« Ancestral home, where my eyes opened to the light of day,
only yesterday, your protective shelter
Offered a father to my love.
I call in vain, oh bitter grief!
I call, he no longer hears my voice!
Beloved walls within which my father dwelt,
I come to see you for the last time! » ACTE 4, ARNOLD MELCHTAL

BRAVERY
REBELLION
FREEDOM

Libretto by Victor-Joseph
Étienne de Jouy and
Hippolyte-Louis-Florent Bis

In 13th-century Switzerland, William Tell is determined to free his people from the oppression of the Austrian invaders led by the odious Gessler. Young Arnold, meanwhile, is torn between his patriotic duty and his love for Mathilde, the tyrant’s sister. Nevertheless, the two men finally succeed in defeating the enemy during a terrible storm on Lake Lucerne, after completing the famous and terrible crossbow test…

MORE THAN AN APPLE…

Rossini’s 37th and last opera is undoubtedly his most unusual. With its French libretto, based on Schiller’s tragedy, Guillaume Tell is widely considered as one of the greatest French operas and undoubtedly its composer’s most accomplished dramatic masterpiece. However, audiences and commentators were surprised by this historical fresco, deeming it a clean break with the bel canto world in which the composer excelled. At the age of forty, Rossini ended his operatic career on a high note, with a bold new work heralding the genre of French grand opera and Romanticism with its themes and the new treatment of instruments and voices. The power of the orchestra, the vocal power, and the tragic scope of the subject matter were all combined in Rossini’s swansong.

Somewhere between legend and history, Guillaume Tell tells the story of a gallant act of heroism, leading to foundation of the Swiss Confederation and illustrating the revolt of a people in the face of the abuses of its invaders. The stakes are therefore much higher than the famous apple challenge. It’s a quest for freedom, very much in the spirit of the times, during the revolutions of 1830. The Liège composer André-Modeste-Ernest Grétry wrote and successfully performed his drama of the same name as early as 1791. With its different aesthetic, it was very popular with French revolutionaries until it was eclipsed by Rossini’s masterpiece.

• LAST PERFORMED ATH THE ORW
  NOVEMBER 2000
• NEW PRODUCTION
  OPÉRA ROYAL DE WALLONIE-LIÈGE
• WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE TAX SHELTER OF THE FEDERAL BELGIAN GOVERNMENT AND THE BEL ARTS FUND