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?
The Merry Wives of Windsor The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare first published in 1602, though believed to have been written in or before 1597. The Windsor of the play's title is a reference to the town of Windsor, also the location of Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, England, and though nominally set in the reign of Henry IV, the play makes no pretence to exist outside contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life. It features the character Sir John Falstaff, the fat knight who had previously been featured in "Henry IV, Part 1" and "Part 2". It has been adapted for the opera on several occasions. The play is one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded works among literary critics.
Artaserse (Hasse) Artaserse is an opera ("dramma per musica") in three acts composed by Johann Adolph Hasse to an Italian libretto adapted from that by Metastasio by Giovanni Boldini. It premiered at the Teatro di San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice on 11 February 1730, shortly after the libretto's first setting by Leonardo Vinci premiered in Rome 6 days earlier. Metastasio's libretto, "Artaserse", has been used in more than 90 works. Hasse himself would later re-work the score for performances at the Opernhaus am Zwinger in Dresden (1740) and the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples (1760).