Guillem Tell at Barcelona Opera House Gran Teatre Del Liceu

An arrow, an apple, a boy, the adventure of a brave archer… these are the pictures that immediately spring to the mind of children when they hear of William Tell. Thanks to the oral and popular storytelling tradition, they know he was a man that shot an apple off a child’s head with an arrow. What they do not know are the reasons for doing so as well as the fact that he was a legendary hero of Swiss independence in medieval times.

By way of taking part in the show offered by the Petit Liceu, the audience will also discover that William Tell was the main character in an opera written by Gioachino Rossini.

The show begins with a troupe of actors and musicians that come on stage as if it were a town square. It is a group of travelling artists that together tell the tale of William Tell. They set up on stage and using objects, puppets and shadows, they portray the different characters and events in the legend:

how the Austrians ransack the small Swiss village where William Tell lives,
how he confronts the Austrians,
his keen marksmanship to save the life of his son,
how he falls prisoner into the hands of the tyrant Gessler,
how he achieves freedom and inspires the revolt of the Swiss people against the Austrians.