The work is refracted through the eyes of Tell’s son Jemmy (Sofia Fomina), who contrasts his father ( Gerald Finley) with the legendary Tell (played by an uncredited actor), conjured up from a comic book at the start of the evening, who remains a mute, pervasive presence thereafter. Any claims to integrity are weakened, however, by obfuscating symbolism. Michieletto’s production relocates Rossini’s depiction of 14th-century Swiss resistance to Austrian occupation to what could be any one of a number of post-war conflicts, since Carla Teti’s costumes straddle the period from the late 1940s to the present day. It is, however, typical of Michieletto’s approach, which is by turns in your face and intransigent. The recast scene itself felt completely unnecessary: in Act I, Rossini establishes and registers his horror – by perfectly valid dramatic means – at the fact that Gesler’s men are rapists.
Photograph: Tristram Kenton/for the Guardian Nicolas Courjal (left) as the rapist Gesler. People were voting with their feet as well as their voices: quite a few had already left during the second interval. Not everyone, it should be added, had got that far. Michieletto’s decision to recast the third act ballet – in which the tyrannical Gesler’s henchmen force a group of girls to dance with them – as a protracted and pruriently voyeuristic gang rape, resulted in an immediate reaction of unprecedented anger, as sustained booing swept through the auditorium, drowning out the music, and continuing until the end of the episode.Ī few individuals carried on heckling the singers – unfairly – through to the start of Act IV. The groundswell of concern about the bifurcation between musical excellence and weak theatrical standards at Covent Garden has been gathering for some time now.
The Royal Opera is, perhaps, going to have to start reconsidering its priorities and its relationship with its audience after the first night of Damiano Michieletto ’s wretched new production of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell.
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