Michielotto’s new staging of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell raised plenty of hackles in London, but will it here?


This week, social media pundits, the Twittersphere and even the venerable BBC have been abuzz with the latest operatic hiatus at the Royal Opera House. It seems the opening night audience for c new staging of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell raised plenty of hackles along with some unprecedented heckles during a graphic act of sexual violence during the Act III ballet. Yes, they booed DURING the performance, not just at the end as seems to be increasingly the case at the traditionally sedate London venue.

The leadership team of Kasper Holten and Sir Antonio Pappano have, to my mind, offered a speedy and dignified defence of their artistic choices but that doesn’t seem to have extinguished the ardour of the UK’s anti-‘Regie’ brigade (for those new to the term: Regietheater is German for director’s theatre and is a term that refers to the modern practice of allowing a director freedom in devising the way a given opera or play is staged so that the creator’s original, specific intentions or stage directions be changed, together with major elements of geographical location, chronological situation, casting and plot).

As it happens, this very production will open the next Palace Opera Ballet cinema season in a few weeks time so Australian audiences will have their own opportunity to judge what have been some fairly extreme reactions. Guillaume Tell is Rossini’s sprawling masterpiece (IMHO) and chances to see it in the flesh are rare so I shall be definitely giving it a go. However, the broadcast will apparently be rated MA15+ – you have been warned!

It seems odd that here in Australia audiences and arts media seem to be more inclined to complain of conservatism blunting the edge of our own opera programming. It will be interesting to see what people make of Michielotto’s production – especially given that he is a director who I know for a fact is of interest to some of Australia’s key artistic decision makers. Meanwhile, as audiences eye each other enviously across the globe, I can’t help thinking there’s a case of ‘the other man’s grass’ going on here. What do you think?