Peter Schofield's Reviews
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The  new production of William Tell also directed by David Pountney was a complete contrast to Moses in Egypt The conductor Andrew Greenwood, substituting for Carlo Rizzi, was this time an inspiration to the orchestra who played throughout at their best, carrying forward the drama in rip-roaring style from the familiar overture (with a lone cellist at the back of the stage), to the closing storm.

Arnold, son of a Swiss village patriarch Melchtal, has fallen for Mathilde an Austrian noblewoman Under their governer Gesler, the Austrians are brutally oppressing the Swiss and take Melchtal hostage. When Arnold learns that his father has been murdered he swears revenge and to fight for independence. Meanwhile Tell’s life will be spared if he shoots an apple from his son’s head. This he does but infuriates Gesler who sets out by boat with Tell in chains for Altdorf Castle but has to be released so his seamanship will carry the boat across. But Arnold has armed the Swiss, the baddies are killed and the lovers united. All ends in peace. I first saw Guillaume Tell at the Palais Garnier in Paris, where it seems to be regarded as a French adopted National Opera (completely overlooking Berlioz and Les Troyens).This production lacked the excitement engendered by Pountney and at over four hours seemed overlong. WNO had cut it to three and a half hours. Thank God we were spared a modern version in which the Swiss were Kurds and the Austrians almost anyone else, instead of leaving the audience to make the connection if they so wished.

The singers were all good, as was the ballet, not often in modern opera production, choreoghraphed by Amir Hosseinpour. David Kempster sang Tell well, Leah-Marian Jones extremely well as Hedwige Tell’s Wife and Fleur Wynn charmed in the small roll of Jemmy the son. Barry Banks, Arnold, and Gisella Stille, Mathilde, were a good pair of lovers but it was the two other men, the goody Melcthal nd the baddy Gesler, Clive Bayley, who excelled.

It was hard to fault this performance except for the occasional idiosynchracy in the staging such as a line of ladies placing a row of black boxes at the front of the stage to no apparent purpose and the apperarance of the scaffold set.

A long but enjoyable evening!

8 November 2014

 

 

 

 

 

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