Les brigands (The Bandits) is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, by Jacques Offenbach to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. Les brigands was first performed at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris on 10 December 1869. This version was in three acts. A four-act version was subsequently prepared for the Théâtre de la Gaîté on 25 December 1878. The piece achieved great success as the Second Empire came to an end. Only the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in the following months dampened audience enthusiasm. The piece also played in New York City at The Grand Opera House in 1870-71.[LINK: http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=441415] Info from IBDB database Meilhac and Halévy's libretto is cheerfully amoral in its presentation of theft as a basic principle of society rather than as an aberration. The forces of law and order are represented by the bumbling carabinieri, who al

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