Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond (Martha, or The Market at Richmond) is a romantic comic opera in four acts by Friedrich von Flotow set to a German libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Riese [de] and based on a story by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges.

Flotow had composed the first act of a ballet, Harriette, ou la servante de Greenwiche, derived from a text by Saint-Georges, for the ballerina Adèle Dumilâtre.

[2] In the United States, it was produced in English at Niblo's Garden in New York City on 1 November 1852 with Anna Bishop,[3] in New Orleans on 27 January 1860, in French.

According to T. J. Walsh, numerous editions of Kobbé's Opera Book have incorrectly given the date of the first performance at the Théâtre Lyrique as 16 December 1865.

The confusion may have arisen from further alterations made by the Théâtre Lyrique's director, Léon Carvalho, which included the insertion in act 4 of Flotow's baritone aria "Depuis le jour j'ai paré ma chaumière" (also from L'âme en peine).

[8] In 1877, at the Royal Italian Opera in Covent Garden, Victor Capoul performed as Lyonel, with Francesco Graziani (baritone) as Plunkett and Sofia Scalchi as Nancy.

Lyonel was one of Caruso's most popular roles, performing it many times during subsequent seasons; he also recorded several extracts from the Italian version of the opera.

[12] Lady Harriet Durham, a maid-of-honour to Queen Anne, is so tired of Court life, and so sick of her many insipid admirers, she retires to the country.

Two young farmers, Lyonel and Plunkett, are looking for a couple of wenches to do their housework and, being struck by the beauty and charm of the two masqueraders, proceed to hire them.

She reveals to him her true identity and tells him that his estate will be restored but he is blinded by anger with Harriet for the injustice she did him and refuses to accept her love.

It reverts to A minor with a busy, agitated motif for the Allegro, representing Lady Harriet and Nancy bustling about, leading into the slightly slower (meno moto) C major peasant girls' chorus theme from act 1, played by woodwinds accompanied by triangle and snare drum with pizzicato string punctuation.

That leads without further modulation back to the Lyonel's prayer motif for full orchestra as in the beginning, and so the overture ends with a brisk, very short duple-meter coda.

The fluctuations of light and shade are reminiscent of Schubertian scoring, or of Weber (e.g. Der Freischütz overture): but without modulation into remote tonalities, they never really portend a tragic conclusion, but rather the lovers' dilemmas and local color.

In his own idiom, like Mozart in Don Giovanni or Verdi in Un ballo in maschera, von Flotow could build convivial music into a tragic dramatic context.