(They assume, rightly, that he will have to side with them if he believes the Austrians have killed his father.) The Swiss leaders’ mad determination leads to foolhardy attacks that result in mass casualties: the opera’s beautiful final chorus sounds while nearly every man on stage bleeds to death. Melchtal isn’t murdered by the Austrians, but rather by Guillaume and Walter, who want to secure the wavering Arnold’s support. (That these apparent Nazis also wave a black-and-white version of the EU flag is beyond this American reviewer’s political understanding.) Guillaume’s revolution, though, is also utterly immoral. Here, the occupiers are still undoubtedly evil – their World War II-era German-style uniforms make that clear enough. Traditionally, Guillaume Tell is a hero fighting the cruel and dictatorial Austrian occupation. (I was especially happy to be spared the interminable assembly of the men from the three cantons.)īut even more extreme than the musical revision is director Antú Romero Nunes’ reinterpretation of the revolution at the opera’s core. Generous cuts bring the running time down to three hours and eliminate many of the opera’s more repetitive sections. We finally hear the overture at the beginning of Act II. The four acts are played as two, with an intermission immediately after Guillaume shoots the apple from his son’s head.

Omitting it (or rather moving it) makes a clear statement that this is not a traditional production.

After the lovely bridal chorus, the people sitting next to me started whispering, “What about the overture?” I wondered the same thing- – while Rossini’s final opera is rarely staged, its overture contains perhaps the most famous melody in all of opera.

The Bayerische Staatsoper’s Guillaume Tell is atypical from its first moments.

Post intermission overture crossword