Talk:Columbina

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2020 and 29 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mlee1260, GWULindsey. Peer reviewers: Ariellenoam99.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:19, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dtmckell95.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Proper form
Shouldn't this be at 'Columbine' in English. I only have a vague recollection of the name from the role in opera, so there is every chance I've actually come across the French or Italian usage. 'Columbine Opera' gets far more google hits than 'Columbina Opera'. -- Solipsist 20:49, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I think this page is more about the commedia Del'arte stock character rather than a particular opera role. I'll be editing this page and cleaning it up. Yes. Columbine is the english version, but Columbina (or Colombina) is the proper "form" - if you will - for Commedia references. Bebedebroadway 15:05, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Colombina & Arlecchino
The following entry under 'Columbina' (Colombina) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbina is not entirely correct:

"In the verismo opera Pagliacci by Ruggiero Leoncavallo, the head troup's wife, Nedda, plays as Colombina, cheating on her husband both onstage and offstage with Arlecchino."

Nedda does not cheat on her husband Canio offstage with the character Arlecchino (in the opera, the actor Beppe). She has taken a lover named Silvio (baritone) probably a local villager in northern Calabria where the action takes place.

Alicia Alexander 15:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Errors
There's a lot that's wrong with this article.

First, the name. I don't know what the writer above means by declaring that "Columbina" is "the proper 'form'--if you will--for Commedia references." The Commedia dell'Arte doesn't exist--and never has existed--as some sort of abstract phenomenon unconnected to nationality. Columbine is "Columbine" in English-speaking countries, "Colombine" in French-speaking countries, and "Colombina" in Italy. As the wag who has doctored note 2 of the page correctly points out, she is never "Columbina" anywhere.

Second, the role. We're told that she is a "comic servant" who wears "a ragged and patched dress." One look at the accompanying illustration should throw doubt on the latter claim. As a matter of fact, in the early French scenarios of the Comédie-Italienne she is not a servant at all: she is the daughter of the (middle- or upper-middle-class) "heavy" father. (Sand, who did the illustration, was French and knew the French form of the Commedia intimately: thus his Colombine's dress.) True, Columbine is a servant in some scenarios, but it should be specified here which ones.

Third, her relationship vis-à-vis Harlequin and Pierrot. We're told she's Harlequin's "mistress." This is misleading. In pantomime, from the eighteenth-century to the present, she is usually pursued by Harlequin (as Cassander and his servant Pierrot give chase), but she can't properly be said to be his "mistress." And in all of the thousands of Pierrot pieces that I've read, I can name maybe a half-dozen where she appears as the "wife of Pierrot." In many pieces, she eventually comes round and agrees to a marriage to Pierrot at the end, but, in such pieces, she can't be said to be the "wife" of Pierrot.

Fourth, the illustration. It implies strongly that Sand drew (or published) it in 1683--but Sand's Masques et bouffons, where it appears, was published in 1860. Maybe we're meant to think that Sand is drawing Columbine as she was generally costumed in 1683--but, in that case, why is the date so specific? What text or event is it attached to?

I'd make the necessary changes to this page if I had a sufficiently stocked library nearby, but I don't. So can just add a caveat lector here. Beebuk 11:16, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Please feel free to edit the page with the correct information. If you have a source, that would be great too! Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:45, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Where it says "Colombian" should it say Columbine? If so please correct that part of the text.