Opera quick check

What you need to know: von Flotow’s “Martha”

The opera quick check by Larissa Schütz

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Markus Tschepp)

Whether you're on the trolleybus on the way to the performance, having a cigarette before the premiere or queuing for the toilet, with this quick check you'll be perfectly prepared for the evening in just 2 minutes. The "Krone" has the most important information about "Martha" by Friedrich von Flotow at the Salzburg State Theater.

What is it about? With Flotow's chaotic romantic comedy, the Salzburger Landestheater today shows what can happen when the bored upper classes think they have to mingle with the people.

Plot: Lady Harriet lives at the Queen's court and is bored. Her friend Nancy suggests that instead of the aristocracy, she should visit the bourgeois marriage market for a change. To avoid attracting attention, the two disguise themselves and pretend to be maids at Richmond market. They soon meet the landowner Plumkett and his impoverished friend Lyonel, who immediately fall in love with the supposed maids and hire them. Lyonel, however, seems too down-to-earth for Martha/Lady Harriet. What she doesn't know is that he actually belongs to the impoverished nobility. The two disguised friends are slowly fed up with their existence as servants, but their escape back to their old lives is unsuccessful. When Lyonel regains his original position as earl, he rejects the now subordinate lady. Only when "Martha" restages the market game do they recognize each other as equal lovers - a happiness that Plumkett and Nancy have already achieved in a much less complicated way.

Abit of bragging knowledge for the interval: Flotow's biggest fans included none other than the great Richard Wagner, who once wrote that he wished he himself was such a genius as his contemporary. "Martha" was the most-performed opera in the world in the mid-19th century.