NOTHING IN THE brilliant operatic career of Gioachino Rossini became him like the leaving it. When, in 1829, “Guillaume Tell” had its première, at the Paris Opéra, the composer was thirty-seven; he had written some forty operas and attained wealth and fame. Although he went on composing for decades—his “Stabat Mater,” completed in 1841, and “Petite Messe Solennelle,” from 1863, showed how much music remained in him—“Tell” was his final opera. Biographers have long debated the reasons for Rossini’s withdrawal, failing to reach consensus. We are left with a gnomic remark that he reportedly made in 1860, eight years before his death: “I decided that I had something better to do, which was to remain silent.”
The last scene of “Tell” is, not by accident, colossal and sublime. The titular hero…
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The New Yorker (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 7, 2016