The Santa of Seville

Take a break from practicing your fi tah's for this piece (or are they f'tah's?), and broaden your musical horizons through the study of cartoons.

First, a little context for the piece.  The Santa of Seville is arranged by Mark Williams, who was a bassoon player, conductor and music teacher specializing in elementary band (here's a tribute to him on his publisher's website). Here's how the publisher describes The Santa of Seville:

What happens when Santa's sleigh accidentally lands in the middle of a production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville? Get ready for the hilarious combination of well-known Christmas favourites and themes from the opera's famous overture. Included are "We Three Kings", "Deck The Halls" and many others.

We are likely all familiar with the Christmas songs contained in this piece.  But what is this Barber of Seville?  According to Wikipedia, The Barber of Seville  is an opera buffa, or comic opera, composed by Gioachino Rossini with a  libretto (the story, lyrics and stage directions) by Cesare Sterbini.  It is a very popular opera, the ninth most performed opera in the world, according to Operabase.  And strangely, wonderfully, one particular aria from the opera has proven extremely inspirational to a number of 20th century cartoon studios.  Check out the following videos for four versions of the challenging Largo al Factotum.  (If you're reading this in an email, please click on the post title to access the blog, and the videos).

Here's the Bugs Bunny version Mr. McIlwain mentioned last week.  Thanks to Elisabeth from the flute section for this link.



This one is Woody Woodpecker's take on Figaro's aria (rather impressive Italian on Woody's part).


Tom and Jerry tackle the aria, as well as each other.


So, lots of stage business involving barber chairs, shaving foam and sharp implements.  Check out this next video to see how the aria is staged in a performance of the real opera.  I believe this magnificent version is from the Teatro Real Madrid and features the baritone Pietro Spagnoli (opera afficianados please correct me if that's wrong).



Finally, to bring this back to the piece we are actually playing, here is a video of a school band performing The Santa of Seville.