Martha (opera)

Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond (Martha, or The Market at Richmond) is a romantic comic opera in four acts by Friedrich von Flotow set to a German libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Riese [de] and based on a story by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges.

Flotow had composed the first act of a ballet, Harriette, ou la servante de Greenwiche, derived from a text by Saint-Georges, for the ballerina Adèle Dumilâtre. This was first performed by the Paris Opera Ballet at the Salle Le Peletier on 21 February 1844. The time available for the composition was short, so the second and third acts were assigned, respectively, to Friedrich Burgmüller and Édouard Deldevez. The opera Martha was an adaptation of this ballet.

According to Gustav Kobbé, Martha, though written by a native of Mecklenburg and first performed in Vienna, is French in character and elegance. Flotow was French in his musical training, as were the origins of both the plot and the score of this work, effectively in the tradition of Auber. (Flotow studied composition in Paris under Reicha from 1827 until 1830, and having left on account of the July Revolution returned there from 1835 until 1848, and again from 1863 until 1868.)

The first performance of Martha took place at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna on 25 November 1847. Other early productions followed in Weimar (16 February 1848), Dresden (1 March 1848), Leipzig (1 March 1848), and Berlin (7 March 1848). It was performed in Budapest in Hungarian (11 July 1848) and in Prague in German (24 March 1849) and in Czech (17 February 1850). There were several early productions in London, the first in German at Drury Lane (4 June 1849), followed by one in Italian at Covent Garden (1 July 1858) and another in English at Drury Lane (11 October 1858).

In the United States, it was produced in English at Niblo's Garden in New York City on 1 November 1852 with Anna Bishop, in New Orleans on 27 January 1860, in French. It had its first Australian performance in Melbourne on 24 June 1856. The opera was performed at the second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

It was first performed in France in Italian by the Théâtre-Italien at the Salle Ventadour in Paris on 11 February 1858 and in French at several provincial theatres beginning in December 1858 and at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris on 18 December 1865. According to T. J. Walsh, numerous editions of Kobbé's Opera Book have incorrectly given the date of the first performance at the Théâtre Lyrique as 16 December 1865. He also challenges Kobbé's statement that the aria "M'appari" (which Flotow composed for his earlier opera L'âme en peine) was first introduced into the opera Martha at that theatre. He notes that it was sung by Mario at the Théâtre-Italien in 1858 and is also found (as "Ach! so fromm") in an early (probably 1848) Vienna edition of the score in the British Library and was probably always a part of the opera. The confusion may have arisen from further alterations made by the Théâtre Lyrique's director, Léon Carvalho, which included the insertion in act 4 of Flotow's baritone aria "Depuis le jour j'ai paré ma chaumière" (also from L'âme en peine).

In 1877, at the Royal Italian Opera in Covent Garden, Victor Capoul performed as Lyonel, with Francesco Graziani (baritone) as Plunkett and Sofia Scalchi as Nancy.

Martha received a fresh boost in popularity in 1906 when it was staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in a production that featured the famed tenor Enrico Caruso, singing the opera in Italian. Lyonel was one of Caruso's most popular roles, performing it many times during subsequent seasons; he also recorded several extracts from the Italian version of the opera. Martha fell out of favor by the 1920s and it was rarely performed for decades thereafter. Interest in the opera was rekindled by the 1980s and recent productions in the United Kingdom have included those by Opera South in 1986 and 2009 and Bel Canto Opera in 2002. Those in the U.S. have included Michigan Opera Theatre in 1985.