The most famous librettist of his time, Felice Romani, wrote the libretto of the Opera "Anna Bolena" for the Italian composer Donizetti. This Opera is the third joint work of Donizetti and Romani. On the basis of Romani's libretti, the composer wrote ten operas.
The plot of the Opera is based on two tragedies, "Anna Bolena" by the Italian poet, Count Alessandro Pepoli, and "Henry VIII" by the famous French dramatist Marie-Joseph Chénier.
Anna Bolena is the historical figure Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England. In 1536, Anne Boleyn was accused of adultery and incest with her brother and was beheaded at Tower Green on May 19 of the same year.
The premiere of the Opera "Anna Bolena" took place on December 26, 1830, in the Teatro Carcano in Milan.

The libretto of the comic operetta “The Bat” (“Die Fledermaus”) by Johann Strauss Jr. is based on a farce by German playwright Julius Roderich Benedix. Playwrights Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy transformed it into a vaudeville.
Their play was such a big success in Paris that the Director of the Theater An der Wien (Vienna) Maximilian Steiner decided to stage it in his theater. He ordered Austrian playwright and composer Richard Genée to write the final version of the play. One of the friends of Strauss' suggested that Steiner order Strauss to compose the music for the play. Strauss began working with great enthusiasm; he fell in love with the libretto so much that he completed his work in only 1.5 months. The premiere of the operetta took place on April 5, 1872, Easter, in the Theater An der Wien.

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.

This opera's libretto was written by Luigi Illica who based it on the novel "The Vulture Wally: A Story from the Tyrolean Alps" by German writer Wilhelmine von Hillern. The opera was premiered on January 20, 1892, at the La Scala opera theater in Milan.

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.