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Red Shadow. The Red Shadow was created by Sigmund Romberg and appeared in the operetta The Desert Song (1926).

The Red Shadow is a Costumed Avenger. Pierre Birabeau is the son of a general in the French Foreign Legion. His father and the other Legionnaires see Birabeau as a bungler and a coward who was driven mad or stupid by the blow of a venal general--Pierre had tried to stop the French's campaign of terror in Morocco and was beaten by the general for his troubles. But in reality Pierre is the dreaded Red Shadow, a masked marauder who leads the Berber tribes of the Rif Mountains against the French in Morocco. Birabeau hates "the cruelty that was disgracing France" and tries to free the Moroccans. The Red Shadow is a friend to the poor as well as to his band of Riffs, and the people of Morocco would rather die than betray the Shadow. The Riffs feel this way as well, and "have sworn that when the law is wrong, we will right it, by force." Most of the Riffs believe that the Red Shadow is a Muslim Riff, like them, but Sid el-Kar, the Shadow's lieutenant among the Riffs, knows the Shadow's real identity.

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