André Grétry - Guillaume Tell (2013)

“Guillaume Tell“ by André-Modeste Grétry Claudio Scimone, conductor - S. Mazzonis di Pralafera, director Opéra Royal de Wallonie 2013 Marc Laho, Anne Catherine Gillet, Lionel Lhote, Liesbeth Devos, Natacha Kowalski, Patrick Delcour, , The legend of the Swiss national hero William Tell has not been a popular subject with opera composers. Lovers of music probably only remember Gioachino Rossini’s Guillaume Tell considered one of his best works. If Rossini’s masterpiece is the only William Tell title that is still in the repertoire, it is not, however, the only one that revolves around the famous archer’s legend, having been preceded, thirty-eight years earlier, by the illustrious example written in 1791 by the Belgian composer André-Modeste Grétry for Paris’s Comédie Italienne. Grétry’s Guillaume Tell was revived in June 2013 at Liège’s Opéra Royal de Wallonie to celebrate the bicentenary of the composer’s death (1813). Gretry’s Guillaume Tell was composed to a libretto by Michel-Jean Sed