GUILLAUME TELL GUILLAUME TELL In copertina Giuliano Vangi Studio per scultura (1998) Matita su carta (Collezione Elio Giuliani, Pesaro) GUILLAUME TELL Rossini Opera Festival 2013 GUILLAUME TELL Opéra en Quatre Actes di Victor-Joseph-Étienne de Jouy e Hippolyte-Louis-Florent Bis Musica di Gioachino Rossini Personnages Guillaume Tell, Suisse conjuré Arnold Melcthal, Suisse conjuré Walter Furst, Suisse conjuré Melcthal, père d’Arnold Jemmy, fils de Guillaume Tell Gesler, gouverneur des cantons de Schwitz et d’Uri Rodolphe, chef des archers de Gesler Ruodi, pêcheur Leuthold, berger Mathilde, princesse de la maison de Hapsbourg, destinée au gouvernement de la Suisse Hedwige, femme de Guillaume Tell Un chasseur Trois Fiancés et leurs compagnes, Paysans et Paysannes des trois cantons, Chevaliers allemands, Pages, Dames d’honneur de la princesse, Chasseurs, Gardes de Gesler, Soldats autrichiens, Tyroliens et Tyroliennes Prima rappresentazione Parigi, Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique 3 agosto 1829 One in a Thousand 3 One in a Thousand Paris and the Académie Royale had been the order of the day for all de Musique musicians – Italian and otherwise – If we are to understand the events whether in writing for the theatre or involved in the composing, the pub- in supplying sacred music for use in lishing and the subsequent success churches with a regular musical tra- in the theatre of so symbolic an dition, rarely took into consideration opera as Guillaume Tell, we shall the possibility that anyone might have to consider the way the opera want to change his music because houses of France, and in particular of any second thoughts about try- the Académie Royale de Musique ing to improve it from an aesthetic (commonly referred to as the Opéra), point of view. As a result there are were managed: it was very different very few cases in which authentic from the Italian system. In the count- revisions made by Rossini after less Italian theatres of Rossini’s the first performances of any of his day, which devoured unheard-of operas (that is, changes written out quantities of new operas, the com- by Rossini himself) show either an poser was in the main answerable explicit or even an implicit intention to the impresario alone and to the of improving the former version. In company of singers engaged for the this very limited group of composi- season in which his opera was to be tions we might perhaps include the produced. Above and beyond this Ferrara version of Tancredi, which his one obligation was to respect the introduced the famous tragic end- principles laid down by the censor- ing together with other changes that ship in each of the different states, were certainly made at the request and they obviously interfered only of the new cast, but which decidedly in the initial phases of submitting improve the internal architecture a draft of the libretto for approval. of the opera. Rossini was probably Once its first season of performances inspired to change to a tragic ending had come to an end, the opera, if it by his friendship with Luigi Lechi, a had been successful, was free to try man of letters, but it met with scant its luck in other theatres and other success and was rapidly discarded. cities, where it would be adapted When he staged Matilde di Shabran to the needs and the whims of each for the first time in Naples, Rossini individual company without the re-wrote those pieces that for lack composer’s having to bother with of time he had asked an illustrious it, or even being able to interfere at colleague of his, Giovanni Pacini, all. It obviously happened that if the to compose for him for the première composer were in town, he might of the opera in Rome, and we might be invited to make the necessary attribute this to a sudden flaring-up adaptations himself: in this case of amour propre. This was also an he might write some new numbers, exception to the rule, because various making the work more suited to the other operas of Rossini’s were going new cast. This manner of procedure, the rounds of the theatres including redolent of craftsmen in the strictest pieces that had been tacked on by meaning of the word, and which anonymous collaborators, and the 4 Guillaume Tell composer never bothered to replace the situation in the French theatres, them with definitive pieces of his especially the Opéra, was altogether own writing. This manner of work- different. Here the repertoire was ing easily explains why Rossini, drawn up with a view to fulfilling after the first year or two in which an endless and bothersome list of he himself might travel round to requirements, in the hope of satisfy- present his operas in their first ing the wildly differing demands of performances in important cities, important people, and also starting showed a total lack of interest (at from the basic assumption that every least so far as composing additional new production would remain a long numbers was concerned) in his own time in the repertoire and so pay for works, which none the less continued itself. All this, apart from the reduc- in their triumphant career on all the tion in number of possible contracts leading stages of Europe. In 1826 and various other trials, was not not even Giuditta Pasta succeeded to a composer’s disadvantage. In in beguiling him into writing her fact, the composer who succeeded an extra aria to sing in the Finale in lodging an opera firmly in the of Tancredi, which was performed repertoire was awarded salary and everywhere with all sorts of inter- pension calculated on the number polations by all sorts of composers. of performances achieved. But, in It is also significant that although Paris, who took the place of that Rossini did not give the Diva a colourful, possibly coarse but on the new aria, he did write her embel- whole kind-hearted figure, the Ital- lishments for the aria by Nicolini ian impresario? It is impossible to that she introduced in place of the define who or what took his place, or original one. One might say that this reduce it to a simple entity like “The represents a singular lack of amour King” or his delegate, the Minister propre, but it also demonstrates a of the Royal Household. The fact is lack of interest in mere commercial that the theatres were governed by a exploitation. In those days Italian shrewd and demanding policy which composers enjoyed absolutely no missed no detail, from the choice of royalties on revivals of their works, the libretti to be set to music to the so nobody could ever have imagined building of the scenery, the compo- the sublime effrontery of such a great sition of the music and every tiny “artisan” of twentieth-century music step in its progress towards actual as Igor Stravinskij, who set about performance. It operated directly, re-orchestrating or re-organizing all but also through working groups his earliest compositions when they or committees (such as the jury de threatened to fall into the public lecture which approved or rejected domain, and did not bother to con- the poetical texts to be set to mu- ceal the fact that his sole aim was to sic) within which various pressure ensure continued payments of royal- groups would in their turn make ties that otherwise would have dried their presence felt (the local com- up (obviously, this procedure could posers were not the least of these). very easily yield artistic results of the As would happen with increasing highest class). This was the Italian frequency later on, equally strong way of doing things that Rossini left pressures would be brought to bear behind him on the day after the first by the press, by economic potentates performance of Semiramide in 1823, and by rival clans, making it essen- when he girded up his loins to face tial for the composer to be able to a new career in Paris. count on support in high places or to The French musical market and have himself reached a strong posi- One in a Thousand 5 tion in the internal administration poser); Verdi was quite right when, of the theatres. Though this situation in his wrath, he coined the happy was in an evolutionary phase when term “grande boutique” to describe Rossini arrived in Paris (whilst be the Opéra. Composers like Spontini was there a new committee was set and Meyerbeer, who were cut out of up, the comité de mise en scène the same cloth as the members of the which supervised the staging), it was administration (that is, for them it of course nothing new, but it went was natural to be constantly assailed back in time considerably and was by doubts and second thoughts), a symptom of the “Royal” origins of fared much better at the Opéra. the Académie. Given the prestige of Both of them succeeded in getting the Opéra and its widely-recognized the theatre administration in the importance, such a manner of con- palm of their hands, the former by ducting its affairs led to endless his frequently renewed and tortu- consequences not limited to any ous pretentions and with ceaseless particular epoch. In fact, everyone corrections to the scores of Fernand knows how decisive was the influ- Cortez and Olympie, the latter with ence exerted by opposing factions in his exasperating reluctance to au- the famous quarrel between the ad- thorize the first performances of his mirers of Gluck and Piccinni when operas, sometimes years after they the eighteenth century was at its had been written.