page_title: William Tell (opera)
section_title: Performance history
hierarchical_section_title: William Tell (opera) / Performance history
caption_attribution_description: Costume designs for the première of Rossini's William Tell. Laure Cinti-Damoreau as Mathilde Adolphe Nourrit as Arnold Melchtal, and Nicolas Levasseur as Walter Furst. The images quite obviously originally were meant to fit together.&#91;1&#93; The shadows stretch from one image to the other, and even the watercolour splotches and other minor elements of the painting match up perfectly. I presume it was cut up in order to send it to the various tailors who made the costumes, but it makes more sense as art put back together. Compare File:Rossini - Le comte Ory - Eugène Du Faget - Paris 1828 - 2. Le gouverneur, Levasseur, le comte Ory, Nourrit, Ragonde, Gosselin.jpg or File:Costumes - Frederic Lemaitre as Buridan, Mlle George as Marguerite de Bourgogne (La Tour de Nesle, September 1832).jpg
context_page_description: William Tell is a French-language opera in four acts by Italian composer Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy and L. F. Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play William Tell, which, in turn, drew on the William Tell legend. The opera was Rossini's last, although he lived for nearly 40 more years. Fabio Luisi said that Rossini planned for William Tell to be his last opera even as he composed it. The often-performed overture in four sections features a depiction of a storm and a vivacious finale, the "March of the Swiss Soldiers".
  Paris Opéra archivist Charles Malherbe discovered the original orchestral score of the opera at a secondhand book seller's shop, resulting in its being acquired by the Paris Conservatoire.
context_section_description: It was first performed by the Paris Opéra at the Salle Le Peletier on 3 August 1829, but within three performances cuts were being made and after a year only three acts were performed. The opera's length, roughly four hours of music, and casting requirements, such as the high range required for the tenor part, have contributed to the difficulty of producing the work. When performed, the opera is often cut. Performances have been given in both French and Italian. Political concerns have also contributed to the varying fortunes of the work.
  In Italy, because the work glorified a revolutionary figure against authority, the opera encountered difficulties with the Italian censors, and the number of productions in Italy was limited. The Teatro San Carlo produced the opera in 1833, but then did not give another production for around 50 years. The first Venice production, at the Teatro La Fenice, was not until 1856. By contrast, in Vienna, in spite of censorship problems there, the Vienna Court Opera gave 422 performances over the years 1830 to 1907. As Hofer, or the Tell of the Tyrol, the opera was first performed at Drury Lane in London on 1 May 1830 (in English), with a production in Italian following in 1839 at Her Majesty's, and in French at Covent Garden in 1845. In New York, William Tell was first presented on 19 September 1831. It was revived at the Metropolitan Opera in 1923 with Rosa Ponselle and Giovanni Martinelli, and there were revivals during the 1930s in Milan, Rome, Paris, Berlin and Florence. When the opera was performed at Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona) in 1893, an anarchist threw two Orsini bombs in the theatre.
  In the later 20th century there were major productions in Florence (1972), Geneva (1979, 1991), La Scala (1988), Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (1989), Covent Garden (1990), and then Opéra Bastille (2003) as well as at the Sportspalace in Pesaro (lasting over 5 hours, 1995).
  In 2010 there was an important revival of the opera, when it opened the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia's season, under Antonio Pappano. This performance was of the French version, with some cuts to particularly the fourth act (which Pappano noted had been approved by Rossini himself). A live recording of this concert performance was released in 2011, and the production was transferred to The Proms in July of that year, with Michele Pertusi taking on the title role, Patricia Bardon as Hedwige, Nicolas Courjal as Gessler, and Mark Stone as Leuthold. The performance was very well reviewed, and marked the first full performance of the work in the history of the Proms.
  A co-production by the Dutch National Opera and the Metropolitan Opera New York of the opera in the original French opened at the Met in October 2016 with Gerald Finley in the title role.
  According to an anecdote, when an admirer told the composer that he had heard his opera the previous night, Rossini replied "What? The whole of it?". Another version of the story refers only to Act II. In 1864 Offenbach quoted the patriotic trio from Act 2, "Lorsque la Grèce est un champ de carnage" in La Belle Hélène.
caption: Costume designs by Eugène Du Faget for the original production: Laure Cinti-Damoreau as Mathilde, Adolphe Nourrit as Arnold Melchtal, and Nicolas Levasseur as Walter Furst
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