Italian rising star Damiano Michieletto makes his Royal Opera House debut with a new production of Gioachino Rossini’s final opera Guillaume Tell, the first at the iconic venue since 1990.

It tells the story of the Swiss hero William Tell as he longs to liberate his people from the cruel Austrian occupation. When he helps a Swiss prisoner escape Austrian justice he comes to the attention of the governor Gesler, who sadistically forces Tell to shoot an apple off his son’s head.

Guillaume Tell premiered in 1829, when Gioachino Rossini was 37. The composer didn’t write another opera in the remaining 39 years of his life.

Its score is renowned for being harmonically daring and fiercely difficult for the singers and has an opulent architectural grandeur that is heightened with vivid evocations of the soaring Swiss landscape and an incisive dramatic interpretation of Friedrich Schiller’s heroic play.

The production is sung in French with English surtitles.

Learn more about London operas within the West End.