Most of my Classical Music knowledge comes from Cartoons...

I owe Warner Bros. a serious debt for familiarizing me with many pieces of classical music. Or so I thought. Apparently, I never realized that the William Tell Overture -- used in no fewer than 13 Bugs Bunny cartoons, according to IMDB -- by Giocchino Rossini was fractured into many smaller soundbites for cartoon use and the part I think of as "the" William Tell Overture is really the last movement in the second part of Rossini's score.

Kiddo told us over dinner tonight that they had learned about Rossini in music class today. While I asked her for more information, I also looked up his entry on Wikipedia, saw that he also wrote the Barber of Seville and reached for our copy of Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1.

"You'll recognize this then," I said, popping in The Rabbit of Seville. She did. We then went hunting through the other discs for some of the ones featuring (parts of) the William Tell Overture (I think there were 4) -- most of them featuring the first portion of the second part of the overture -- the part I associate with waking up or sunrise and which I had no idea was part of the same piece of music as the part I associate with the Lone Ranger. (Seriously, just go listen to it and you'll know that I am not completely cracked.)

Anyway, the reason they are learning about Rossini is for a future performance of "The Barber of Barkerville" -- the Barber of Seville set in Gold Rush era Barkerville BC -- likely this production by the Vancouver Opera which is being promoted by Kaleidoscope Theatre. My guess is that the group will visit the school during the week leading up to the performance and sing one selection for the kids, hoping they will fill any remaining empty seats!