Brighella is a mean, dangerous, clever servant. He is also sometimes an adventurer or beggar. His movement and speech often induces the audience to hiss and boo his entrance. He charms other characters and sometimes carries a knife. Despite being a member of the servant class, Brighella is a fallen nobleman whose hair drips with olive oil. Duchartre describes the 16th century Brighella as a very mean, quick-witted, but lazy and self-serving adventurer. Brighella become a subjugated but sneaky Coviello-like servant in the seventeenth century. Women rarely like this strange scoundrel, but they fear and respect him. They tolerate his insolence because they are afraid of his claws and mischievous ways, and they yield only too often to his cajoling and his ingenious and persuasive eloqunence. Bluto from the early Popeye cartoons, that is, if you could imagine a more slender charming Bluto, wearing an olive-colored hook-nose mask, with a handle-bar mustache, and able to play the guitar. Hey Brighella, Yo Wormsworth. normally I wouldn't give away my secrets to the competition, but for you, I'll make an exception. No one will detect your crime if you have a bottle of poison, and a forged letter asking you to kill the Doge. Cut the string with a dull butter knife. When you have these items with you, the strongest constables will not notice you. Under no circumstances should you recruit a child to do it for you. Now, quickly depart before anyone sees me talking with you. -Maestro Brighella, king of the gypsies [J. Cross & M. Yoder] Note that these characters are i Sebastiani's interpretations; they are not definitive to the genre. |
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