Alexandria, VA – In some ways I’m a typical American male: I was a Boy Scout, I served in the military, loved camping and canoeing, learned to rock climb and drink beer, developed a love of sailing, action films and war movies, cheeseburgers, don’t know the difference between a Pinot Noir or a Chardonnay[i], and played and love both soccer and rugby.
In some other ways, I departed the typical guy pattern: I don’t follow football, basketball, baseball or hockey, I like sculpture, I can’t tell a Ferrari from a VW Cabriolet, I love jazz, blues, R&B, Motown, I enjoy stage plays and musicals, devour history, and I have a great appreciation for classical music.
When I was 6 years old my grandparents took me to see the opera Die Fledermaus (The Bat) by Johann Strauss with the Cincinnati Opera.[ii] I didn’t get it then and – to put it lightly — you might say I’ve failed Opera 101.
Years later, however, my appreciation of opera was being introduced to the art form via the 1957 Warner Brothers director and animator Chuck Jones cartoon What’s Opera, Doc? The Warner Brothers animators put together 6 minutes of pure genius parodying Richard Wagner’s masterwork, Der Ring des Niebelung (often called The Ring Cycle).
I was 17 years old when I first saw What’s Opera, Doc? and was able to grasp the fun of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in various Wagnerian costumes and singing new lyrics for Brünnhilde (Bugs in drag) and Wotan/Sigfried (Elmer in helmet and spear).
Chuck Jones and story writer Michael Maltese took creative liberty with the Elmer-hunting-and-chasing-Bugs plotline setting it to Wagner’s Die Walküre. To this day every time I hear the Wagner strains in a classical recording, I only hear Elmer signing “Kill da Wabbit!!”[iii]
This cartoon followed seven years after the same duo created The Rabbit of Seville, also a send-up of classic opera using the same Elmer-chasing-Bugs story set to Italian composer Gioachino Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville.
Elmer chases Bugs onto the stage at the Hollywood Bowl, and Bugs escapes and raises the curtain to reveal a shocked Elmer in front of a giant opera audience. During the opera, Elmer chases Bugs using a bizarre assortment of weapons, and Bugs continues to outwit Elmer’s attacks, appearing as a seductress, a snake charmer, and a barber – hence the title. Finally, Bugs drops the frustrated Elmer through a trap door into a wedding cake and Bugs ends the cartoon with, “Ehhhhhhh – Next?”
The Warner Brothers’ animation studio was a decrepit building in the very backlot of WB productions and, due to its physical appearance, was named “Termite Terrace” by the creative team. That building and the equipment the team was provided by the miserly executives at Warners featured an ancient camera from the ACME Company, which became an inside joke in later cartoons.[iv]
So, with apologies to the Washington Opera and many of you opera aficionados out there, I freely admit that these productions were my introduction to opera.
And so, in Bugs’ own words, “Well, what did you expect in an opera – a happy ending?”
[i] But I can pronounce them – an important asset during one’s dating years.
[ii] Now that’s an opera title that’s bound to grab some attention for the uninitiated, especially around Halloween – except it has NOTHING to do with the holiday. Unless you’re into mistaken identities, scandalous liaisons, and lots of Germans making merry circa the 19th century, save a few bucks and catch it on Youtube.
[iii] It was the last appearance of Elmer Fudd in a Warner Brothers’ cartoon.
[iv] Remember the Coyote’s devices aimed at the Roadrunner? There ya go.
