Forgive me for my spelling, please.
i was reading a book and they made a somewhat vague reference to Pierrot and Harlequin, and I tried looking up their story but i couldn’t find anything.
I know that Pierrot was a melancholy and innocent character, and Harlequin was a tricky acrobat, but what is the relation between the two characters?
what stories are they from, and is there any more information you can give me on them?
Thank you!
Pierrot and Harlequin are two of the three characters involved in a love triangle in traditional commedia dell’Arte, popular in the 16th through the 18th centuries. In most versions of the story, Pierrot is the lovestruck naive partner of Columbine (the third character in this triangle). Harlequin is also in love with Columbine, and usually the two of them end up deceiving Pierrot.
The opera, I Pagliacci, by Leoncavallo contains the Columbine-Pierrot-Harlequin story presented as a play within a play. Remember the stereo-typical tenor aria showing the clown in the white costume with big black fuzzy buttons and white ruffled color? That’s Pierrot.
December 30th, 2009 at 4:12 am
Pierrot and Harlequin are two of the three characters involved in a love triangle in traditional commedia dell’Arte, popular in the 16th through the 18th centuries. In most versions of the story, Pierrot is the lovestruck naive partner of Columbine (the third character in this triangle). Harlequin is also in love with Columbine, and usually the two of them end up deceiving Pierrot.
The opera, I Pagliacci, by Leoncavallo contains the Columbine-Pierrot-Harlequin story presented as a play within a play. Remember the stereo-typical tenor aria showing the clown in the white costume with big black fuzzy buttons and white ruffled color? That’s Pierrot.
References :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commedia_dell%27Arte is a pretty good article on Commedia dell’Arte.