Opening Night Of Opera Booed After Rape Scene

The Royal Opera House has apologised to audience members after Gioachino Rossini's Guillaume Tell (William Tell) was booed on opening night.

The production was roundly criticised for a scene containing full frontal nudity and what some called "gratuitous" rape.

The director of opera, Kasper Holten, expressed sorrow for any distress caused by people who bought tickets for the opera about the Swiss patriot who shoots an arrow that splits an apple atop his son's head.

Rossini's music is famous for its galloping horse theme which was used in The Lone Ranger television series.

In the controversial scene the actress, who is not part of the singing cast, is manhandled during a banquet by a group of officers in the Austrian army, which is occupying Switzerland and oppressing the local residents.

The officers force champagne down the woman's throat, fondle her with a gun and, in the bit that caused the most commotion, strip her and force her to lie on top of the banquet table.

"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," Mr Holten said.

"The production intends to make it an uncomfortable scene, just as there are several upsetting and violent scenes in Rossini's score. We are sorry if some people have found this distressing."

David Hornby, who was in the audience on Monday, tweeted: "A gratuitous rape scene in Rossini's William Tell provoked the most hostile and prolonged booing I've witnessed at Covent Garden #ROHTell."

While William Russell said: "Loud booing at Covent Garden tonight after gratuitous rape scene in William Tell. Fine principals, chorus and orchestra but dire production."

Even some of the cast were not entirely comfortable with the scene that Italian director Damiano Michieletto created for the production.

American tenor John Osborn, who plays a Swiss patriot torn between his love of his country and his love for Bystrom's Austrian Princess Mathilde, said that perhaps the molestation scene went on longer than necessary.

"Maybe it went a little longer than it should have, but it happened and I think it's an element you can use to show just how horrible these people were that were occupying this town," he said.

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.