In 1893, Gustave Flaubert's novel "Herodias" inspired the English writer Oscar Wilde to write his one-act drama “Salomé” in French for the famous tragic actress Sarah Bernhardt. The play was staged in European theaters with a great success. The German composer Richard Strauss watched it in early 1903 in Berlin.
The exciting exotic nature of the East, Herod's hysterical character, and the sharpness of the contrast between Salome's disastrous amorality and God-fearing Jochanaan's (John the Baptist) piety inspired Strauss to compose an opera based on this play.

The French composer Mascagni wrote the opera "Cavalleria Rusticana" for the competition of one-act operas organized in Milan by the publisher Edoardo Sonzogno in 1888.
Learning about the competition very late, Mascagni turned for help to his friend, poet Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti who decided to borrow the plot of the libretto from a novel by Giovanni Verga. Guido Menasci also participated in the reworking of the plot. In March 1890, the decision of the jury was announced, according to which the winners were Niccola Spinelli's "Labilia," Vincenzo Ferroni's  "Rudello," and Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana."
The opera was premiered in Rome on May 17, 1890, and was a great success.

The authors of the libretto of the opera “The Pearl Fishers” (“Les pêcheurs de perles”) are Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré. It was premiered on September 30, 1863, at the Paris Lyric Theater. Bizet, who had not yet reached the age of 25, was welcomed by the audience who, in addition to singers, also demanded the composer.

This episode presents Gaetano Donizetti's Opera Dom Sébastien. This is the last opera of the composer.  Its libretto was written by the famous French playwright Eugène Scribe, based on the drama of the same name by Paul-Henri Foucher. It was premiered at the Paris Opera on November 13, 1843.

The authors of the libretto of this opera by French composer Berlioz are Léon de Wailly and Henri Auguste Barbier. It is based on the memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, the famous Italian sculptor, jeweler, painter, soldier and musician of the period of  Renaissance.

French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau's opera "Hippolyte et Aricie" is based on Jean Racine's tragedy "Phaedra." No later than December 1732, Rameau's patron Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière introduced Rameau to Abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin. The latter agreed to write the libretto for the opera.
The opera premiered on October 1, 1733, at the Royal Academy of Music in Paris (now Paris National Opera Theater).

The plot of the Opera Faust is borrowed from the first part of Goethe's tragedy of the same name, which is itself based on a common German medieval legend.
The libretto was written by Paul Jules Barbier and Michel Antoine Florentine Carre.
The first performance of the opera took place in Paris, in Théâtre-Lyrique, on March 19, 1859.

The libretto of this opera was written by Victor Étienne de Jouy and Michel Dieulafoy.
The opera was premiered on December 15, 1807, at the Paris National Opera in the presence of Empress Josephine. Despite the tendency to get rid of Italian influence in French music, the audience immediately appreciated this opera as a masterpiece.

The libretto of the operetta "The Merry Widow" is based on Henri Meilhac's comedy "The Embassy Attaché" and is authored by Viktor Léon  and Leo Stein.
The operetta was first staged at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on December 30, 1905. The success was tremendous. The audience constantly called the artists back for an encore, demanding a repetition of certain parts, and the operetta ended with a huge ovation.
"The Merry widow" is deservedly called the Queen of Operettas. Its witty libretto and Lehar's beautiful music have made it very popular. In different countries, various films have been created based on its plot.

Libretto of the Opera "Oracle in Messenia" was written by the Italian poet Apostolo Zeno. In 1738, the opera was a great success in Venice. Thanks to the perseverance of Vivaldi's friends, in 1742, the opera was also premiered in Vienna.
This work previously considered lost has been recovered on the basis of the libretto of the Vienna premiere, which has been recently found in the Library of Congress in Washington. This important and difficult task has been successfully carried out by violinist and conductor Fabio Biondi who has used the technique of "pasticcio" in reconstructing the lost passages of the original opera.

In 1844, the famous French librettist Jules Saint-Georges invited Flotow to participate in the creation of the three-act ballet "Lady Harriette" for Grand Opera. The premiere of the ballet on April 21, 1844, was a success and marked the beginning of Flotow's cooperation with Saint-Georges, whose librettos were used by Flotow in a number of operas.
But Flotow also collaborated with the Hamburg-born singer Friedrich Wilhelm Riese. It was the latter who persuaded Flotow to use the plot of the ballet "Lady Harriette" for the opera "Martha, or The Fair of Richmond."
The premiere of the romantic-comic opera "Martha" took place on September 25, 1847, in Kärntnertortheater, Vienna.
The opera consists of four acts, which are presented in four parts of our broadcast, respectively.

Libretto was written by Vladimir Begichev and Vasily Geltser.
“Swan Lake” was premiered in February 1977 and met by the public not very well. The experts of that time considered it unsuccessful, and it was soon removed from the scene. The main culprits were considered choreographer Vatslav Reisinger and Polina Karpakova, who performed the role of Odette.
After almost twenty years, the Directorate of Imperial Theaters again turned its attention to Tchaikovsky's work to include it in the new season of 1893-1894. Thus, a new script of the play was developed by famous Marius Petipa. The composer's brother, Modest Ilyich, remade the libretto.
The new premiere took place in January 1895 in St. Petersburg. Since that time, the ballet has received a well-deserved recognition among both the public and music critics.

In 1876, Marius Petipa was attracted by the idea of the ballet "La Bayadère." Sergei Khudekov developed the plot based on "Shakuntala, or The Sign of Shakuntala" by the ancient Indian poet Kalidasa.  However, the original source of Petipa's ballet wasn't this ancient drama, but the French ballet "Shakuntala" by T. Gauthier.
The Austrian composer Ludwig Minkus's ballet "La Bayadère" was premiered on February 4, 1877, at the Bolshoi Theater in St. Petersburg. Then the play disappeared from the repertoire for more than a decade. In 1941, a great expert on the classical heritage, Vladimir Ponomarev, and the young choreographer Vakhtang Chabukiani jointly created a three-act version of the old play. In 1948, this version was replenished and since then has not descended from theater stage.

In April 1849, the five-act drama by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé "Adrienne Lecouvreur" was staged with triumphant success in Paris. Based on this play, Arturo Colautti wrote a libretto for the opera of the same name.
The heroine of the opera is a historical character, an actress of the French Comedy Teather, Adriana Lecouvreur, famous for her roles in Racine's tragedies.
The opera was premiered at Milan's Teatro Lirico on November 6, 1902.

The plot of the “Secret Marriage” is borrowed from two plays. One of them, "The Clandestine Marriage," belongs to two famous English authors: George Colman the Elder and David Garrick. The other play is "Sophie, or Hidden Marriage" by French actress and novelist Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni. The libretto was written by Giovanni Bertati.
The premiere of the opera took place on February 7, 1792, in the Vienna Burgtheater and was an exceptional success. Emperor Leopold II liked it so much that he demanded its immediate repetition. After a dinner, the singers repeated the performance specially for the Emperor and courtiers.

The libretto of this operetta was written by the Austrian playwright Leo Stein and librettist Bela Jenbach. Kalman conceived the idea of creating an operetta dedicated to the variety star Sylva Varescu in the beginning of 1914. The German libretto was called "Long live love."
The operetta was completed by November 1915, and its premiere took place on November 17 at the Johann Strauss Theater in Vienna.
The first staging of the operetta in Russia was in the midst of the World War I (1916), so both the title of the operetta and many of the names of the characters were changed. Since then, the Soviet and Russian audience have known this operetta as "Silva."

This opera was composed by commission of the Bavarian and Palatinate elector Karl Theodor. The myth of Idomeneo had already been used in musical theater. In 1712, a five-act opera by the famous composer André Campra was presented in Paris that was written to the libretto of poet and playwright Antoine Danchet, an author of 12 tragedies and librettos, mainly on classical subjects. His "Idomeneo" is full of tragic events and ends in a bloody denouement. The Abbot Giambattista Varesco, chaplain of the Archbishop of Salzburg, translated the text of this libretto into Italian and adapted it to the specifics of the opera seria. He changed the five acts into three acts and the bloody denouement into a happy one.
The opera was premiered on January 29, 1781, at the National Theater of Munich.

The author of the libretto of this opera is well-known Russian writer and playwright Mikhail Zagoskin. His novel "Askold's Grave" that was published in 1833 received appreciation by neither critics nor readers. However, two years later, in 1825, Alexey Verstovsky decided to write an opera based on this novel.
The opera was premiered on September 15, 1836. The audience highly appreciated it. The opera was presented in Moscow Bolshoy Theater over 400 times in 25 years, and until 1887, it was in the permanent repertoire of the Theater.

The plot of this opera by the Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov is based on the novel “Christmas Eve” by Nikolai Gogol. The libretto was authored by the composer himself, who wrote his opera in the style of a fairy tale, enriching it with imaginary elements, as well as including in the libretto ancient pagan sayings with which Russian peasant household rituals were particularly rich.
“Christmas Eve” was premiered on November 28, 1895, at the Mariinsky Theater.

The author of the libretto of the Italian composer Amilcare Ponchielli’s opera “La Gioconda” is the well-known Italian composer and poet Arrigo Boito who wrote it under the pseudonym Tobia Gorrio. The plot is based on the drama "Angelo, Tyrant of Padua" by Victor Hugo. "La Gioconda" was premiered on April 8, 1876, in La Scala, Milan.