Asile hereditaire

GUILLAUME TELL
Opéra en 4 actes
Composer : Gioacchino Rossini (1792–1868)
Libretto : Étienne de Jouy & Hippolyte Bis, after Schiller’s tragedy « Wilhelm Tell » (1804)
First performance : Opéra, Paris, 3 August 1829

SETTING: Switzerland, 13th century

PLOT: William Tell is the heroic archer who shot Gessler, tyrannical Austrian Governor of the cantons of Uri and Schwyz. Tell helps Leuthold, a shepherd, to escape after killing one of Gessler’s soldiers to protect his daughter. The Austrians take the old Melchtal prisoner; his son, Arnold, loves Mathilde, Gessler’s sister. After learning from Tell and Walter Furst that the Austrians have killed his father, Arnold joins the rebellion against the Austrians. The clans gather in the heights of Rütli and swear to fight or die for Swiss freedom. Gessler makes the Swiss bow before his hat, placed high on a pole in the main square at Altsdorf. When Tell refuses, Gessler orders him to shoot an apple off his son Jemmy’s head – if he refuses, both will die. Tell succeeds, but he and Jemmy are arrested when Gessler learns that he had a second arrow to shoot him with. Mathilde takes Jemmy under her protection, and Gessler orders Tell to row him across Lake Lucerne to the fort at Kusnac/Küssnacht. Tell shoots Gessler, and Switzerland is free.

Rossini’s final opera is generally regarded as his masterpiece. Donizetti said the second act was ‘written by God, since no human could compose something so sublime’. Félix Clément wrote: ‘Chef-d’œuvre incomparable du plus grand compositeur de ce siècle, Guillaume Tell offre un ensemble merveilleux de toutes les richesses mélodiques et harmonieuses que l’art musical moderne semble pouvoir produire… Ce qui a contribué à la prédominance de l'opéra de Guillaume Tell sur tous les opéras modernes, c'est qu'on y trouve exprimés, avec le même bonheur, les sentiments les plus forts de la nature, je veux dire l'amour paternel, l'amour filial, la tendresse conjugale, la sainte amitié, la haine de l'injustice et enfin l'amour de la patrie.’ [1]

[1] ‘Incomparable masterpiece of the greatest composer of the century, Guillaume Tell offers a marvellous ensemble of all the melodic and harmonic riches that modern musical art seems able to produce… Guillaume Tell is superior to all modern operas because one finds expressed, with the same happiness, the strongest sentiments of nature: paternal love, filial love, conjugal affection, holy friendship, hatred of injustice and finally love of the homeland.’

No. 19 – Récitatif, Air & Choeur: ‘Ne m'abandonne pas, espoir de la vengeance! … Asile héréditaire’

Arnold, prétendant de Mathilde / in love with Mathilde (tenor): Nicolai Gedda

Conductor: Lamberto Gardelli
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
London, 1972