| 词条 | What's Opera, Doc? |
| 释义 |
|name = What's Opera, Doc? |image = What's Opera Doc Lobby Card.PNG |caption = Lobby card |director = Chuck Jones |story = Michael Maltese |animator = Ken Harris Richard Thompson Abe Levitow |layout_artist = Maurice Noble |background_artist = Phillip DeGuard |music = Richard Wagner Milt Franklyn (arrangement) Michael Maltese (lyrics: "Return My Love") | starring = Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny) Arthur Q. Bryan (Elmer Fudd-uncredited) |producer = Edward Selzer (uncredited) |studio = Warner Bros. Cartoons |distributor = Warner Bros. |released = {{Film date|1957|07|06}} |color_process = Technicolor |runtime = 6:53 (one reel) |language = English }} What's Opera, Doc? is a 1957 American animated cartoon comedy musical short in the Merrie Melodies series, directed by Chuck Jones for Warner Bros. Cartoons.[1] The Michael Maltese story features Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny through a parody of 19th-century classical composer Richard Wagner's operas, particularly Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), Der Fliegende Holländer, and Tannhäuser. It borrows heavily from the second opera in the "Ring Cycle" Die Walküre, woven around the standard Bugs-Elmer conflict. Originally released to theaters by Warner Bros. on July 6, 1957, What's Opera, Doc? features the speaking and singing voices of Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan as Bugs and Elmer, respectively. The short is also sometimes informally referred to as 'Kill the Wabbit' after the line sung by Fudd to the tune of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", the opening passage from Act Three of Die Walküre (which is also the leitmotif of the Valkyries). In 1994, 1,000 members of the animation industry ranked What's Opera, Doc? first in a list of the 50 greatest cartoons of all time.[2] This is the third of the three Warner Bros. shorts (the others being Hare Brush and Rabbit Rampage) in which Elmer defeats Bugs, as well as the only one where the former shows regret for defeating the latter, and the last Elmer Fudd cartoon that Jones directed. PlotThe screen pans on the silhouette of a mighty Viking arousing ferocious lightning storms, but then zooms in to reveal that it is only Elmer Fudd in armor (as the demigod Siegfried). Elmer sings his signature line "Be vewy qwiet, I'm hunting wabbits" in "wecitative" (recitative), before he finds "wabbit twacks" (rabbit tracks) and arrives at Bugs Bunny's hole. We watch as Elmer jams his spear into Bugs' hole to "Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit!" Bugs sticks his head out of another rabbit hole, and, appalled, sings his signature line "What's up, doc?" to the theme of Siegfried's horn call from the Ring Cycle. He asks Elmer how he will kill the rabbit, then taunts Elmer about his "spear and magic helmet". This prompts a display of Elmer-as-Siegfried's "mighty powers", set to the overture of The Flying Dutchman, which causes lightning to strike the tree next to Bugs. At that, Bugs flees, Elmer realizes "That was the wabbit!", and the chase begins. Suddenly, Elmer stops in his tracks at the sight of the beautiful Valkyrie Brünnhilde (Bugs in a drag queen disguise), riding in grandly on her horse Grane, who is enormously fat. "Siegfried" and "Brünnhilde" exchange endearments, set to the "Pilgrims' Chorus" theme from Tannhäuser as orchestrated in the opera's overture. After the usual "hard to get" pursuit they perform a short ballet (based on the Venusberg ballet in Tannhäuser), capping it off with the duet "Return My Love" set to another section of the Tannhäuser overture as the pair meet at a gazebo. Bugs' true identity is suddenly exposed when his headdress falls off, enraging Elmer. Bugs yanks Elmer's helmet down over his head and uses it as a chance to escape, discarding his disguise. A crescendo drum roll is playing while Elmer struggles to fix his helmet. When Elmer puts his helmet into the right position, the "Ride" overture plays once again and the white gazebo turns red (reflecting Elmer's anger), resolving to himself "I'll kill the wabbit!" prompting him to command fierce lightning, "typhoons, huwwicanes, earthquakes" and, finally, "SMOG!!!" to "stwike de wabbit!" while music from The Flying Dutchman plays in the background. Eventually, the ensuing storm tears apart the mountains where Bugs has fled. Elmer triumphantly rushes to see his victory, but upon seeing Bugs' intact yet seemingly lifeless body, Elmer immediately regrets his wrath and tearfully carries the bunny off, presumably to Valhalla in keeping with the Wagnerian theme, per Act III of The Valkyries (although the music again comes from the overture to Tannhäuser). Bugs suddenly raises his head to face the audience, breaking the fourth wall, and remarks, "Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?", before going back to playing dead. Cast
Wagner's musicWhen presented in the 1979 compilation The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, Bugs Bunny claims that the short was the whole of Wagner's 17-hour Opera Cycle "Der Ring des Nibelungen" (The Ring of the Nibelung, which he mispronounced as "The Rings of Nibble-lung" in his Brooklynese accent), condensed into only 7 minutes. He also pronounced Richard Wagner as it would be pronounced in English (wag-ner), instead of its usual German pronunciation Rikard Vagner. Besides the second opera of Ring, Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) and the third opera of the Ring, Siegfried, other Wagnerian music present in the cartoon comes from Tannhäuser, The Flying Dutchman and Rienzi. Specific excerpts include:
AwardsThe cartoon is widely regarded as Chuck Jones’ masterpiece, and many film critics, animation fans and filmmakers consider it to be the greatest of all the cartoons Warner Bros. released. It has topped many Top Ten lists of the greatest animated cartoons of all time. It was rated by a panel of over 1000 animators in Jerry Beck's 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals as the #1 greatest cartoon of all time.[3] In 1992, the United States Library of Congress deemed it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, making it the first cartoon to receive such honors. Duck Amuck and One Froggy Evening were later inducted into the registry, making Chuck Jones the only animator with three shorts thus recognized.[4] ProductionWhat'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. Jones has admitted as much, having described a surreptitious re-allocation of production time to complete the short.[5] During the six minutes of What's Opera, Doc?, Jones lampoons Disney's Fantasia, the contemporary style of ballet, Wagner's perceived ponderous operatic style, and even the by-then clichéd Bugs-and-Elmer formula. Michael Maltese devised the story for the cartoon, and also wrote lyrics to Wagner's music to create the duet "Return My Love". Art director Maurice Noble devised the stylized backdrops. The cartoon drew upon previous Warner studio work: Maltese originated the concept of Bugs in Valkyrie drag riding a fat horse to the Tannhäuser Pilgrim's Chorus in the suppressed 1945 wartime cartoon Herr Meets Hare, directed by Friz Freleng. Availability
See also
ReferencesNotes1. ^{{bcdb|5289-Whats-Opera-Doc}} 2. ^{{cite book|last1=Beck|first1=edited by Jerry|title=The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected By 1,000 Animation Professionals|date=1994|publisher=Turner Pub.|location=Atlanta|isbn=1-878685-49-X|edition=1st}} 3. ^Turner Pub; 1st ed edition (October 1994); {{ISBN|978-1-878685-49-0}} 4. ^{{cite web | title = National Film Registry: 1989–2007 | publisher = LOC.gov | url = https://www.loc.gov/film/titles.html | accessdate = August 17, 2012 }} 5. ^Cartoons were scheduled for a five-week production, according to producer Eddie Selzer. Jones did this cartoon in seven weeks instead. To cover up for the extra time spent, he had his entire unit doctor their time cards to make it appear as if they working on the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner short Zoom and Bored (1957) for two weeks before production of that cartoon actually started. Bibliography
External links
14 : 1957 films|American musical comedy films|American films|Cross-dressing in American films|Short films directed by Chuck Jones|Merrie Melodies shorts|Films based on operas|United States National Film Registry films|1950s American animated films|Films based on works by Richard Wagner|American animated short films|1957 animated films|Animated films about animals|Films about rabbits and hares |
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