If you don’t think you’re familiar with music by the composer Gioachino Rossini, you’d probably recognize his most memorable melody if you heard it. Most people know it from the classic 1950s “Bugs Bunny” episode, “The Rabbit of Seville.” The Looney Tunes send-up references Rossini’s 1816 opera “The Barber of Seville,” one of the greatest works of comic opera. The Atlanta Opera will perform “The Barber of Seville” beginning March 5 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre with music director and conductor Arthur Fagan. He joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom to talk about the works of Rossini and this particularly delightful earworm of a masterpiece opera.
Interview highlights:
Beyond Looney Toons, other cultural touchstones made iconic by Rossini:
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