Boston Lyric Opera's Fiftieth Season
Launches with William Tell
By: BLO - Sep 14, 2026
Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) launches its 50th Anniversary Season with one of the most ambitious productions in the company’s history: Gioachino Rossini’s monumental final opera, WILLIAM TELL, presented in a bold new staging that explores the timeless struggle between tyranny and freedom. Co-directed and co-designed by Vita Tzykun and David Adam Moore, and conducted by BLO Music Director David Angus, performances run September 25–October 4 at the Emerson Colonial Theatre. [Media are invited to attend any of the four performances: Fridays at 7:30 pm; and Sundays at 3 pm.]
Leading Metropolitan Opera baritone George Gagnidze stars in the lead role with Anya Matanovi? (Mathilde), Konu Kim (Arnold), Nina Yoshida Nelsen (Hedwige), Brianna J. Robinson (Jemmy), Yeghishe Manucharyan (Rudolph), Hunter Enoch (Gessler), James Demler (Melchtal), Sergio Martinez (Walter), Morgan Mastrangelo (Ruodi) and Ilya Silchukou (Leuthold). Full cast bios here.
Best known for its iconic overture, made famous by generations of use in films and television, WILLIAM TELL features far more than one of classical music’s most recognizable melodies. Rossini’s 1829 masterpiece is a sweeping drama about ordinary people uniting to overthrow an authoritarian regime, anchored by the legendary archer whose act of impossible courage has become one of cultural history’s enduring symbols of resistance. “William Tell” was last produced in Boston in 1880 by the company known then as the Strakosch Opera Company.
“This is about a community uniting to fight for freedom against tyranny,” says BLO Artistic Director Nina Yoshida Nelsen (l., photo by Icarus Photography), who also performs the role of Hedwige. “William Tell is a patriot who chooses to fight back. At its heart, the opera asks what people are willing to risk for one another and for their freedom.”
Opening BLO’s milestone 50th Season, WILLIAM TELL is one of the largest productions ever mounted by the company. The production brings together a cast of internationally acclaimed soloists in 11 principal roles, a 54-piece orchestra, a 40-member chorus, four supernumeraries, and dozens of scenic, costume, lighting, technical and backstage artists in an artistic undertaking rarely seen on Boston stages.
“WILLIAM TELL has long been one of opera’s most ambitious works,” says Stanford Calderwood General Director & CEO Bradley Vernatter . “It demands extraordinary musical, theatrical and technical resources, and it’s a showcase for an opera company’s artistic achievement. But for us, this is about more than what happens onstage. For five decades, we’ve created spaces where artists and audiences come together through music and storytelling…to open our hearts, nourish our minds, and strengthen our communities. We’re proud to open our 50th Season with a work that shows what’s possible when a community comes together to create something truly epic.”
This production of William Tell is dedicated to the memory of Sandra Montrone.
CREATIVE TEAM
In addition to co-directors and co-designers Vita Tzykun and David Adam Moore, BLO’s WILLIAM TELL creative team also includes Music Director and BLO Orchestra Conductor David Angus, Lighting Designer Eric Southern, Wig and Makeup Designer Brittany Rappise, and Intimacy Director/Fight Coordinator Angie Jepson. Full creative team bios are here.
Tzykun and Moore are longtime collaborators who say they have waited more than a decade for the opportunity to bring their vision of WILLIAM TELL the stage. Using cinematic storytelling, immersive projections, and period-fantastical scenic environments, the production remains rooted in the opera’s traditional setting while creating a visual world that feels simultaneously historical, contemporary and cautionary.
Born and raised in Odesa, Ukraine, Tzykun brings personal experience of authoritarian rule to the production. “I know what it means to live under authoritarianism,” she says. “Freedom is never free. Every generation must decide what it is willing to sacrifice to preserve it. This opera has remained relevant for nearly 200 years because that choice never goes away.”
STORY SYNOPSIS & PRODUCTION DETAILS
Sung in French, Gioachino Rossini’s WILLIAM TELL follows the legendary hero who inspires his countrymen to rise against the tyrannical governor Gessler. As patriotism collides with personal loyalties, including the forbidden romance between Arnold and Mathilde, a movement for freedom gathers strength. When Tell refuses to bow to Gessler’s authority, he is forced to shoot an apple from atop his child’s head, a feat that makes him a hero. Escaping execution, Tell ultimately leads his side to victory, transforming a story of courage, sacrifice and resistance into a stirring celebration of liberty.
While preserving the opera’s original setting and its key storylines, the creative team has streamlined Rossini’s nearly four-hour score into a dramatic performance of approximately two and a half hours (plus intermission). The adaptation removes period dance sequences and musical repeats customary in nineteenth-century French grand opera while preserving every essential dramatic moment.
“These kinds of cuts are standard practice,” said BLO Music Director and Conductor David Angus. “Nothing important to the story has been lost. Instead, the pacing is more immediate, with a cinematic flow that lets audiences experience the emotional intimacy and the sweep of Rossini’s music.”
Although its overture remains among the best-known classical pieces ever written, Angus says, WILLIAM TELL also contains some of Rossini’s richest music, including soaring choral writing, expansive ensembles, and virtuosic arias that reveal a composer working on a far grander canvas than the comic operas for which he is often remembered.
TICKETS
Boston Lyric Opera presents WILLIAM TELL September 25 to October 4, 2026 (Fridays at 7:30 pm; Sundays at 3 pm) at the Emerson Colonial Theatre, 106 Boylston Street in Boston. Tickets, starting at $40 plus fees, are available now at blo.org/tell.