# Wouldn't it be fun...



## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

...to write an opera for Bugs Bunny? a real one?

he's meant so much to opera fans everywhere, it's really the least we can do ... possibly even far more than we can do, right? but no sense thinking negative.

the task is much easier than it might appear, since all we really have to do, to get it done, is write a libretto funny enough that disney (or whoever the heck owns bugs) will think it's a good idea, and take on the project of hiring a composer and a poet who can whip the thing into shape.

i know, that sounds so much easier lol ... still probably beyond our powers but i've had a few ideas and i'm hoping you all will have more.

suggested structure... kind of a cross between barber of seville and la boheme. elmer fudd is the count, and rosina/bugs/mimi dies in the end - not as tragic as it might appear since bugs is a total drama queen at heart anyway. the first words, of course, are "be vewy, vewy quiet." nice parallel there with the"ziti, ziti" from barber, right? who cares, right? anyway.

secondary characters ... wile e coyote as the evil figariago, stuffed roadrunner in hand, or perhaps as a delightful stole, suggesting this or that plan of attack. kate lindsey as the overprotective dr. bartorodolfo (bartomarcello? i forget), a plastic surgeon by occupation (or possibly as a hobby - but the point is, wile e. NEEDS a plastic surgeon, and that's the pards' first entree into the bartorodolfo household), who ultimately cannot protect poor bugs. i'm thinking that the turning point in the opera is when figariago falls hohilw lindsey (i know, i haven't got her character name - minnie? goofy? perky? daffy? alex? slinky? i dunno) changing the whole focus to: will wile e. get lindsey to love him back? and in the afterglow of the positive answer, elmer jumps out of the bushes and pops bugs. awwww.

after which Elmer - Almavivawiva - winds up in jail - I mean, he did kill the wabbit - where he is of course rather despondent, as he is about to be executed for murder. He falls asleep but is awakened by Bugs in a nun's outfit, promising to sneak him out in disguise. ("Bugs! You're awive!" "It's all an act, Doc. Ehhhhhh... Pay attention.") He takes the nun outfit and follows Bugs' instructions, and is passed through as though the jailers are all buying it. He exits the jail into a large courtyard full of nuns - all of whom are being executed a la Dialogues. He gets his knuckles rapped for his inability to carry the tune as they proceed to the guillotine. It doesn't help, and four hefty ones take his arms and legs and hurl him onto the (backstage) scaffold, restoring harmony.

i also figure there should be a kind of epilogue, with bugs and elmer in heaven, dancing nice and slow, perhaps to a romantic old song like the way you look tonight. something like that. cushion the blow a bit for me and the kiddies.

well? ideas? suggestions? overripe tomatoes?


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

Yosemite Sam as Jack Rance??:lol:


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Nessuno ... well Ok then FINE. I'll just whinge off into the cold and dark.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

working title: Shush! lol

Elmer in front of the curtain before it goes up: "be vewy vewy quiet" (laughing and rolling his eyes)

Wagnerian Chorus:	"Kill the Wabbit"

- as a troop of lovely flower maidens comes on stage to examine Elmer closely, laugh, comment to one another and sing a bit about reporting their findings to the Bureau of Nosy Women

Elmer "Yes, The Wabbit Must Die"
or Elmer "The Carrot is So Tasty"

(the flower maidens talk and chatter in a gorgeously harmonised recitative throughout the production, making extremely vulgar sexual gestures to one another, except when Elmer begs them to be quiet (saying "please", of course); later we should have a male chorus on the origin of Robin; every so often a Brunnhilde type should carol at the top of her lungs, "He had the largest tool I've ever seen")


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## dionisio (Jul 30, 2012)

An opera should be composed about Chaplin. PERIOD!


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Well, you must have had more thoughts than THAT ... comedy? drama? semiserio dramma giocoso? what would you focus on if you were writing it?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Avoid those stupid mascot-suits like they use at the theme parks. Instead, use a more "Cats"-like approach. Bugs Bunny could be played by a thin, lithe, androgynous counter-tenor with a pert little bunny-tail on his cute little buns.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

It's a nice idea - just a pity that Bugs Bunny is the only cartoon character that's ever really annoyed me! Can't there be a plot change where BB ends up eating a poisoned carrot?

P.S. - Foghorn Leghorn and the barnyard dog each deserve a role somewhere.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I think it would be more fun, and less of a parody, if the libretti were taken straight from the cartoon scripts: three could make a great evening of three one-act operas.

Mounting the stories with the personages from whichever studio it was who had nothing but characters with speech defects (Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Sylvester the Cat, etc.) would make for really fun and challenging to sing roles


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## dionisio (Jul 30, 2012)

guythegreg said:


> Well, you must have had more thoughts than THAT ... comedy? drama? semiserio dramma giocoso? what would you focus on if you were writing it?


guythegreg, you're absolutely right. I was too quick and with no apparent purpose.

I've been thinking since some time that a great man that was Chaplin should be immortalized with an opera. Not that it would bring more tribute to him than that has already been broguht. But in opera, where it is to be gathered the best of all arts (music, poetry, theater, dancing, painting, architeture, etc), everything should emphasize the best we have in human expression. With that, an important type of art should be included that it is cinema.

Chaplin was, in some way did not have the grandeur that Wagner had, but he, in his own way, preceeded to put the concept of _Gesamkunstwerk_ in cinema. With such greatness, that only few artists in this world have, he wrote commedies that still endures and brought them, in cinema, _pathos_. He wrote, acted, directed, produced and even wrote the soundtrack to his movies.

He produced smiles for everyone during the two most terrible wars that the world has ever seen.

No, he didn't fight with any dragons nor he was an unknown prince to the rescue. But he is an hero that everyone should be identified with.

With great man should come great music.

And guythegreg, when you suggested Bugs Bunny, it came to my mind this thought of my that had been developing in me.

(Also he was, as i've read somewhere, that he was a great admirer of Wagner)


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

dionisio said:


> Chaplin was, in some way did not have the grandeur that Wagner had, but he, in his own way, preceeded to put the concept of _Gesamkunstwerk_ in cinema.


oooh, it just occurred to me: you know what would have made a really great Wagner opera? Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal.

anyway, carry on, I'm lacking thoughts on Bugs Bunny.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

elgars ghost said:


> It's a nice idea - just a pity that Bugs Bunny is the only cartoon character that's ever really annoyed me! Can't there be a plot change where BB ends up eating a poisoned carrot?
> 
> P.S. - Foghorn Leghorn and the barnyard dog each deserve a role somewhere.


What, it's not enough that Elmer actually gets to kill the wabbit?

...but you're right about Foghorn Leghorn. Don't think I know the barnyard dog ... obviously I didn't waste my youth quite assiduously enough ...


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

PetrB said:


> I think it would be more fun, and less of a parody, if the libretti were taken straight from the cartoon scripts: three could make a great evening of three one-act operas.
> 
> Mounting the stories with the personages from whichever studio it was who had nothing but characters with speech defects (Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Sylvester the Cat, etc.) would make for really fun and challenging to sing roles


That does sound like fun, actually. The three one-act operas each focused on a speech-defective cartoon character, I mean. Not sure the plots of any cartoons actually lend themselves to opera, but as it's been ages since I've watched one all I really recall is Wile E.'s endless frustration vs. the RR, and Sylvester's endless frustration vs. Tweety. ... come to think of it, do any cartoon characters NOT have speech defects?


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

dionisio said:


> guythegreg, you're absolutely right. I was too quick and with no apparent purpose.
> 
> I've been thinking since some time that a great man that was Chaplin should be immortalized with an opera. Not that it would bring more tribute to him than that has already been broguht. But in opera, where it is to be gathered the best of all arts (music, poetry, theater, dancing, painting, architeture, etc), everything should emphasize the best we have in human expression. With that, an important type of art should be included that it is cinema.
> 
> ...


gosh .. had no idea he was so admired! I'll have to get a biography of him and check into it.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

deggial said:


> oooh, it just occurred to me: you know what would have made a really great Wagner opera? Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal.


I never managed to finish that movie ... started it two or three times. I've heard it's great.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

elgars ghost said:


> Foghorn Leghorn and the barnyard dog each deserve a role somewhere.


Now, son, Ah say, son, Foghawn Leghawn is a Good Ol' Boy, and the only opera he probably knows anything about is the Grand Old Opry. 'Les'n he's tryin' to impress that widdah woman hen and her li'l bookworm chick.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MAuer said:


> Now, son, Ah say, son, Foghawn Leghawn is a Good Ol' Boy, and the only opera he probably knows anything about is the Grand Old Opry. 'Les'n he's tryin' to impress that widdah woman hen and her li'l bookworm chick.


Any Foghorn dialogue would sound like a translated into English European opera chorus number, where they repeat a phrase a lot.

"Ah, Say.. ah say, Son."


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

MAuer said:


> Now, son, Ah say, son,


That's what AH'M tawkin' bout!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Wouldn't it be fun to form a secret society of guys dressed in rabbit suits, like on Monty Python? ~giggle~


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