Martha is a romantic comic opera in four acts by Friedrich von Flotow set to a German libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Riese and based on a story by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges.
The Thomas Moore traditional Irish melody The Last Rose of Summer, introduced for Martha in Act 2, was a successful inclusion. The opera has many original melodies, including fine duet and quartet concerted numbers and several solo arias. However the most famous, 'M'appari' ('Ach, so fromm'), Lyonel's Act 3 aria. Martha was first performed by the Paris Opera Ballet at the Salle Le Peletier on 21 February 1844. This 1969 recording stars Annelise Rothenburger and Nicolai Gedda. Robert Heger conducts.