Act II. In a valley by a lake Arnold and Matilda meet and again pledge their love. Arnold learns from Tell and Walter that his father has been slain by Gessler's order. His thoughts turn to vengeance. The three men bind themselves by oath to free Switzerland. The cantons gather and swear to throw off the Austrian yoke.
Act III. The market-place in Altdorf. It is the hundredth anniversary of Austrian rule in Switzerland. Fittingly to celebrate the day Gessler has ordered his hat to be placed on top of a pole. The Swiss are commanded to make obeisance to the hat. Tell comes along holding his son Jemmy by the hand. He refuses to pay homage to the hat. As in him is also recognized the man who saved Leuthold, he must be punished. Gessler cynically orders him to shoot an apple from Jemmy's head. The shot succeeds. Fearless, as before, Tell informs Gessler that the second arrow was intended for him, had the first missed its mark. Tell's arrest is ordered, but the armed Swiss, who have risen against Austria, approach. Gessler falls by Tell's shot; the fight ends with the complete victory for the Swiss. Matilda who still loves Arnold finds refuge in his arms.
"Guillaume Tell" is the only opera by an Italian of which it can be said that the overture has gained world-wide fame, and justly so, while the opera itself is so rarely heard that it may almost be said to have passed out of the repertoire. Occasionally it is revived for the benefit of a high tenor like Tamagno. In point of fact, however, it is too good a work to be made the vehicle of a single operatic star. It is a question if, with a fine ensemble, "Guillaume Tell" could not be restored to the list of operas regularly given. Or, is it one of those works more famous than effective; and is that why, at this point I am reminded of a passage in Whistler's "Ten O'clock"? The painter is writing of art and of how little its spirit is affected by the personality of the artist, or even by the character of a whole people.
"A whimsical goddess," he writes, "and a capricious, her strong sense of joy tolerates no dullness, and, live we never so spotlessly, still may she turn her back upon us.
"As, from time immemorial, has she done upon the Swiss in their mountains.
"What more worthy people! Whose every Alpine gap yawns with tradition, and is stocked with noble story; yet, the perverse and scornful one will none of it, and the sons of patriots are left with the clock that turns the mill, and the sudden cuckoo, with difficulty restrained in its box!"
Because we associate Switzerland with tourists, personally conducted and otherwise, with hotels, guides, and a personnel trained to welcome, entertain, and speed the departing guest, is it difficult for us to grasp the heroic strain in "Guillaume Tell"? Surely it is a picturesque opera; and Switzerland has a heroic past. Probably the real reasons for the lack of public interest in the opera are the clumsy libretto and the fact that Rossini, an Italian, was not wholly in his element in composing a grand opera in the French style, which "Guillaume Tell" is. It would be difficult to point out just how and where the style hampered the composer, but there constantly is an undefined feeling that it did—that the score is not as spontaneous as, for example, "The Barber of Seville"; and that, although "Guillaume Tell" is heroic, the "sudden cuckoo, with difficulty restrained in its box," may at any time pop out and join in the proceedings.
The care which Rossini bestowed on this work is seen in the layout and composition of the overture, which as an instrumental number is as fine a tour de force as his "Una voce poco fa," "Bel raggio," or "Giorno d'orrore" are for voice. The slow introduction denotes Alpine calm. There is a beautiful passage for violoncellos, which has been quoted in books on instrumentation. In it Rossini may well have harked back to his student years, when he was a pupil in violoncello playing at the conservatory in Bologna. The calm is followed by a storm and this, in turn, by a "Ranz des Vaches." The final section consists of a trumpet call, followed by a fast movement, which can be played so as to leave the hearer quite breathless. It is supposed to represent the call to arms and the uprising of the Swiss against their Austrian oppressors, whose yoke they threw off.
The most striking musical number in the first act of the opera, is Arnold's "Ah, Matilda."