Bach, Beethoven, Bugs

The lights go down, the conductor raises his baton, 72 musicians begin to play – and Elmer Fudd croaks out, “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit …” That’s a taste of what you’re in for with “Bugs Bunny on Broadway,” the wildly successful combination of Warner Bros. cartoons with orchestral music.

To close this season’s SuperPops series, the Spokane Symphony on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon will play the great Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn scores, while a huge screen behind the orchestra will show 11 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons.

“We’re not just matching classical music with videos, chockablock,” said George Daugherty, the creator and conductor of “Bugs Bunny on Broadway.”

“We are playing the original scores in perfect synchronization with the films, along with the original vocal performances from Mel Blanc and the other genius actors.”

Several of these cartoons are specifically based on classical themes. “What’s Opera, Doc?,” one of the most acclaimed animated shorts in history, compresses Wagner’s entire 23-hour “Ring” Cycle (plus other Wagnerian themes) into a hysterical seven-and-a-half minute Bugs Bunny comedy-fest.

That’s where you’ll hear Elmer Fudd croaking, “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit …” to the tune of “The Ride of the Valkyries.”

Then there’s “Rabbit of Seville,” based on “The Barber of Seville” and “Baton Bunny,” in which Bugs himself serves as conductor.

Other cartoons are simply Warner Bros. classics in which the music comments on and contributes to the comic mayhem.

The beauty of “Bugs Bunny on Broadway” is that it allows audiences to experience both aspects – the cartoons and the scores – on a vastly enhanced scale.

The remastered cartoons are projected onto a giant screen, as originally intended. The Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons were first shown as short subjects at movie theaters, although many people today have experienced them only on TV.

And the scores are played live by an orchestra of the same size and using the same orchestrations as the original Warner Bros. Orchestra (which, by night, was known as the L.A. Philharmonic).

“This is not a cartoony concert, even though it’s full of cartoons,” said Daugherty, who is also the music director of London’s Sinfonia Britannia. “This is the creation of geniuses.

“It’s funny, but seriously composed. It’s hard and it’s challenging for the musicians, but it’s rewarding. The orchestras love doing it.”

The show appeals to many generations: people who grew up with the original cartoons beginning in the 1930s; those who discovered them later on TV; and kids who may be discovering Bugs and Elmer for the first time.

“It’s a fantastic kid’s show – a wonderful introduction to the symphony for kids,” said Daugherty.

The show has played to more than a million people since Daugherty’s first performance in 1990 and has been, by any measure, enormously successful.

How successful? The L.A. Philharmonic has performed it in the Hollywood Bowl a grand total of 11 times. It has been done by the most renowned orchestras in the world: the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic. About 150,000 people watched it during a free performance in Times Square.

Yet this is Spokane’s first crack at the show. (Spokane, by the way, has a thin claim on Warner Bros. cartoon history: Chuck Jones, the director of many of the classic cartoons, was born here in 1912, although the family moved to California just six months later.)

Daugherty brings along his own pianist and his own percussionist.

“There is so much piano, it’s almost like a piano concerto,” said Daugherty. “And there is so much percussion, it really helps to know the show.”

Yet the star of the show remains, in the immortal words of Elmer Fudd, “that wascally wabbit.”