Baltimore Concert Opera presents: Rossini’s Guillaume Tell

The Gist of the Story: Who was William Tell? Setting: 13th century Switzerland, occupied by the “William Tell: Swiss legendary hero who W HO? Austrians symbolized the struggle for political and individual Composer: Swiss peasants are oppressed by the invading freedom. The historical existence of Tell is Austrians, especially by the tyrannical governor disputed. According to popular legend, he was a Gioachino Rossini Gesler. After his guards arrest the elder Melcthal, peasant from Bürglen in the canton of Uri in the (1792 – 1868) Melchtal’s son Arnold is torn between his loyalty 13th and early 14th centuries who defied Austrian Librettists: Étienne de Jouy to his father and the rebel cause – and his secret authority, was forced to shoot an apple from his and Hippolyte-Louis-Florent love for the Austrian princess Mathilde. The son’s head, was arrested for threatening the Bis, based on the play by revolutionary town leader William Tell convinces governor’s life, saved the same governor’s life en Friedrich Schiller him he must fight the occupiers. One day, Gesler route to prison, escaped, and ultimately killed the W HAT? orders the peasants to come pay homage to him; governor in an ambush. These events supposedly Tell refuses and Gesler orders him to shoot an helped spur the people to rise up against Austrian A patriotic grand finale, very arrow off his young son’s head as punishment. rule. The classic form of the legend appears in the musically different from his Tell succeeds but is arrested himself. In this Chronicon Helveticum (1734–36), by Gilg bubbly comic opera or moment of crisis, the surrounding villages rise up Tschudi, which gives November 1307 as the date together against the Austrians. Joined by a of Tell’s deeds and New Year 1308 as the date of rigidly-structured opera seria defiant Arnold, they are ultimately led to victory Switzerland’s liberation. There is no evidence, WHEN? by William Tell himself. Everyone rejoices in the however, for the existence of Tell; but the story of World premiere: August 3, triumph of freedom over cruel occupation. the marksman’s test is widely distributed in folklore. In the early Romantic era of nationalist 1829 The Characters revolutions, the Tell legend attained worldwide WHERE? Austrians Swiss renown through the stirring play Wilhelm Tell First performance at (1804) by the German dramatist Friedrich von WILLIAM TELL, Schiller. (Excerpted from Encyclopedia Britannica) The Paris Opéra, Paris, GESLER, tyrannical Swiss huntsman and France governor patriotic hero Rossini’s epic last opera Rossini took immense pains over [William Tell’s] Another Pants Role! MATHILDE, an HEDWIGE and composition: the stories about Tell are not about how quickly he wrote it, but how long it took. During A “pants role” or Austrian princess JEMMY, Tell’s “trouser role” is a male who loves Arnold wife and his son the innumerable rehearsals many cuts and changes character meant by the were made, some of them unrecorded. So we cannot be certain of what the ‘final’ version actually composer to be played RODOLPHE, ARNOLD, Swiss did or did not contain. by a woman. In opera, Captain of patriot, who loves usually this character is Gesler’s guards Mathilde There is the story of the director of the Paris Opéra a young man or meeting Rossini in the street and telling him that his company would perform the second act of Tell that adolescent boy. MELCHTAL, night. ‘What? ’said Rossini ‘The whole of it?’ Besides Jemmy, Tell’s Arnold’s father son in this opera, other Tell was Rossini’s first wholly French opera: it was

famous examples of WALTER, revolutionary, also his last. For several reasons, some of them ‘pants roles’ include friend of Tell mysterious, although he lived in Paris for a further 40 Cherubino in Mozart’s years, he never wrote again for the stage. Marriage of Figaro or excerpts from Sir Denis Forman’s A Night at the Opera: an LEUTHOLD & RUODI even the title role in the irreverent guide to the plots, the singers, the composers, a Swiss shepherd and a the recordings, Random House (1998). musical Peter Pan! Swiss fisherman

Baltimore Concert Opera Read more about Guillaume Tell 11 W. Mount Vernon Pl. Osborne, Charles, The Bel Canto Operas of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini, Portland: Amadeus Press, 1994. Baltimore, MD, 21201 Sadie, Stanley, ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. London: Macmillan. 2001. Servadio, Gaia, Rossini, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003. baltimoreconcertopera.com