Pierrot, a stock character of pantomime and commedia dell'arte, has his origins in the late 17th-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne. The name is a diminutive of Pierre (Peter), using the suffix -ot and derives from the Italian Pedrolino. His character in contemporary popular culture—in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall—is that of the sad clown, often pining for love of Columbine. Performing unmasked, with a whitened face, he wears a loose white blouse with large buttons and wide white pantaloons. Sometimes he appears with a frilled collaret and a hat, usually with a close-fitting crown and wide round brim and, more rarely, with a conical shape like a dunce's cap.
Margrethe II is a member of the Danish royal family who reigned as Queen of Denmark from 14 January 1972 until her abdication on 14 January 2024. Having reigned for exactly 52 years, she was the second-longest reigning Danish monarch after Christian IV. She is also the world's most recent female reigning monarch.
Tivoli Gardens, also known simply as Tivoli, is an amusement park and pleasure garden in Copenhagen, Denmark. The park opened on 15 August 1843 and is the third-oldest operating amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken in nearby Klampenborg, also in Denmark, and Wurstelprater in Vienna, Austria.
Harlequinade is an English comic theatrical genre, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts". It developed in England between the 17th and mid-19th centuries. It was originally a slapstick adaptation or variant of the commedia dell'arte, which originated in Italy and reached its apogee there in the 16th and 17th centuries. The story of the Harlequinade revolves around a comic incident in the lives of its five main characters: Harlequin, who loves Columbine; Columbine's greedy and foolish father Pantaloon, who tries to separate the lovers in league with the mischievous Clown; and the servant, Pierrot, usually involving chaotic chase scenes with a bumbling policeman.
Jean-Gaspard Deburau, sometimes erroneously called Debureau, was a Bohemian-French mime. He performed from 1816 to the year of his death at the Théâtre des Funambules, which was immortalized in Marcel Carné's poetic-realist film Children of Paradise (1945); Deburau appears in the film as a major character. His most famous pantomimic creation was Pierrot—a character that served as the godfather of all the Pierrots of Romantic, Decadent, Symbolist, and early Modernist theater and art.
Pantomime is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and in other English-speaking countries, especially during the Christmas and New Year season. Modern pantomime includes songs, gags, slapstick comedy and dancing. It generally combines gender-crossing actors and topical humour with a story more or less based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or folk tale. Pantomime is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is encouraged and expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers.
Nola Rae MBE is a mime artist.
Les Millions d'Arlequin also known under the title Harlequinade is a ballet comique in two acts and two tableaux with libretto and choreography by Marius Petipa and music by Riccardo Drigo. It was first presented at the Theatre of the Imperial Hermitage Museum by the Imperial Ballet in Saint Petersburg on 23 February [O.S. 10 February] 1900. The ballet was given a second premiere with the same cast at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre on 26 February [O.S. 13 February] 1900.
Jens Vilhelm Dahlerup was a Danish architect who specialized in the Historicist style. One of the most productive and noted Danish architects of the 19th century, he is behind many of the most known buildings and landmarks of his time and has more than any other single architect contributed to the way Copenhagen appears today.
Commedia dell'arte was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is also known as commedia alla maschera, commedia improvviso, and commedia dell'arte all'improvviso. Characterized by masked "types", commedia was responsible for the rise of actresses such as Isabella Andreini and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios. A commedia, such as The Tooth Puller, is both scripted and improvised. Characters' entrances and exits are scripted. A special characteristic of commedia is the lazzo, a joke or "something foolish or witty", usually well known to the performers and to some extent a scripted routine. Another characteristic of commedia is pantomime, which is mostly used by the character Arlecchino, now better known as Harlequin.
Niels Bjørn Larsen was a Danish ballet dancer, choreographer and balletmaster. He was admitted to the Royal Danish Ballet school in 1920 and debuted in a production of Gudindernes Strid in 1933. In 1942 was promoted to soloist and remained with the Royal Danish Ballet until 1986.
Paul Legrand, born Charles-Dominique-Martin Legrand, was a highly regarded and influential French mime who turned the Pierrot of his predecessor, Jean-Gaspard Deburau, into the tearful, sentimental character that is most familiar to post-19th-century admirers of the figure. He was the first of the Parisian mimes of his era to take his art abroad—to London, in late 1847, for a holiday engagement at the Adelphi—and, after triumphs in mid-century Paris at the Folies-Nouvelles, he entertained audiences in Cairo and Rio de Janeiro. In the last years of the century, he was a member of the Cercle Funambulesque, a theatrical society that promoted work, especially pantomime, inspired by the commedia dell'arte, past and present. The year of his death coincided with the last year of the Cercle's existence.
Jean-Charles Deburau was an important French mime, the son and successor of the legendary Jean-Gaspard Deburau, who was immortalized as Baptiste the Pierrot in Marcel Carné's film Children of Paradise (1945). After his father's death in 1846, Charles kept alive his pantomimic legacy, first in Paris, at the Théâtre des Funambules, and then, beginning in the late 1850s, at theaters in Bordeaux and Marseille. He is routinely credited with founding a southern "school" of pantomime; indeed, he served as tutor to the Marseille mime Louis Rouffe, who, in turn, gave instruction to Séverin Cafferra, known simply as "Séverin". But their art was nourished by the work of other mimes, particularly of Charles's rival, Paul Legrand, and by earlier developments in nineteenth-century pantomime that were alien to the Deburaux' traditions.
Palle Jacobsen was a Danish ballet dancer, choreographer and instructor with the Royal Danish Ballet and ballet master at the Pantomime Theatre in the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen.
The Cercle Funambulesque (1888–1898)—roughly translatable as "Friends of the Funambules"—was a Parisian theatrical society that produced pantomimes inspired by the commedia dell'arte, particularly by the exploits of its French Pierrot. It included among its approximately one hundred and fifty subscriber-members such notables in the arts as the novelist J.-K. Huysmans, the composer Jules Massenet, the illustrator Jules Chéret, and the actor Coquelin cadet. Among its successes was L'Enfant prodigue (1890), which was filmed twice, first in 1907, then in 1916, making history as the first European feature-length movie and the first complete stage-play on film.
Dinna Bjørn is a Danish ballet dancer and choreographer. She has specialized dancing and directing the ballets of August Bournonville. Bjørn has also created five Hans Christian Andersen ballets for the Pantomime Theatre in Copenhagen's Tivoli.
Johanne Emilie Margrethe Walbom née Egense (1858–1932) was a Danish ballet dancer and choreographer. During her exceptionally long term of 61 years with the Royal Danish Ballet, she progressed from ballet dancer to the company's first female choreographer in 1878. In 1915, she became its first "ballet mistress", albeit under the ballet master Gustav Uhlendorff.
William Henry Schofield Payne was an actor, dancer and pantomimist, who created much of the stage business connected with the character Harlequin in 19th-century harlequinades. He was the father of the Victorian era pantomime clowns the Payne Brothers.
The Golden Jubilee of Margrethe II was celebrated in 2022 in the Kingdom of Denmark, being the 50th anniversary of the accession of Queen Margrethe II on 14 January 1972.
Cultural references to Pierrot have been made since the inception of the character in the 17th century. His character in contemporary popular culture — in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall — is that of the sad clown, often pining for love of Columbine, who usually breaks his heart and leaves him for Harlequin. Many cultural movements found him amenable to their respective causes: Decadents turned him into a disillusioned foe of idealism; Symbolists saw him as a lonely fellow-sufferer; Modernists converted him into a Whistlerian subject for canvases devoted to form and color and line.
