Arlecchino (opera) of a double-bill. The first British staged performance of "Arlecchino" was in 1954 at Glyndebourne. However, Edward Clark had produced a concert version in London in 1939. The opera is in four movements with a corresponding representation of Arlecchino in each of them: The roles in "Arlecchino" are derived from the Italian "commedia dell'arte". It is unusual in that the title role of Arlecchino is primarily a speaking role. The composer has said that "Arlecchino" "has a tendency to ambiguity and hyperbole in order to place the listener momentarily in a position of slight doubt." Ronald Stevenson has described it
Pierrot helped steer the pantomime away from the old fabulous and knockabout world of fairy-land and into the realm of sentimental—often tearful—realism. In this he was abetted by the novelist and journalist Champfleury, who set himself the task, in the 1840s, of writing "realistic" pantomimes. Among the works he produced were "Marquis Pierrot" (1847), which offers a plausible explanation for Pierrot's powdered face (he begins working-life as a miller's assistant), and the "Pantomime of the Attorney" (1865), which casts Pierrot in the prosaic role of an attorney's clerk. Legrand left the Funambules in 1853 for what was to become his chief