Bugs Bunny, Warner Bros. 'Rabbit Hunt' with the Milan Symphony Orchestra

Bug Bunny, the most iconic character of the Looney Tunes gang, turns 85 years old. Thirty-five years ago, when the cleverest rabbit in cartoon history was just blowing out his 50th candle, the Warner Bros. parent company celebrated him with the Bugs show Bunny at The Symphony, an anthology screening of some of the Californian factory's best shorts with live musical accompaniment.

It was an experience that overturned the usual perspective: music, normally perceived as accompaniment, became the absolute protagonist, revealing all its narrative, comic and symphonic power. The show, which has established itself as a true cult among Looney Tunes fans, has been performed over the past 35 years by some of the world's greatest orchestras. This time it's the turn of the Milan Symphony Orchestra: Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 May at the Auditorium in Largo Mahler space will be given to two performances of Bugs Bunny at The Symphony conducted by George Daugherty with executive production by David Ka Lik Wong.

its narrative, comic and symphonic force.

The programme includes authentic masterpieces of Warner Bros. animation in the original English version such as Baton Bunny, The Rabbit of Seville, What's Opera, Doc?, Corny Concerto and Long-Haired Hare, extraordinary examples of a golden age of animation that knew how to converse in a refined way with the European musical tradition. Quotes, parodies and references to the operatic and symphonic repertoire transform each short into a perfect 'musical machine' synchronised with the stage action.

The orchestra follows each movement of the characters with millimetric precision: it emphasises the chases, amplifies the comic pauses, builds the very rhythm of the narrative. The result is a language in which the music does not simply accompany the image, but generates and defines it, becoming an integral part of the comedy.