Review: Rossini’s Guillaume Tell at the Royal Opera House

3 / 5 stars
Rossini’s Guillaume Tell

SOMETHING I have never heard before at Covent Garden is the noise of an audience booing during mid-performance.

review, Rossini, Guillaume Tell, Royal Opera House, Clare ColvinPH

Jessica Chamberlain, the actress in the controversial Guillaume Tell rape scene

Disapproval voiced at curtain calls is not unusual in these days of controversial “directors’ theatre” but the first night of the Royal Opera’s new production of Guillaume Tell was remarkable for the sustained and spontaneous booing from all parts of the house at a scene portraying a gang rape.

The furore drowned the orchestra for a minute, while Gerald Finley, in the title role, waited on stage. 

The scene that so outraged the audience comes in Act Three of the four hour, 30 minute saga relating the fight of the Swiss cantons led by the legendary archer William Tell to free themselves from Hapsburg Austria.

The scene is described in the synopsis as “Austrian soldiers eye up the Swiss women and force them to dance.” What happens instead, in director Damiano Michieletto’s reading, is that a single actress among the chorus of women is dragged out by the soldiers. 

In an unpleasantly protracted scene, we see her having drink forced down her throat, being harassed, humiliated, and finally stripped naked during the sexual attack. The scene, to my mind, is gratuitous and prurient.

Rossini would have been aware as much as anyone keeping up with the news today of what goes on during war. The point is the use of compulsion by occupying forces, which would have been clearly illustrated by seeing the women being forced to dance.

Michieletto, making his Royal Opera debut, insults the intelligence of the audience by his in-your-face shock tactics. Guillaume Tell is updated from the 14th century to a strife-torn region nearer our time, such as Kosovo.

The Austrian troops appear first in black, a reminder of IS, and then in combat khaki. The production opens to Paolo Fantin’s drab set of a neon-lit community hall. The villagers, supposedly enjoying a celebration, sit at separate tables.

The only relief from the monotone is the crimson cloak of a phantom medieval archer who wanders through the hall stabbing at the tables with arrows, as if to remind the people of their past independence. 

On screen are videos of a cartoon comic book belonging to Tell’s son about the adventures of the legendary Swiss hero. Fantin’s set is more visually successful in the exterior scenes. A vast uprooted tree with bare branches, imaginatively lit by Alessandro Carletti, revolves in the changing light.

What goes on around the blasted tree, however, continues to irritate. Why does Mathilde, the Hapsburg princess with whom the Swiss patriot Arnold is in love, strip off to her underwear and hug its trunk while singing “Sombre Foret”?

There is altogether quite a lot of stripping off during the evening. The oath-taking scene of the Swiss fighters involves the men taking off their shirts and smearing themselves with blood and earth. Musically, there is little to fault.

The Royal Opera Orchestra under Antonio Pappano gives a storming performance, bringing its splendid brass to the Overture famed as the theme tune for TV’s Lone Ranger series. Bass-baritone Gerald Finley is in darkly resonant tone as a noble William Tell, and the relationship with his son Jemmy (Sofia Fomina) is sensitively defined.

His invocation “Sois immobile” (Be still) to Jemmy before shooting the apple from his son’s head is a highly emotional moment. Tenor John Osborn as Arnold is at his best, hitting the High Cs in the call to arms. 

The fourth act aria when he sees his ruined home “Asile hereditaire” (Oh, silent abode), had the audience cheering in renewed enthusiasm. Soprano Malin Bystrom seems ill at ease in the part of Mathilde but Fomina is a feisty Jemmy. Bass Nicolas Courjal is suitably thuggish as Gesler, the Austrian governor.

Guillaume Tell will be relayed live today at 3pm to more than 1,500 cinemas with an encore next Sunday, July 12 (roh.org.uk) and BBC Radio 3 will broadcast the opera on September 15.

Rossini’s Guillaume Tell (William Tell) at the Royal Opera House London WC2 (Tickets: 020 7304 4000; £9-£190)

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