Gioachino Rossini’s opera “Guillaume Tell” or William Tell is famed for its overture with the galloping horse theme used in “The Lone Ranger” television series. Now it will go down in the annals of London’s Covent Garden for a new production that was roundly booed by an opening night audience on Monday for a scene of full frontal nudity that Rossini could never have imagined when he wrote the work that had its premiere in 1829. “The production includes a scene which puts the spotlight on the brutal reality of women being abused during war time, and sexual violence being a tragic fact of war,” said Royal Opera House director, Kasper Holten. Italian director Damiano Michieletto said he had no intention of changing anything. “If you don’t feel the brutality, the suffering these people have had to face, if you want to hide it, it becomes soft, it becomes for children,” he said backstage after the boos had died down following the final curtain.
