Review/Opera; 'William Tell,' a Rarity, Is the Talk of the Towns (Published 1988) (2024)

Riccardo Muti's choice of ''William Tell,'' one of the most important operas in both the French and Italian traditions but one of the most problematic, made the opening night of La Scala Wednesday even more of an event than it usually is in this city, where opera is still taken very seriously. In the afternoon, a recording of the Rossini opera blared from the loudspeakers of a department store. Advance coverage filled four pages in Corriere della Sera, the city's major newspaper. The ticket office of the opera house was deserted, as posters declared in several languages: ''All performances of 'William Tell' are completely sold out in all sections.'' The opera is front-page news all over Italy.

Donizetti, Verdi and Meyerbeer didn't just borrow ideas from ''Tell'' (written in 1829); as the conductor Nello Santi aptly puts it, they reached into the score with both arms and hauled away all they could carry. Berlioz, Bellini and even Wagner were in its debt, and knew it. By tackling Schiller's great drama of a revolutionary hero, Rossini brought opera to the threshold of high romanticism.

The essentially uncut performance, which lasted from 7 P.M. to 12:30 A.M., used a new critical edition by Elizabeth C. Bartlet, another scholar from the remarkable graduate classes of Philip Gossett, who is the leader both of Rossini studies and of the textual-criticism movement in Italian opera. It was a fascinating chance to explore in the theater a score that most of us know only in print and on records. It was also, in large part, a personal triumph for Mr. Muti, whose deep regard for the work and command of its scope were evident on every page.

''Tell'' is filled with genre scenes of Swiss village life - long, broad choruses and beautiful dances in which the conductor's love of Cherubini and Gluck could be felt; he shaped the lines with constant, active care and poetic feeling. The chorus sang wonderfully and the orchestral playing had the kind of responsiveness and character that only a leader of the first rank can obtain. The first soft murmurings of the storm in the overture were electrifying; the famous finale cannot often have been played with such a combination of fire and precision.

For the murderously high tenor role of Arnold, the vacillating patriot, La Scala turned to the American Chris Merritt, who sang far better than I had ever heard him do. In the first duet with Tell, his high B flats and C's sailed out with astonishing ease, and the melody was delivered with lively panache. Not everything was ideal later on, but it is evident that extended work with Mr. Muti has brought out a measure of musical sensibility that has not heretofore surfaced in the tenor's work.

Cheryl Studer sang Matilda (the sister of the tyrannical governor, Gesler), substituting for the indisposed Lella Cuberli with only one rehearsal. Nerves got the better of her breath control and her bearing at moments, and the noisy loggionisti of La Scala punished her mercilessly with boos and shouts, but there was sufficient beauty and command in her singing to bode very well for later performances as she settles into the part. William Tell was Giorgio Zancanaro, whose voice is beautiful and naturally produced. It is medium-sized and contracts puzzlingly at the top, which limited his success, but at the moment he is the most convincing Italian baritone under 50.