'Guillaume Tell' is not only indisputably Rossini's finest work, but it
also give convincing proof of the plasticity of the composer's genius.
Accustomed as he had been for many years to turning out Italian operas
by the score--graceful trifles enough, but too often flimsy and
conventional--it says much for the character of the man that, when the
occasion arrived, he could attack such a subject as that of Tell with
the proper seriousness and reserve. He took what was best in the style
and tradition of French opera and welded it to the thoroughly Italian
fabric with which he was familiar. He put aside the excessive
ornamentation with which his earlier works had been overladen, and
treated the voices with a simplicity and dignity thoroughly in keeping
with the subject. The choral and instrumental parts of the opera are
particularly important; the latter especially have a colour and variety
which may be considered to have had a large share in forming the taste
for delicate orchestral effects for which modern French composers are
famous. 'Guillaume Tell' was to have been the first of a series of five
operas written for the Paris Opera by special arrangement with the
government of Charles X. The revolution of 1830 put an end to this
scheme, and a few years later, finding himself displaced by Meyerbeer in
the affections of the fickle Parisian public, Rossini made up his mind
to write no more for the stage.
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