German composer Carl Otto Ehrenfried Nicolai wrote his opera “The Merry Wives of Windsor” on the basis of English playwright William Shakespeare's comedy of the same name (1597). The opera was premiered on March 9, 1849, at the Berlin Royal Court Opera under the baton of the composer.

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.

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.

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.