takes place by the shore of Lake Lucerne at Bürglen in the canton of Uri. It is the day of the Shepherd Festival in May. The scene is idyllic, with peasants preparing chalets for three newlywed couples and singing as they work.