The William Tell Overture is the overture to the opera William Tell, whose music was composed by Gioachino Rossini. William Tell premiered in 1829 and was the last of Rossini's 39 operas, after which he went into semi-retirement. The overture is in four parts, each following without pause.
William Tell Overture
William Tell is a French-language opera in four acts by Italian composer Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy and L. F. Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell, which, in turn, drew on the William Tell legend. The opera was Rossini's last, although he lived for nearly 40 more years. Fabio Luisi said that Rossini planned for Guillaume Tell to be his last opera even as he composed it. The often-performed overture in four sections features a depiction of a storm and a vivacious finale, the "March of the Swiss Soldiers".
Costume designs by Eugène Du Faget for the original production: Laure Cinti-Damoreau as Mathilde, Adolphe Nourrit as Arnold Melchtal, and Nicolas Levasseur as Walter Furst
1829 lithograph of Rossini
A Mountain Village, set design for Guglielmo Tell, act 1 scene 1 (1899)
Set design for act 1 in a 19th-century production