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
Gilles (stock character) did Gilles "wear the same costume" as Pierrot, but both generally "had the same character" throughout the 18th century: Pierrot, like Gilles, "was a farcical creature, not a tragic or sensitive one". (Pierrot will become tearful and incipiently tragic only in the middle of the 19th century, in the hands of Paul Legrand.) "It is", writes Haskell, "hard to resist the conclusion that the consumptive Watteau has invested the figure of Gilles with some degree of self-identification, and Mrs. [Erwin] Panofsky has also pointed out that on many other occasions when painting Pierrot figures Watteau not only gave them a