Who is the coward character who plays appears in one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded works that has been adapted for the opera on several occasions?
Ancient Pistol Ancient Pistol is a swaggering soldier who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. Though full of grandiose boasts about his prowess, he is essentially a coward. The character is introduced in "Henry IV, Part 2" and reappears in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Henry V".
Les brigands Les brigands ("The Bandits") is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, by Jacques Offenbach to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. Meilhac and Halévy's libretto lampoons both serious (Schiller's play set to music by Verdi) and light theatre ("Fra Diavolo" and "Les diamants de la couronne" by Auber). The plot is cheerfully amoral in its presentation of theft as a basic principle of society rather than as an aberration. As Falsacappa, the brigand chieftain, notes: "Everybody steals according to their position in society". The piece premiered in Paris in 1869 and has received periodic revivals in France and elsewhere, both in French and in translation.