Customer Reviews

Rossini: Guillaume Tell

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This is the very best recording of Tell that exists. There are others of live performances (in French and in Italian, all heavily cut), and a wonderful complete version (minus most of the ballet music) in Italian with Pavarotti. Though the Italian version is very interesting, very exciting, and very thrilling in many ways, it is NOT the opera that Rossini wrote. He wrote French Grand Opera at its grandest. This opera, along with La Juive, Les Huguenots, and Auber's Opera where the heroine is "danced" rather than sung, are considered the chief cornerstones of all French Grand Opera. As exciting as Tell is in Italian, it becomes quite a different work in its original French. A great refinement paints the very vivid score.

It is a very long work, and in spite of its length actually holds together quite well. As with all Rossini, there are little touches that simply make a scene, but don't draw any real attention to themselves. The vocal writing is much less florid than it was in his Italian operas, but no less moving. This opera was the opera that changed singing (at least for tenors) forever. It was in this opera that Dupres sang his famous high C from the chest (Nourrot, the creature of the role, sang it in head voice, and that is the only way Rossini liked hearing it; the public, however was hooked on the High C from the chest). We are hearing a wonderful performance in this recording, and it is virtually complete (including the ballet music). Each character is well sung, and for once we can actually understand French when it is sung. There is a difference in this French version and the Italian one with Pavarotti. In this version, Act 3, a duet occurs between Matilde and Arnold. In the Italian it becomes an aria for soprano with a tenor interjecting now and again. In the French it is a real duet, even with the very extended aria sections for the soprano. Caballe sings to perfection in this recording, and in my view, outshines Freni (who sings Matilde in the Italian version) by a long way.

However, the opera is judged (and Heaven knows why, for all the main characters are of equal importance, and with music of equal difficulty) not by the lead baritone (singing Tell), but by the tenor, Arnold. It was actually for want of a qualified tenor that a contralto premiered that role when it was first performed in Italian, shortly after the French Premiere. Gedda is getting on in years, sadly, but he is still a wonderful presences to recon with. He sings wonderfully, and with little strain, though the bloom of his youth is not there (and Arnold should be an ardent young man). In the Italian verions with Pavarotti, Arnoldo is sung with more raw energy, more abandon (suitable to Italian opera), but with less refinement. Gedda is still "THE ARNOLD."

There are other versions out there in French (one with Chris Merrit), but usually they are live performances, and well, for some reason the work does not hold together, nor does it seem to escape becoming boring. Usually this is because of the cuts that are used, which ruins the proper flow of the work. I would avoid the live recordings, even if they claim to be in French and "the world's first recording of it." The first recording of this magnificent opera in French is THIS RECORDING, and there are NONE others that come close to it in any way.

If you wish to really hear what Rossini wrote, and come to understand what he was intending to do, this is the recording to buy. Fair warning, though, the work is extremely long (though not longer than Wagner) and until you are fully comfortable with the style, listen to it in installments. Then when the work is deeply set in your heart, you can listen to the entire thing non-stop, and truly enjoy one of the most wonderful operas that was ever written for the Paris Opera.

This is one of the best recordings by either Caballe or Gedda. I haven't always wamed up to the sound of his voice once he was out of his first youth (and he was around forever--how strange to realize that the sweet voice on Legge's Land of Smiles is the same rough old croaker on the Davis Cosi!). But he is splendid here, not too rough of voice yet and singing with a grace that Schipa himself might envy. Just compare him to the irredeemably coarse Pavarotti on the Chailly set, especially in the first big tenor/soprano duet. As for Caballe, this really marks the end of her best period. She is both in spendid voice and mentally alert. She would turn out many lovely things in the decade to come, but arguably nothing as consistently fine as this performance. (You want to argue with me? First go back and relisten to the Muti Aida or the Giulini Don Carlo and then for comparison sample the Davis Un Ballo or the somnolent Lombard Turandot.) But Gedda and Caballe here have irrefutable evidence that in 1973 they were pretty darn close to perfect and how often can we say that of any singers since?

This recording is the best version of "Guillaume Tell" in French. The cast is as strong as any that can be assembled. The conductor does a superb job and the orchestra plays magnificently. This opera contains great music, especially the overture, the choruses, the duet music between Arnold and Mathilde, and the ballet music. Everything is so tuneful! Rossini should be very proud of this exceedingly great opera.

The cast is made up of mostly French singers. Tell is played superbly by Gabriel Bacquier. He sings "Sois immobile" very well. He gives a convincing portrayal. Walter is given over to Kolos Kovacs. He does a commendable job. Jemmy is played by Mady Mesplé. I am not crazy about her voice, but she is more than able in the role of Tell's young son. Hedwige is sung ably by Jocelyne Taillon. The two stars of this recording are Nicolai Gedda and Montserrat Caballé. Gedda plays Arnold superbly. He characterizes his part well, but he is never crude. Needless to say, his French diction is very fine. He handles the very high tessitura of the role with complete mastery. Every high note is attacked with precision. Gedda was justifiably famous for these high notes. He also had the most exquisite pianissimos of any tenor. He sings "Asile héréditaire" wonderfully. This aria is a highlight of the recording with its six or seven high C's. Most of these are in the cabaletta. Montserrat Caballé is no less wonderful than Gedda is. She sings with great French diction. Her voice is even more beautiful in French than it is in Italian. She characterizes Mathilde superbly. The love duets between her and Gedda are nectars of the gods. Just wonderful. Her declamation leading into her first aria is sung with great skill and dramatic commitment. The ensuing aria "Sombre forêt" is sung masterfully. Her second aria, "Pour notre amour plus d'espérance", is simply fabulous. I just love the way her voice sounds when she sings the first phrase of that aria. I also love the musical transition between the very end of Track 1 into the very beginning of Track 2 CD 3. The end of this aria is full of difficult ascending and descending scales. Caballé sings those scales perfectly. Her mighty voice is surprisingly flexible when it comes to singing complex coloratura. Mathilde's unique-sounding arietta, "Sur la rive étrangère", is sung magnificently by Caballé twice. She wraps her luscious voice around that arietta's delicate coloratura with great results.

This recording is great. It is a must-have for anyone wanting to hear the original French version of "Guillaume Tell".

PS. There is a super minor mistake in the track index and libretto. Track 13 on CD 2 starts with Mathilde's phrase "Dans celle qui t'aime" not "Il est digne de mon amour, oui".

Written and produced in Paris in 1829, this is Rossini's last and grandest opera. Based on a play by Schiller, this opera is almost a compendium of Romantic themes. The tenor hero is a young revolutionary fighting foreign occupiers on behalf of the common people, in love with a princess of that same occupying power who renounces her country and station to fight for the common people beside the man she loves. The pastoral setting is majestic and full of grandeur, reflecting the noble cause for which they fight and is held up as an example of all that is good. You name it, they've got it! And Rossini wrote some of his best music for all of this, packing the opera with memorable tunes that reflect the themes of the play and are themselves reflected in national songs and less exalted music worldwide (think of the Lone Ranger's theme music.)

Despite all of this, the opera isn't often performed. The reasons rapidly become clear. It lasts almost five hours, requires immense and incredibly elaborate sets (how do you get an alp AND a lake onstage and at the same time?), and further requires an incredible cast, with a large chorus, two major soprano roles, (the aforementioned princess and the trouser role of Tell's son), a mezzo role, a large and low-lying baritone role (Tell himself), two good-size bass roles, and one of the most difficult tenor roles in all opera. The tenor role is placed very high in the voice, (it's sprinkled with high-Cs--one aria has seven by itself!), and requires a singer who can be sweet and lyrical and a minute later ardent and heroic. Pavarotti famously refused to make his La Scala debut in the role, fearing (probably correctly) that it would simply shred his voice, and Gedda only sang it once on stage.

Fortunately there are two excellent recordings of the opera to enjoy. One is sung in Italian, conducted by Ricardo Chailly, with a stellar cast including Pavarotti, (who said it was his best recorded performance ), Freni, and Milnes. The other is this recording, made in 1973, which is the only recording of the opera in the language in which it was originally written.

Briskly and clearly led by Lamberto Gardelli, this recording stars Gabriel Bacquier as Tell, Nicolai Gedda as the heroic tenor, Montserrat Caballe as his Austrian princess, and French lyric coloratura Mady Mesple as Tell's son. The Ambrosian Chorus's French diction isn't the clearest, and it seems a bit odd to cast a Spanish soprano in this very French opera, but Caballe sings divinely. And the other three are native French speakers. I have always been a fan of Bacquier, who had a long and distinguished career, and he handles the title role with distinction. Mesple was an underrated coloratura, and she brings a clear liquid sweetness to the role of Tell's young son. Although Gedda was getting on a bit when he made this recording, and some of the high notes sound a little forced, he brings his ever-present elegance and refinement to the role. He is a superb stylist and his musicianship is incredible. The London Philharmonic plays with clarity and gusto, the stereo sound is clean, it comes with an excellent booklet containing the libretto, some pictures, and an excellent essay on the opera, and the price is very reasonable.

While the Italian recording is also terribly exciting, and Pavarotti brings a dramatic urgency to his role, (singing it a little faster than Gedda does), I really like hearing the work in the language for which it was written. I think it works better. After all, Rossini wrote his music to fit the existing words, in French. This recording belongs in every collection, large or small.

I have this opera and the Italian version with Pavarotti on vinyl.They are both outstanding and I could never choose between the two. On this set, the conductor, orchestra,and singers are first rate. Ensembles,duets and solos are a pure joy to listen to.This is a recording that you will want in its entirety; it is simply too good to have as a "highlights" disc. Anyone who loves great music and gorgeous singing should treat themselves and give this set a try.

Almost everyone is familiar with the last section of the overture to William Tell because of its use as the theme for The Lone Ranger. Some people are even familiar with the whole overture and realize what a masterful tone poem it is. But how many people have heard the magnificent opera which goes with the famous overture? Far too few I'm afraid for the opera William Tell -- despite its relative obscurity -- is a masterpiece, filled not only with outstanding arias and choruses but also with great orchestral and ballet music. William Tell was Rossini's last opera -- and despite the greatness of the his many other operas, including The Barber of Seville -- William Tell was Rossini's greatest masterpiece. If you love opera and have never heard the complete William Tell please acquire this outstanding recording. If you do, I think that you will agree with me that William Tell has been unjustly neglected and belongs in the mainstream operatic repertoire.

Gedda is indeed a superb Arnold in this recording. Nicolai Gedda is what is what would be called a "singer's singer" (and sounds as good, if not better in person, so no studio produced singer here, I have had the very great priviledge of hearing him live at least 3 times). Gedda handles the murderous tessitura of Arnold very securely. Caballe' sings very beautifully and this is just about the best singing I've ever heard from Bacquier on any recording. If you do not already own this recording, I would very strongly urge you to buy it. This is a wonderful recording of Guillaume Tell and most definitely the best recording in the original French. A must have!!

For along time this was the only available recording of Guillaume Tell in French, but so what? It is practically perfection. Gedda (Arnold) is excellent, but so are Bacquier (Tell) and Caballe (Mathilde). "Sois immobile" in Act III demonstrates what Wagner meant when he complimented Rossini on achieving the perfect union of music and action. ("Hmm," replied Rossini, "so I've been writing the music of the future all this time and I didn't even know it.")

I only have to say that you should buy this recording which is cheaper than other, is the only studio rec. in french and is uncut. This version is nearly what Rossini intended to create. Caballé and Gedda, have sung a lot, but a lot, of opera with succed, and this is one of the defitive recording they have contributed. But, as I do, I prefer listening an old rec. like Taddei-Carteri-Fillipeschi's, and later listen a complete version like this one, to identify the cuts.

Having just reviewed the recording of the Italian version of this opera on Decca under Chailly, I naturally returned to this one as the companion piece, made some four years earlier in 1972. In one sense, they are not really comparable, this being the original French version and hence exactly what Rossini intended for "La grande Boutique", complete with a Third Act ballet and four hours of music. In some ways the opera is suited to Italian, dealing as it does with big patriotic themes and thwarted, secret love, but when you hear this music sung in French either by native singers or singers like Caballe and Gedda who are good linguists and at home in the language, you realise that, unsurprisingly, French fits the rhythms and stresses of the music better.

The main vocal glory in this set is undoubtedly Caballe; she displays all the vocal traits that place her in the front rank of great sopranos of the second half of the 20C, particularly her exquisite pianissimi and portamenti. For all her virtues, Mirella Freni yields to Caballe for agility, delicacy and poignancy of expression. Otherwise the vocal advantages are nearly all with the Decca set. Bacquier, Gedda and Kovacs are all dry of voice in comparison with the firmer, more virile tones of Milnes, Pavarotti and Ghiaurov, although it is always a pleasure to hear how Bacquier inflects both his music and the words he sings, injecting great drama and emotion, even if his top notes are a bit windy. Several previous reviews have remarked that the reason behind the dryness of Gedda's timbre was that "he was getting on a bit". Actually, no; he was barely 47 at the time of recording and his high C - a good few of them, in fact, being required in this opera - is in good shape but his tenor was ever essentially rather constricted to my ears, even if it was more mellifluous when he first appeared on the scene as Karajan's protégé in the 50's. The lack of steadiness and tonal beauty in the middle of the voice cannot compete with the splendour of Pavarotti in his prime. Still, he has the notes and is always an intelligent, involved singer.

The supporting cast features several native French singers to add authenticity and Gallic bite although Kovacs is clearly not idiomatic in French. Mady Mesplé is given Jemmy's aria, sometimes cut, as an appendix to Act 3 at the beginning of Disc 4 and uses her bright, very French soprano to sing it prettily. Gardelli provides livelier, considerably more responsive direction than the somewhat cautious Chailly, although the 1972 analogue sound for EMI is less brilliant than the early digital sound for Decca.

So if one does compare the two main, contending recordings - possibly a slightly redundant exercise given that they are in different languages - the old "swings and roundabouts" principle applies, although the Decca is generally the more impressive vocally. Devotees of Rossini's masterpiece will want to own both. Despite my intense admiration for Caballe, my reservations concerning the singing of the other principals lead me to deduct one star from this EMI set but we are unlikely now to get a better recording of the premiere as it was first heard in 1829.