Irish National Opera's artistic director, Fergus Sheil, rediscovers the riches in Rossini’s final masterpiece, William Tell, which returns to the Irish stage this November after a 145 year hiatus, for a limited run at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre.
For me, William Tell has been an obsession that just won’t go away. As a teenager I fell in love with the overture. Not the famous galop – although who doesn’t enjoy that? – but the exquisite opening of five cellos supported by double basses and timpani. When I heard that first, time stood still and I vividly recall thinking that I had never imagined music could be quite so beautiful. As the years went by I delved into the rest of the opera and couldn’t believe the riches that are hidden in the score.
I say they are hidden, because despite the overture being one of the most instantly recognizable pieces of music, the rest of the opera is largely unknown. It’s particularly unknown to Irish audiences, as it has not been performed in Dublin since the 1870s. I confess that I have never been to a performance of the opera previously, and our opening night in the Gaiety Theatre will be my first time to see the work performed live.
There are no doubt reasons for William Tell’s obscurity. It is Rossini’s final opera, written for the Paris Opéra in 1829. It stands apart from all 38 of his earlier operas. It is epic in scale and was written for an audience that enjoyed and expected spectacle. The spectacle comes in the form of extraordinarily demanding vocal roles as well as the most complex and intricate choral writing. There are also many moments of dance supported by dazzling orchestral writing. While the opera is a workout for everybody, I’m particularly drawn to the chorus, which forms an ever-present backbone. The chorus are the people of Switzerland that our hero William Tell fights for. They are the entire raison d’être of the story and Rossini lavishes them with musical glories one after another right the way through.
The reasons to avoid performing William Tell, then became in my mind the very reasons to do it. The scale and impossibility of it all appeals to me – not just the enormity of the piece and the numbers of performers needed – but the epic nature of the story and the magnitude of Rossini’s musical ambition.
One aspect of the history of William Tell fascinates me. Rossini was 37 years old when he wrote it, and he lived almost another 40 years without ever writing another opera. There is much speculation about why this might be, but in my entirely speculative mind, it is because he had used every trick, employed every device and expended every ounce of inspiration on this score, going out with a valedictory blaze of C major triumph that simply couldn’t be exceeded. (And although the two operas are very different, I’m reminded of Verdi’s final operatic moment – also a blaze of C major at the end of Falstaff).
In planning William Tell for audiences in Ireland in the 2020s, I'm aware of how far away we are from the experience of audiences at the opera’s premiere in Paris in the 1820s. Our expectations, our aesthetics and our cultural palette are worlds apart, yet our tools to tell the story are exactly the same; singers sing, dancers dance and musicians play. I find this a fascinating challenge – to present the work in a contemporary and relevant way that remains faithful to Rossini’s score.
It's both exhilarating and daunting for a young opera company like Irish National Opera, still under five years old, to have stuck our heads above the parapet and taken on a work of this scale and ambition, where logic would have stopped us long ago. But my overriding love and belief in this score has driven us and as we enter the final period of rehearsals, my greatest hope is that audiences will share our passion for this remarkable work.
Irish National Opera stage Rossini’s William Tell in a co production with Nouvel Opéra Fribourg for a limited run at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, from 8th – 13th Nov 2022 - find out more here.
