William Tell Theater an den Wien
Oct 13th 2018
Reputedly, Rossini had a jocular comment about the longeurs of Wagner’s music - Monsieur Wagner a de beaux moments, mais de mauvais quart d'heures – but I must admit that when watching this, its appropriateness to the work in question did occasionally come to mind. Not enough to spoil enjoyment but nevertheless…
The production was effectively semi-modern with costumes referencing character types – Gessler military dictator, modern visual elements but a traditional bow being here a crossbow of modern appearance. The overture was somewhat baffling as it depicted, in an abstractly bleak snowy landscape, Tell killing someone whose grave cross was a constant feature at the front of the stage for the whole production. The revolve was effectively used to establish distance and setting and the ultra-efficient clearing of the stage of ankle-depth ‘snow’ was very impressive.
Dramatically Arnold and Matilda were the main dramatic focus in the work. With them being on different sides, with a degree of moral and emotional conflict, they were the characters with whom I most identified and was engaged by. Tell by contrast is a more conventional figure, almost an archetypal ‘freedom fighter’ although by no means, in his approaches, morally white to contrast with the relentlessly black Gessler. This was suggested at the end where the Gessler uniform was donned again suggesting, slightly predictably, that the whole cycle may well begin again. This idea, a rather too common one now it seems in opera productions is I feel, becoming a bit stale and I did have the sense when that happened here of feeling ‘oh, yes…of course’. The problem with this is that it has the effect of disengaging one from what one has previously seen.
As ever with the Schoenberg Choir, the chorus (superb performers both as actors and singers) were excellent and the fact that they were seen very much as one group, rather than distinct individuals, tended to drive this home. The great technical demands of the music were very well met, particularly by John Osborn as Arnold and Jane Archibald as Matilde. I was never just seduced by the techniques they both had in spades – rather was wholly engaged in the way they created the drama through the spectacular music, making me appreciate how, in the hands of a master like Rossini this could be achieved and the technical demands never became ends in themselves.
That’s about it; bit shorter than usual but did not make many notes – and I have left it almost a month before actually getting down to posting this !