| What's Opera, Doc? | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Chuck Jones |
| Story by | Michael Maltese |
| Produced by | Edward Selzer |
| Starring | Mel Blanc Arthur Q. Bryan |
| Edited by | Treg Brown |
| Music by | Richard Wagner Musical Arrangement: Milt Franklyn Lyrics Written by: Michael Maltese |
| Animation by | Ken Harris Richard Thompson Abe Levitow |
| Layouts by | Maurice Noble |
| Backgrounds by | Phillip DeGuard |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 6:53 |
| Language | English |
What's Opera, Doc? is a 1957 AmericanWarner Bros.Merrie Melodies cartoon directed byChuck Jones and written byMichael Maltese.[1] The short was released on July 6, 1957, and starsBugs Bunny andElmer Fudd.[2]
The story features Elmer chasing Bugs through a parody of 19th-century classical composerRichard Wagner's operas, particularlyDer Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung),Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), andTannhäuser. It borrows heavily from the second opera in the "Ring Cycle"Die Walküre, woven around the typical Bugs–Elmer feud. Most of the dialogue is performed inrecitative. The short marks the final appearance of Elmer Fudd in a Chuck Jones cartoon.
It has beenwidely praised in the animation industry as the greatest animated cartoon that Warner Bros. ever released, and it has been ranked as such in the top 50 animated cartoons of all time. In 1992, theLibrary of Congress deemed it "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in theNational Film Registry.
Dressed as thedemigodSiegfried (and cutting a less than impressive figure as such), Elmer Fudd is pursuing Bugs Bunny when he finds rabbit tracks and arrives at Bugs' hole. Elmer jams his spear into the hole while singing "Kill the wabbit!" repeatedly to the tune of "Ride of the Valkyries". Bugs sticks his head out of another rabbit hole and converses with Elmer about his spear and magic helmet. This prompts a display of Elmer-as-Siegfried's magic powers. Bugs flees in fear, and Elmer pursues.
Elmer stops in his tracks at the sight of the beautifulValkyrieBrünnhilde (Bugsin drag). "Siegfried" and "Brünnhilde" exchange endearments and perform a ballet (based on theVenusberg ballet inTannhäuser). Bugs' true identity is exposed when his headdress falls off, enraging Elmer. Bugs discards his disguise and runs. Elmer's wrath causes a storm to brew, tearing apart the mountains where Bugs has fled. Upon seeing Bugs' lifeless body, Elmer regrets his wrath and tearfully carries Bugs off to Valhalla in keeping with the Wagnerian theme per Act III of the Valkyries. Bugsbreaks the fourth wall and raises his head to address the audience, "Well, what did you expect in an opera? Ahappy ending?" before going back to playing dead again.
Originally released to theaters by Warner Bros. on July 6, 1957,[2]What's Opera, Doc? features the speaking and singing voices ofMel Blanc andArthur Q. Bryan as Bugs and Elmer, respectively. This is the third of the three Warner Bros. shorts (the others beingHare Brush andRabbit Rampage) in which Elmer defeats Bugs, though here the former shows regret for defeating the latter. It was the last Elmer Fudd cartoon directed by Jones.[4]
What's Opera, Doc? required about six times as much work and expense as any of the other six-minute cartoons his production unit was turning out at the time.[4][5] Jones admitted as much, having described a surreptitious re-allocation of production time to complete the short.[6] During the six minutes ofWhat's Opera, Doc?, Jones lampoonsDisney'sFantasia, the contemporary style of ballet, Wagner's perceived ponderous operatic style, and even the by-then clichéd Bugs-and-Elmer formula.[7]
In his autobiographyChuck Amuck, Jones singled outWhat's Opera, Doc? "for sheer production quality, magnificent music and wonderful animation, this is probably our (unit's) most elaborate and satisfying production".[8]
Michael Maltese wrote the parody's storyline and, in collaboration with Chuck Jones, the comedic lyrics set to Wagner's music, including theduet "Return My Love".[9][10] Some elements of the cartoon drew upon previous animated works at Warner Bros. Maltese himself had originated the concept of depicting Bugs in Valkyrie-styleddrag and mounted on a fat horse.[10] Twelve years before the production ofWhat's Opera, Doc?, he had devised a very similar sequence for the cartoonHerr Meets Hare directed byFriz Freleng.[10][11] That anti-Nazi short was released by Warner Bros. to American theaters in January 1945, just several months beforeGermany's surrender toAllied forces inWorld War II.[10] Wearing a blonde braided wig under a medieval horned helmet and carrying a shield, Bugs in that earlier film rides across the screen to the tune of "Pilgrim's Chorus", a selection from Wagner's 1845 operaTannhäuser.[11]
The highly stylized backdrops and entire color scheme forWhat's Opera, Doc? were done by art directorMaurice Noble and were reportedly so "daring" at the time that the production's overall design "sent the studio into atizzy".[9] Noble later remarked, "They thought I wasbats when I put that bright red on Elmer with those purple skies".[9] According to him, some employees in Warner's Ink and Paint Department assumed that a variety of color specifications he sent to them were errors. Staff, Noble recalled, would ask questions such as"'You really mean you want that magenta red on that?' And I said, 'Yes, that's the way.'"[9]
During the final editing of the short, a "tiny sound effect" was omitted from the master footage, an omission that for decades continued to disturbChuck Jones whenever he viewed the cartoon after its initial release.[5] In August 2017, the online animation journalThe Dot and Line published an interview it conducted with Stephen Fossati, who was Jones' "lastprotégé", working with him from 1993 until his death in 2002.[5] Fossati in that interview spoke with Eric Vilas-Boas, the co-founder ofThe Dot and Line, about Jones' "diligence to his craft" and his "relentless perfectionism".[5] With regard to the absent sound effect, Vilas-Boas quoted Fossati's comments about hismentor's 45-year obsession with that "minuscule" detail in the film:
"It's like at least probably a dozen, two dozen times that I had the privilege of watching [What's Opera, Doc?] with Chuck... Every time, we'd get to the point where Elmer Fudd is jabbing the spear into the rabbit hole, and Bugs Bunny pops up and freezes, and Elmer Fudd freezes looking at Bugs Bunny, and the plates of his skirt fumble around. It's one of the things that bothered Chuck to the very end... [Chuck] had always intended that those plates fell, inverted, fell on Elmer Fudd's skirt. That they would goDink, dink, dink, dink, dink, dink, dink, dink, dink, but Treg Brown [the sound editor responsible for the short][12] forgot to put the sound effects in. [Chuck] would watch it, and every time he would watch it, he'd give a, 'Hurgh.' Sort of like, 'I can't believe that happened.' It was quite remarkable... You can watch it. Watch the cartoon... When, it's 'Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit?' He's frozen there, and you just see the 'Dink, dink, dink, dink.' Now you'll hear it."[5]
What's Opera, Doc? is sometimes referred to informally and in online and printed references as "Kill the Wabbit".[13][14] This unofficial, alternative title is derived from the line sung by Elmer to the tune of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", part of the opening passage from Act Three ofDie Walküre, which is also theleitmotif of theValkyries.[15]
For his 2016 article about the cartoon, "How Bugs Bunny and 'Kill the Wabbit' Inspired a Generation of Opera Stars", Michael Phillips ofThe Wall Street Journal examined how "a cartoon rabbit and his speech-impaired nemesis" provided many children in 1957 and in the decades thereafter their first, albeit absurd exposure to Wagner's compositions and to the world of opera.[13]
Phillips in his article furnishes comments by various operatic performers and stage crews regarding how seeingWhat's Opera, Doc? affected them personally as children and in some cases contributed to the early development of their operatic careers.Mezzo-sopranoElizabeth Bishop—a native ofGreenville, South Carolina and a featured performer at theWashington National Opera, theSan Francisco Opera, and theMetropolitan Opera—stated to Phillips,"'I could sing you the entire cartoon before I knew what opera really was'", adding"'Those of us who didn't freak at the sight of a rabbit in a winged helmet sliding off of the back of a fat horse—we went into opera.'"[13]Jamie Barton, another notable Americanmezzo-soprano, also shared with Phillips her reactions to seeing the short for the first time in the mid-1990s, when she was amiddle-schooler growing up inAthens, Georgia. As she prepared in 2016 for her performance as Waltraute in Wagner'sGötterdämmerung at theKennedy Center in Washington, DC, Barton reflected onWhat's Opera, Doc? and credited it and Warner Bros.' earlierburlesque shortRabbit of Seville with initially drawing her attention to opera and instilling in her a "love" for classical works, especially the music of Italian composerGioachino Rossini.[13] "I had never been exposed to opera music before Bugs Bunny", she remarked to Philips.[13]
Michael Heaston, a former pianist for theDallas Opera and in 2016 an adviser to the director of theWashington National Opera, also described to Phillips his memories of seeingWhat's Opera, Doc? and other Warner Bros. cartoons as a small child inWest Des Moines, Iowa. For Heaston those shorts served ascatalysts that ultimately led him to establishing a career in opera."'At a very base level'", he noted,"'that's what I got from Looney Tunes at a very early age: I learned how to tell stories through music.'"[13]
The enduring audience appeal ofWhat's Opera Doc? extends beyond stage professionals and the borders of the United States. In Canada in 2007, theToronto Star newspaper featured in its July 8 issue an article by Steve Watt titled "50 glorious years of 'kill da wabbit'".[16] Watt, a cartoon historian and owner of an animation art gallery in Toronto, discusses in his article thegolden anniversary that two days earlier had marked the initial release of the short, and he assesses its continuing popularity.[16] "No one", he writes, "who knows and loves 'What's Opera, Doc?' will ever hear Wagner's 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' without hearing, in their own minds, 'Kill da wabbit...kill da wabbit.'"[16] Watt continues, "While classical musicaficionados may be offended by that fact, I'm okay with it. More than okay with it."[16] He then describes a past event he had organized and held at a Toronto movie theater, where he presented a selection of Chuck Jones' cartoons. He also describes the audience's reaction to seeing the shorts on the "big screen", includingWhat's Opera, Doc?:
A few years ago, when I staged a tribute to Chuck and his incredible body of work, showing 15 of his greatest cartoons on the big screen as they were originally meant to be seen, it wasn't "What's Opera, Doc?" that got the biggest reaction, initially. The nearly 500 people in attendance gave their most enthusiastic reaction to the opening credits of "One Froggy Evening" featuringMichigan J. Frog, and "Rabbit of Seville," the famous Bugs Bunny-Elmer Fudd barbershop ditty. Both great cartoons, to be sure, and both on any animation historian's top 10. The interesting thing was that for weeks afterward, people told me how moved they were by "What's Opera, Doc?" Some had never seen it before. Others had seen it on TV, but absent the big screen and big sound, they had failed to fall under its spell. Seeing it that day, the way audiences first saw it in 1957, they were enthralled.[16]
Such reactions to "the Wagnerian mini epic"[17] a half century after its release once again attest to the cartoon's unique composition and appeal, qualities that were even recognized as "special" in 1957 by somefilm-industry publications. For example, thePhiladelphia-based journalMotion Picture Exhibitor, which in 1957 had a readership composed largely of theater owners and managers, reviewed the short in August that year and rated it "excellent".[18] TheExhibitor then prophetically observed, "This is far above the usual run of animated cartoons and should find special favor inart houses, believe it or not."[18]
In 1992, the United StatesLibrary of Congress deemedWhat's Opera, Doc? "'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'"[19] and selected it for induction to theNational Film Registry, making it the first short cartoon to receive that honor. Two more Warner Bros. cartoons were later inducted into the registry:Duck Amuck in 1999 andOne Froggy Evening in 2003.[17] Their inclusion made Chuck Jones the only animator with three shorts thus recognized.
What's Opera, Doc? in 1994 ranked number one on a list ofThe 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time.[20] The list, compiled by animation historianJerry Beck, was the result of his surveying and evaluating the opinions of 1,000 professional animators.[20] One of those professionals was Steve Schneider, a longtime employee of Warner Bros. and an authority on the history of animated productions at the studio and an avid collector of cartoon art.[9] In Beck's survey, Schneider provides his own assessment of what makes this short so outstanding:
From its first images, that of the would-be awesome Fantasia-like figures devolving into the shadow of puny lisping Elmer Fudd, the film piles up pretensions only in order to mow them down. Gloriously overbaked, the film reveals that ultimately, it was only cooking up fodder for satire. By reducing Wagner'sRing into a subtext for an archetypal Bugs and Elmer chase,What's Opera, Doc? pulls off a dazzling mingling of reverence and ridicule.[21]
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| Preceded by | Bugs Bunny Cartoons 1957 | Succeeded by |
