The Allemanian military has forbidden the color red to the Helvetian peasants (as well, apparently, as any colors whatsoever for those good guys) in the dark and dangerous Boston Lyric Opera production of Rossini’s William Tell now playing at the Colonial Theater. [Read the synopsis HERE]. Nor did the military government permit mountains and valleys, boats on a lake, elegantly bucolic ballets, or much sunshine or spectacle until the last act. Instead of brightly clad Swiss guards wielding shiny long axes, ICE-like jackbooted goons employ cell phones and iris scans to regiment and oppress the suffering and rather unattractive peasants, not neglecting to add kicks to the ribs and shots to the head. And then there is the apparent anachronism of assigning modern weapons to Allemanians while allowing only crossbows to the Helevetians (so as to be able to preserve Schiller’s apple shot, I imagine). In the mise-en-scène of co-stage directors Victoria Tzykun and David Adam Moore, those poor peasants in rags are entirely opressible, unlike the gaudy Evita and company they create for the last act. We were rarely allowed to forget the modern parallels.
Tzykun and Moore filled the stage with choristers and extras, because Rossini’s choruses provided so much of the dramatic focus. If the blocking didn’t individualize the masses, and often looked stiff and wooden, the chorus and ensembles always sounded just great. Placing Arnold an on a rock with Mathilde for their lovemaking, and having her disrobe Arnold during some hot and heavy coloratura, elicited unintended laughter and guffaws.
The unit set of rusticated climbing wall on the left, a palace interior on the right, and an irregular cut-out projection screen in the middle, proved serviceable. In the Act 2 forest scene, four grey drops obscured most of the set and a useful boulder appeared. In Act 3, a Las Vegas mini-stage materializes together with velvet ropes an ballroom chairs. Eric Southern’s lighting suddenly became interesting in Act 4. Through dense fog and bloody red beams, backlit crags showed their menace, a fire raged, and a projected ocean swelled and flowers burst with color. Lighting came up to full brightness only during the final victory number, though the directorial conceit makes it hard to credit how bow and arrows could prevail over machine guns,
David Angus led a good-sized orchestra (occupying the first several rows of the floor) in a witty and warm rendition of the overture. It’s much better known than the opera with which it shares absolutely no material. The 12-minute, four-part mini symphony tone-paints a tranquil dawn (with Brent Selby’s very relaxed cello), a sudden storm with plenty of violent percussion, serene peasant herders with a bird-like flute fluttering above (Linda Toote), and finally the oft-caricatured galop with its immortal trumpet fanfare. In the ensuing two and a half hours, Angus gave singers plenty of latitude, knowing just where to throw punches and when to relax.
The opera could have been titled “Arnold,” based on the impression Konu Kim made in the role. The glorious young lyric tenor nailed all 19 high C’s with bright ring, ardency and bel canto beauty of tone. His Asil héréditaire took no prisoners and he absolutely exploded in the ensuing cabeletta Amis, amis, secondez ma vengeance. Tell is almost always on stage in the opera, and the illustrious Georgian bass-baritone George Gagnidze commanded in every moment. In Sois immobile, the introspective aria contemplating his famous shot, he toned down his leathery bluster and produced some effective quiet legato without wobbling. He also gave interesting answers to our interview questions HERE. Soprano Anya Matanovič, last night’s Mathilde, sounded and acted entirely differently than she had as Carrie Pipperidge in last season’s Carousel. To Sombre forêt, the opera’s signal moment of true repose, she brought an intensity of poignance that earned one of the night’s two biggest ovations. Brianna J. Robinson,a Jemmy not to be mistaken for a ten-year-old boy, nevertheless sang with power and courage. Melchtal dies in the first act but local favorite James Demler, who impersonated him, sounded like the youngest and least wooly baritone on stage all night, making the most of his short part. Yeghishe Manucharyan’s Rudolph sounded fresh and bright. Hunter Enoch well and properly menaced as Gessler, and he chewed the scenery when his “Evita” (supernumerary Elizabeth Hartford) was wriggling in the spotlight. Ilya Silchukou, a baritone with a dramatic manner, properly set the plot into motion as the brutalized Leuthold. As Hedwige, mezzo-soprano Nina Yoshida Nelsen made a big impression as she reunited with the escaped Tell. With Gemmy, Tell and the chorus in the Act e te revois !, the threesome dramatically set up the final chorus Tout change et grandit en ces lieux, over which Konu Kim’s bright ping floated like a benediction.
The very weird traversal of Act 1’s normally pastoral song, Accours dans ma nacelle, sticks in my memory/craw. The villainous Allemanian paramilitary masked men forced sweet tenor Morgan Mastrangelo to sing Ruodi’s lyric song while standing on one foot. After he faltered and fell, they committed s&m upon his prone figure . . . and Rossini’s.
And yet, over the course of the nearly three hours, plenty of music-drama managed to come through, along with the message that totalitarianism needs to be defeated in every generation.
I agree with the views implied by portraying evil and sadistic ICE-like Bad Guys, but I do not like having the politics in an opera pushed down my throat by a director who seems to fear that we in the audience won’t get the point. Can’t we opera-goers be trusted to recognize that a plot about Bad Guys against Good Guys might have resonance beyond the time and place in which it was written? I don’t appreciate being patronized by an artistic production.
Essentially the same point regarding the description of the opera in the program: the commentary was only about how the Hero emerges from the Community, and wouldn’t be possible without it, etc. etc. Maybe so — but 1) I think Tell is so compelling precisely because he does not conform to his community’s behavior, and 2)more importantly, I don’t think there was a word in the commentary about the actual _opera_ — nothing about the music, the famous overture, the distinctive features of some arias, even something about context and belle canto singing. This is, after all, musical theater…
Comment by Jennifer Hochschild — October 9, 2026 at 11:54 am
You have barely an hour to see this one staged in Boston. Tremendous music production with unfortunately badly conceived stage concept. Just go—discuss deep flaws later like Monday. Just GO!!
Comment by Nathan Redshield — October 4, 2026 at 12:51 pm
Someone asked me to shorten my review, so here is that shorter version: That is not how you make out on a boulder.
Comment by John LaBella — October 3, 2026 at 3:33 pm
The singing was generally solid to impressive. The chorus shown vocally. No one was up to the predecessors of these roles but most of the time were good enough to get the music across. Some of the singers, including the wondeful voice of Arnold, may not last long if they don’t fix some technical issues. I don’t see any reviewers mentioning that.
That said, the acting was an embarrassment and the staging was awful. I put this down to the worst stage direction I’ve seen in years. Some examples:
During the wedding: someone puts a lighted gas lamp down and the very next line sung is “The sun has just come out to shine on the day” or something like that. Why a lamp?
The mix of old and new: State of the art weapons on one side, bows and arrows on the other. Cell phones and gas-fueled lanterns. The ludicrous and sleazy chanteuse from Berlin on stage while the crowd is forced to sing a fascist like anthem in praise of the dictator.
Why the oppressed public seem to have access to camouflage fatigues
Leuthold and Tell need to escape in the first act, talk about the need for speed, yet leisurely walk off (walk!) some seconds after the storm troupers burst on demanding to know where they are.
The love scene was laughable; the Matilde ran out of breath often and was frequently under pitch while being made to lounge in impossible postures against a boulder that no one would feel comfortable sitting or lying on. The sex was junior high level acting and went against the music. The audience should have laughed much more than they did.
the weddings in the first part, when we think we are in a rustic village somewhere where people have beggars clothing and no education, we suddenly have a queer wedding. BUT THEN, for awhile the two gay lovers interact, until the final scene, where they don’t care enough about each other to stand or embrace each other at that transcendent moment. I guess they got divorced a week after the wedding.
Somehow, after hours of Cuban guerrilla clothing, we suddenly see an alpine meadow.
The rock wall seemed to have magical doors a la Lord of the Rings, that open and close with no sense of weight.
Why does Mathilde show up in the exact location where Arnold goes to be alone, which also turns out to be the exact location where all the soldiers plan to meet seconds later. If I were seeking to be alone, I would not to right to the spot where everyone else was set to meet.
Worst of all, the actors including the chorus) have almost zero emotional connection, perhaps due to the ridiculous staging. Good actors or a decent stage director could have overcome the awkward scene transitions.
I’ve not seen a Boston Lyric production before but i went to this one because I will likely never get to see William Tell again. The singing made it possible for me to hear and enjoy the music: the staging and junior high school level of acting made it impossible to enter emotionally into the story. The music was so solidly done that it did bring me disconnected moments where I was strongly moved but the moments later, the audience was pushed back out of the story by something laughable or head-shaking.
I put this on the opera administration, where incompetence seems strong in two areas at least:
Somehow, on all my social media feeds, where algorithms put opera front and center, I never heard about this production. I was lucky that a friend mentioned it to me. Who is doing marketing?
At many moments in rehearsal, someone needed to step in and replace (hire in the first place) those responsible for the staging and overall concept. It was never going to work except for people who pretend that building a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that don’t fit is somehow the same thing as deconstruction or post-modernism.
The embarrassing pre-opera talk by someone in admin: lifeless and chock full of empty words such as vibrant, illuminating, community etc. that were spoken by someone who doesn’t really have any understanding or belief in the magic of those words. It was like a minister at a funeral talking about someone they’d never met but saying “We all loved him” etc. Emptiness in sound. The speech brought the energy down right before the opera starts. Does anyone in the admin actually love opera, or do they merely love being someone who is identified with supporting the arts?
The huge number of empty seats for a once in a lifetime opera experience was testimony to an evening that was so much less than it could have been with this honorable cast of singers and chorus and the great music.
Comment by John Labella — October 3, 2026 at 3:10 pm
This review has convinced me to try to see this one. Yes, BLO can be semi-woke with warped stagings but the music (and rarity) carry this one, says the review. Now it’s Friday vs. Sunday and weaving around Newton Baroque. Tickets at Last Minute are Expensive but I don’t otherwise contribute to BLO, unlike other companies I support. after this comes A Streetcar Named Desire.
Comment by Nathan Redshield — October 1, 2026 at 8:14 pm
Sounds like you were there on the one night a projector malfunctioned in Act 2, leaving the full act with a gray voile background instead of the moonlit forest seen by our other audiences. This was not the environment we designed. It is, however, an example of that touch of danger that lends a sense of “magic” to live theater — no different from a tenor twisting a knee mid-show, but agreeing to hobble through the remainder of his role. The show must go on, and, in the end, the audience often appreciates skillful endeavor more than predictability.
Our approach to this work was clearly not the one you would have most appreciated, but I thank you for your coverage of this magnificent, endangered art form – and especially for shining a spotlight on great works like this.
Comment by David Adam Moore — September 29, 2026 at 1:01 pm