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.
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.