Song of the Wabbit: 'Bugs on Broadway'

THE NSO PLAY LOONEY tunes for laughs in 'Bugs on Broadway.'

Warner Bros. cartoons plundered some of their merriest melodies and looniest tunes from the classical repertoire.

Think of Elmer Fudd exhorting himself to "Kill the waaa-bit!" in "What's Opera, Doc?," whose quotes from Richard Wagner's "Ring Cycle" depict the iconic, eternal battle between Bugs Bunny and his nemesis. Or the wascally wabbit himself attempting to play Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in "Rhapsody Rabbit" and living a fantasy of many performers by shooting an audience member who can't stop coughing.

On Friday and Saturday at Wolf Trap, "Bugs Bunny on Broadway" will give new and vivid life to the music behind the mayhem, as George Daugherty leads the National Symphony Orchestra in live accompaniment of some of the most cherished Warner Bros. classics.

The 'toons will play on the Filene Center's big screen, and the voices of Bugs and Elmer (and Daffy Duck, Porky Pig et al) will be amplified. The original sound effects will also be presented, as even a full orchestra cannot conjure the sound of an incompetent hunter falling from a great height.

The cartoons' composers, Carl Stallings and Milton J. Franklyn, used classical melodies both to tweak a well-known locus of pomposity and to show love for what they were tweaking. Classical musicians get the joke — Santiago Rodriguez, chair of the piano faculty at the University of Maryland School of Music, says of "Rhapsody Rabbit," "Every pianist knows that cartoon, and most pianists have copies of it!"

So these concerts have something for both folks who worship the cartoons and music lovers looking to have some (semi-) serious fun.

Wolf Trap, Filene Center, 1551 Trap Road, Vienna; Fri. & Sat., 8:30 p.m., $18-$42; 703-255-1868.

Written by Express contributor Andrew Lindemann Malone
Art courtesy Warner Bros.