William Tell gets told as audiences boo opera’s new rape scene

The well-heeled set watching a new version of Guillaume Tell (William Tell) were left scandalised and outraged after a scene in which a woman is stripped naked and abused.

First performed in 1829, Rossini’s four-act opera tells the story of the Swiss folk hero who rescued his son by shooting an apple from the top of his head. This week’s performance, which took place at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden, included a scene in which Austrian soldiers strip, beat and molest an unnamed female actor.

Audiences did not take well to the new addition; at opening night shouts and boos greeted the scene as it played. The Twitter reaction was not much better; it may have been intended to bring the horrifying realities of how women are treated during wars to life, but many complained that the scene was unnecessary to the performance.

The reaction was so strong that Kasper Holten, the Royal Opera House’s director of opera, was forced to issue a statement.

“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,” he 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.”

Director Damiano Michieletto doesn’t plan to change anything based on the feedback. “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 after opening night.

Some questioned whether the same level of outrage would have been provoked had the rape scene appeared in a film or TV show; why should opera be any different?