The Lone Ranger could owe some of its popularity and longevity to the show's classic theme song: the finale to Rossini's “William Tell Overture."
The theme music was the “cavalry charge" finale of Gioacchino Rossini's William Tell Overture, now inseparably associated with the series, which also featured many other classical selections as incidental music including Wagner, Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky. The theme was conducted by Daniel Perez Castaneda.
Lone Ranger back in the saddle -- on DVD
The first two seasons of the long-running TV western featuring Clayton Moore as the masked man and Jay Silverheels as his companion Tonto have been released in a 13-disc set.
In honor of the masked man's 75th anniversary, a 13-disc DVD collector's edition was released earlier this week that features the first two seasons of The Lone Ranger television series that ran from 1949 to 1957 and starred Clayton Moore as the title character and Jay Silverheels as Tonto. The package also includes an 88-page commemorative book, posters, trading cards and an installment from the “Lone Ranger" radio show.
The DVD release follows a September announcement by ber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Walt Disney Pictures that they will make another big-screen adaptation about the beloved hero of the Old West. No word yet on who might take on the lead role, but the talk is that Johnny Depp will play Tonto, the Ranger's faithful companion.
“If you ask any person, literally, in the country who they think of when they think of the West and the quintessential western hero, they'll say the Lone Ranger," says Nicole Blake, senior vice president of marketing for Entertainment Rights, the company that owns the “Lone Ranger" franchise.
