t Tell saves the life of Leuthold, who is
being pursued by Gessler's soldiers; and Melchthal, the patriarch of the
village, is put to death on a charge of insubordination. His son Arnold
loves Matilda, the sister of Gessler, and hesitates between love and
duty. Finally, however, he joins Tell, who assembles the men of the
three forest cantons, and binds them with an oath to exterminate their
oppressors or perish in the attempt. In the third act comes the famous
archery scene. Tell refuses to bow to Gessler's hat, and is condemned to
shoot the apple from his son's head. This he successfully accomplishes,
but the presence of a second arrow in his quiver arouses Gessler's
suspicions. Tell confesses that had he killed his son, the second arrow
would have despatched the tyrant, and is at once thrown into prison. In
the last act we find Arnold raising a band of followers and himself
accomplishing the rescue of Tell; Gessler is slain, and Matilda is
united to her lover.

'Guillaume Tell' is not only indisputably Rossini's finest work, but it
also give convincing proof of the plasticity of the composer's genius.
Accustomed as he had been for many years to turning out Italian operas
by the score--graceful trifles enough, but too often flimsy and
conventional--it says much for the character of the man that, when the
occasion arrived, he could attack such a subject as that of Tell with
the proper seriousness and reserve. He took what was best in the style
and tradition of French opera and welded it to the thoroughly Italian
fabric with which he was familiar. He put aside the excessive
ornamentation with which his earlier works had been overladen, and
treated the voices with a simplicity and dignity thoroughly in keeping
with the subject. The choral and instrumental parts of the opera are
particularly important; the latter especially have a colour and variety
which may be considered to have had a large share in forming the taste
for delicate orchestral effects for which modern French composers are
famous. 'Guillaume Tell' was to have been the first of a series of five
operas written for the Paris Opera by special arrangement with the
government of Charles X. The revolution of 1830 put an end to this
scheme, and a few years later, finding himself displaced by Meyerbeer in
the affections of the fickle Parisian public, Rossini made up his mind
to write no more for the stage. He lived for nearly forty years after
the production of 'Gui