Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 102

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Help! eponymous operas

I've just added a section on the operas and music-theatre of the Belgian composer Kris Defoort. I've ended up in knots trying to phrase the sentences for the two operas based on eponymous novels. I'm not (yet?) intending to break these out into separate articles, so the title of the work can only link to the source novel. Here are the two key sentences:

This first has the advantage of clearly telling us the title of the opera, but the disadvantage of no link to the source work. The second is the opposite case. I've now reworked both of these into a dozen different forms, and my brain has melted. What is the 'best practise' for eponymous operas???? If this was straight HTML, I'd convert the phrsae "the novel of the same name" in the first example into a link to the source novel, but I sense that this is not a usual WP tactic. Scarabocchio (talk) 15:41, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I've seen "the novel of the same name" done as a link to the source. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:52, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
Probably most editors do that. I personally prefer to repeat the name of the novel. e.g.
His first opera, created in collaboration with director Guy Cassiers was The Woman Who Walked into Doors, based on Roddy Doyle's novel The Woman Who Walked into Doors
But then I'm weird.;-) Voceditenore (talk) 16:19, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
I've gone for the Roscelese solution (partly because it allows me to use the word 'eponymous' :-) but I'll be tweaking the article for some time to come, and may change my mind. There are quite a few redlinks in there, and I might just have to create my first article(s). Btw, what is the mechanism for reclassifying a stub? How much more needs to be added to Kris Defoort to remove the 'composer stub'? Is it just down to the conscience of the individual Wikipedian? Scarabocchio (talk) 20:33, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Desirability of brief composer bios?

I have begun to gather material for an article on the Munich Biennale, and I'm struck by the number of opera composers who are coming up without bios on English WP. I'd say around 10 of them (from 15 so far) are worth an entry: Detlev Glanert, Jens Joneleit, Jan Müller-Wieland, Gerd Kühr, Enno Poppe, Mauricio Sotelo, plus Sandeep Bhagwati, Aureliano Cattaneo, Márton Illes .... I'm less acquainted with Philipp Maintz, André Werner and Arnulf Herrmann but they (like most of the others in this list) have won the Ernst von Siemens Composers Prize. I have the publishers and personal websites for most of these people, so I could quite easily create brief articles of basic biographical data, a few sentences paraphrasing the key life details and possibly a list of works, backed up with links to the source websites. The sort of thing I am thinking of is this: José María Sánchez-Verdú.

Is this a worthwhile exercise, or will these be too brief? Scarabocchio (talk) 13:10, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I think viable biographic stubs are fine and can be very useful. Some editors think people should always write start class articles or not at all, but I don't go along with that. Just make sure to include some completely independent outside sources as references, not simply their and their publisher's websites. And make sure you add them when you first create the article, or it's liable to slapped with a proposed deletion tag or worse. This doesn't seem to be a problem with the couple I spot checked, e.g. Aureliano Cattaneo, Sandeep Bhagwati. Reviews of performances of their works are good as is listing at a couple of recordings. Having said that, winning a prestigious prize like this would pretty much automatically make them notable. I'd include a link to its archive of past winners as a reference for that. So go for it. I'm already impressed with these chaps because they haven't spammed Wikipedia with their autobiographies. ;-) Best, Voceditenore (talk) 16:11, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

April and May Composer(s) of the Month

The Composer of the Month collaboration focuses on composers in the opera corpus whose works still lack articles

Any suggestions for April? Voceditenore (talk) 14:35, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

If we wish to continue with a birthday theme, I would suggest the following April/May/June birthdays:
What do you all think?4meter4 (talk) 15:07, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
I made a b-i-i-i-g mistake by choosing Detlev Glanert as my first composer article to research. I found far too much material, and spent most of the weekend listening to sound clips, reading reviews and planning trips :-)) The other thing that I discovered (and lost lots of time on), was a (new??) stats feature on Operabase. Here, fudged and kludged, are the top most frequently programmed composers, with external links to google searches on the names. These include many composers not currently in the existing WP article on the opera corpus, but perhaps which should be. (Something broke after 419 composers, but I think that there are enough names here to be going on with):
I'll do Glanert. I'd (personally) like to read more about, and therefore propose, Carl Unander-Scharin [1] who seems to be composing works of contemporary relevance at an astounding pace. Scarabocchio (talk) 17:08, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
Note: Scarabocchio's list is now at Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Frequently performed opera composers. This is a really useful resource, but it was so humongous, it made this talk page very, very difficult to edit, even collapsing it. Voceditenore (talk) 17:39, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Despite its name the CoM is for creating articles on red-linked operas, not composer bios. But we could make a "theme" here, as there are two other composers who are redlinked as well as their operas. So, we ask for both a composer bio and one or two operas for each: Thomas Clayton (1673–1725), Fernando González Casellas (1925–1998), Carl Unander-Scharin (1964 –). Then we could hold 4meter4's birthday boys and girl over til next month. OK? Voceditenore (talk) 07:31, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
  • That sounds like a good plan to me.4meter4 (talk) 10:47, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

April and May Opera(s) of the Month

The Opera of the Month collaboration focuses on improving existing articles

I think the March OoM which had the non-complex but vital task of providing references for completely unsourced articles has worked well. They will probably all be completed by the end of the month, and some very erroneous information has been corrected in the process for at least one of them, Jocelyn. A couple of them also got cleaned up in the process. Shall I pick another selection of unreferenced operas for the April OoM? Voceditenore (talk) 14:35, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

  • That sounds like an excellent idea.4meter4 (talk) 20:18, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
The Jocelyn cleanup has a long way to go still (where did opus 109 come from?), and it would be nice if a synopsis were added. Sparafucil (talk) 00:16, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, there is a big problem in that the role titles, voice types, and actual performers in the role table do not appear to be from a single source, and the sources are not consistent at all. Members' input at Talk:Jocelyn (opera) on the best (or least bad) solution would be appreciated. Voceditenore (talk) 10:28, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
  • Update Since I will be away April 1-13, I have now filled in the April CoM and OoM based on the above discussions. They will automatically appear on the project's main page on April 1st. I've also provisionally filled in the May CoM based on the discussion. This can be finalized next month as well as choosing the May OoM. Voceditenore (talk) 09:57, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Thomas Beecham

Thomas Beecham has been nominated for FAC here. Comments on the article may be made there. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:50, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

The FAC appears to be closed in favor of doing a peer review first at Wikipedia:Peer review/Thomas Beecham/archive2.4meter4 (talk) 19:19, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

List of lists of ...

Just thought that some of you might be interested to know that Lists of operas is now, er, listed (under O) in the List of lists of lists. "I'm not making this up, you know!" (© Anna Russell.) --GuillaumeTell 18:15, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Munich Biennale

(My first article ... be gentle! :-) Please cast an eye over User:Scarabocchio/Munich_biennale and see if it's ready for release into the wild. It's typical of this imperfect world, but I have a couple of busy weeks coming up, and I'd like to clear my in-tray a little... Scarabocchio (talk) 12:39, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback (various places). Nobody screamed, so I have moved the page into article space... Scarabocchio (talk) 17:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
In connection to this article now on the Main page I started opera composers which would profit from expansion, cats, banners, referencing (taken from the German WP - no inline citations) ... namely Detlev Glanert (expanded already!), Gerd Kühr, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Sandeep Bhagwati, Jan Müller-Wieland, André Werner, Enno Poppe, Klaus Lang, Philipp Maintz, Jens Joneleit, Klaus Schedl - in the order of appearance at the festival. There are still red links left, smile, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:31, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
I, perhaps rather naturally as the author of the original piece, think that this is a completely brilliant idea. If Wikipedia is to be of maximum use to the end-users, then it must cover the topics that people might search for. To add no fewer than 11 articles/ stubs for prize-winning, currently active composers whose work is actually being played in opera houses seems to fill a rather large hole in the WP opera composer coverage. Bravissima Gerda!
I've swept through these eleven, marking them up on the talk pages as relevant to WikiProject Opera, adding a few minor inline references to the main articles so that they are no longer reference-free, and tweaking the categories. I've provided text and expanded Detlev Glanert (which I was working on already), and added worklist tables to Glanert (13 operas) and Jan Müller-Wieland (14 operas). I'll work on worklist tables for the others as time allows. If anyone wants to start articles for the remaining redlinked composers at the Munich Biennale, please go for it, and I'll be more than happy to help out when I get there! Scarabocchio (talk) 18:01, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
I have merged the worklist tables of the four composers from the first Biennale in my user space, at User:Scarabocchio/21c. Did Henze have a good eye for potential opera composers? Apparently, yes. Scarabocchio (talk) 10:19, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Citation needed?

This request to provide a citation for the date and place of the premiere of Don Giovanni leaves me speechless. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:16, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Good Grief! I've added one that he/she can even read online, none of those sources made from dead trees which require library visits. ;-)
More grief: isn't it true, that the lead should be just a summary of the article and therefore not need any (!) citations? Citations in the article, I understand, or not. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:07, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Since the Estates Theatre seems to be mentioned by name in the lead only, and that specific theatre is not given in many sources, rather either just Prague or the National (e.g., New Grove Opera), perhaps this is not such an unreasonable request. A source in addition to Amadeus should probably also be cited, since Amadeus identifies the theatre as "Gräflich Nostitzsches National-Ständetheater, Teatro Nazionale Nostitz", and this might be confusing. --Robert.Allen (talk) 21:27, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Opera title italics

Here is a question recently posed on my talk page, which I've taken the liberty of copying (and answering) here, because the discussion is relevant to the wider project. Simon the Likable (talk) 15:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

May I ask why are you changing opera article titles to italics? Has there been some WP-wide decision to do this? Has the Opera project been told about it? --Kleinzach 22:46, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I was wandering around articles on Holst where I found that, unlike all the book articles I'd been looking at recently, Savitri (opera) had not had its title italicised. I checked the MOS (WP:ITALICTITLE), found that the title should be in italics, and so added {{Italic title}} as required. Before long I'd worked my way through the operas of Holst, Vaughan Williams, and Puccini (plus a couple of individual ones). It was when I reached Monteverdi and found featured articles with the same "problem" that I began to get nervous. At this point I dug a bit further, finding contrary opinions within this 2010 RFC and certainly in the WikiProject Opera guidelines. I began to realise that what I was doing was not as uncontroversial as I first thought. So I stopped.

That's the "why". Answering your second question: yes (see WP:ITALICTITLE, although the policy change appears to be controversial). And thirdly, no, I didn't discuss this at the Opera project until now. I now realise it would have been polite to have done so earlier.

Personally, I'm pro-italics because... well for many of the reasons well rehearsed at the RFC. Fundamentally, I'm interested in packing as much communication into the text we write as possible: if we write "Tosca" readers know we're talking about the character (a thing); when "Tosca", then we're discussing the opera (a work about a thing, or if you prefer, a meta-thing). This thinking applies to article titles as much as to any other text. Also, I like consistency, so the old rule that says "use italics for the names of works of art (but not in article titles)" makes me uncomfortable. I prefer the simple: follow WP:ITALIC for all text.

What should happen now? This needs to be addressed at two levels:

  • In relation to my specific edits, if the project requests it (consensus) I will happily revert my changes (an anonymous ip editor has already done this in six cases). It might be desirable to do this while the broader issue is discussed and a consensus reached on the next point... Let me know what you think.
  • The Opera project guidelines are now inconsistent with the MOS, so it seems that the project needs either to get on-board, or to mount a challenge to revert the MOS to status quo ante. (I'd prefer to go with the WP-wide standard, in which case I draw your attention to a clever solution adopted by the book project: someone's modified the {{Infobox book}} template to automatically italicise the title of any article it is used in. Perhaps a suitably skilled person could do something similar for the navboxes used on many (most?) opera pages. This now seems preferable to my ad hoc approach.)
Simon the Likable (talk) 15:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Hi Simon. This was the Opera project members' take on the close of the RfC. Basically, the MoS was changed on a rather dubious interpetation of consensus (not just the OP's view) and discussions were still continuing at that point, so we decided to let the dust settle before changing our recommendation. At least one member of the project was leaning in favour of italic titles. My view was one of weary resignation, even though I think italic titles are harder to read, and well, unencyclopedic. I've got to the point where I don't care one way or another, but for the sake of uniformity, maybe we should go along with it. {{Italic title}} is now transcluded in almost 370,000 articles. [2], making the opera articles out of sync with the vast majority (or so it seems) of articles on plays, novels, etc. Not sure how the others feel. Voceditenore (talk) 18:54, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Waste of everybody's time is what I think. --GuillaumeTell 19:00, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
That too. ;-) As I said in the past discussion, I have no intention of changing the titles of 2000 opera articles to italics simply because a small group of editors from science projects pushed it through—complete waste of content editors' time, as far as I'm concerned. But I'm not really up for reverting them either, also a complete waste of time. Sigh... Voceditenore (talk) 19:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm still against them for the reasons I previously expressed. I don't think they are encyclopaedic and I don't like them on aesthetic grounds: it makes it look like the title has seen a ghost. I don't see why the biologists couldn't have changed their own page titles without dragging everybody else's into it; it was essentially a different issue. I really don't like the way the MoS debate was concluded; it should have been closed as "no consensus", which would have defaulted to the status quo. On the other hand, I'm not sure I have the will to fight this one. Italic titles, though bad in many ways, at least don't spread "disinformation", unlike some other would-be obligatory Wiki-features I could name but won't. I simply reverted a couple of titles to see what would happen and to see what the current opinion was. --Folantin (talk) 19:42, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
I wish that Wikipedia's "italics" actually looked like italics, not slanted text. .... but that's probably tangential. More pertinently, if someone wants to go about go about changing all the titles to italics in compliance, they shouldn't expect any help from people who got rather cheated by the mis-closure of the debate almost-instinct 21:25, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
I agree that the discussion was closed poorly. I would be very, very happy if someone were to start a new RFC, as long as the only choices were "Italics" and "No italics". Weird exceptions are disruptive and should not be allowed. Ozob (talk) 03:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

This is a typical WP case where a discussion of multiple ambiguous alternatives with no clear consensus, ended up with one of the alternatives becoming an unambiguous "must" in the Manual of Style anyway. Now that vast numbers of articles have been switched over by editors who were simply following the "revised" MoS in good faith, it will become virtually impossible to shift via an RfC. I highly doubt that any members here would initiate such a time-sink. I also agree with Folantin, that while they are unencyclopedic and undesirable, at least they do not mislead the reader. So faced with the current reality, we could take the stance in the OP article guidelines that we do not recommend italic titles and cite the unclear outcome of the RfC, will not be italicising titles ourselves, but will not revert an italic title once it has been added (another time sink). Or some such formulation.Voceditenore (talk) 08:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's too late to shut the stable door now, the horse has bolted. I don't particularly like the way this has gone but I won't be reverting any more italic titles. All I would ask is that anyone who does change titles to italics mark those edits as minor (as Simon the Likable has done - thanks) since I have a long watchlist of opera articles to maintain. I often have a beef with the way the MoS and some of its "regulars" go about things, but at least this isn't a case like "reducing clutter from the lead sentence" (clutter being valuable facts like precise birth dates or Cyrillic names). Italic titles are relatively harmless. --Folantin (talk) 10:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I just want to point out that The New Grove Dictionary of Opera uses italics for specific opera articles, both in the title and in the page headers. Since we follow Grove's capitalization rules, it seems to me perhaps we should also follow their practice regarding italics. --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Touché! I checked my Grove Opera, and of course you're right. --GuillaumeTell 23:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, well done, Robert.Allen. I feel a lot better about it now, even if the Wikipedia type face does result in a rather goofy form of "italics". Folantin's right about the letters looking like they've seen a ghost.;-). Should we simply remove the current section Title display (use of italics) from the guidelines? Or do people think we need to re-write it instead? I personally prefer the former. Voceditenore (talk) 10:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
I agree. We should just remove the current section as there is no need for any special mention of italic titles in our guidelines. The project as a whole clearly has no unified attitude towards this feature, for or against. If individuals want to change titles to italics then it's up to them to do so, but there won't be any concerted project campaign to alter them to fit the new MOS guidelines. --Folantin (talk) 09:45, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Hi Folantin, I'm not sure I agree that italicizing opera article titles should be left optional, if this is what you mean. I feel it should be consistent. I lean more to using the italics now that parenthetical expressions are not italicized, and it has become "general policy" (WP:ITALICTITLE). Apparently some find the look of the italics objectionable. They look fine on my computer (Apple Mac, Safari browser). I looked at Template:Infobox film and it seems possible to me that adding the line "| italic title = {{{italic title|}}}" to Template:Composer navbox might accomplish this rather simply for most opera articles. Should we try this to see if it works? It might elicit a lot more feedback, and it would not be difficult to undo. --Robert.Allen (talk) 09:46, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Hi, I basically meant I had no objection to other people changing the titles to italics, but I won't be doing it myself and won't be taking part in any concerted campaign to alter them. --Folantin (talk) 09:53, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. --Robert.Allen (talk) 10:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I tried this: "{{italic title|force={{#ifeq:{{lc:{{{italic title|}}}}}|force|true}}}}", and it seemed to work. I'm confused by the "force|true" option and wonder whether it would be operative. This was my edit. We also use Template:Infobox operas for some composers, so that would probably have to be changed as well. And then operas which have no composer template would have to be changed individually. I have no idea how many of those there are or how we could identify them. --Robert.Allen (talk) 10:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

You could have tested this at Template:Composer navbox/sandbox and Template:Composer navbox/testcases. – I think the implementation might be a bit more complicated. There may be cases where the Template:Composer navbox is present on a page but the article name is not actually an opera and thus should not be italicised. For that case, a parameter |italic title=no is required, similarly to how Template:Infobox album interacts with Template:Infobox. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:36, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
You are right, of course, and I think I've figured out how to do it, so I will go ahead and try to make the changes to Template:Composer_navbox and Template:Infobox operas. I will also plan to add "{{Auto italic title}}" to the relevant /doc pages, which provides a notice of how to turn it off "italic title" for individual pages. although so far I've only found one page (Vincenzo Bellini) where that needs to be done. --Robert.Allen (talk) 23:04, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure the "#switch" syntax is working. I tried adding "{{Bellini operas|italic title=no}}" to Vincenzo Bellini, but the italics did not go away. I'm not sure why, but maybe someone who knows template programming better can fix this problem. I'm not sure we need this template on this page, so I removed it for now. --Robert.Allen (talk) 01:09, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Update: I got the parameter options"italic title=no" and "italic title=force" to work. It was a bit tricky: an uppercase "I" on the parameter name was the main source of the problem. --Robert.Allen (talk) 03:56, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Note. I've removed the Italics titles from the guidelines for now. I'll be away for the next two weeks, so will leave the peregrinations of the italics to you all. ;-) Voceditenore (talk) 04:04, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Hi Voceditenore, I hope that means you'll be having a great time, and thanks for the help! --Robert.Allen (talk) 05:54, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
The matter has now been raised at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#The italics issue (article titles). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:54, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Sound file placement (was La reine de Saba)

Grand March from
La reine de Saba

Found a soundfile for this. A little over-processed, but pretty good. Article's not very good at all, though. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:06, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Interesting piece. I've reduced the size of the file icon (only here) so as not to clog up this talk page. I also moved it in the article down to the "Highlights" section. It had been placed it at the very top of the article above the navbox [3] where it doesn't belong. Voceditenore (talk) 06:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
It's awkward knowing where to put these in articles with navboxes. Where there ISN'T a navbox or image, it goes right at the top. Where there's an image, you can usually adjust the width ff the image to make a pleasing little box with the image and soundfile. But navboxes are such awkward, unresizable little things. I'm not entirely sure I like them. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
On opera articles, our policy is to keep the operas by composer navboxes at the top right for consistancy. Other images and files must be placed elsewhere in the article.4meter4 (talk) 01:12, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
What guideline says that sound files go at the top of the article when there is no picture? Certainly not opera project guidelines. In my view the sound file should never go at the top of the article, whether there's an image or not, especially if it's a reasonably well developed article. The sound file icons/boxes are ugly, visually obtrusive, and often seriously interfere with the layout of the article. They are also out of synch with the text in the lede. They belong further down, preferably at the point in the synopsis where the extract would be heard in the opera, or in a list of numbers, etc. Voceditenore (talk) 05:39, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
That's where it's generally put in every article on a song, etc - unless there's good reason to go elsewhere. It's so that people can listen to the music while reading, instead of only finding out there's a half an hour of music at the end. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:38, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm talking about articles on operas, not articles on individual songs and arias. And even there it is sometimes appropriate to have a file lower down in the article. An example is Ombra mai fu, where the file is basically a curiosity, transposed for a tenor and not sung in baroque style. It isn't remotely how the aria was meant to sound nor how it sounds when sung in a performance of the opera from which it comes. I don't view sound files as something for the reader's entertainment while they are reading the article. Like images, they should be clearly illustrative of particular parts of the article and are much more meaningful (and encyclopedic) when they are contextualized. And like the image guidelines in the MoS, just because they exist, is no reason to add all of them to an article. Voceditenore (talk) 20:26, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
I suppose you're right for operatic selections. I do, however, think that for more self-contained pieces, like, say, Burleske, though, where we have a full performance of the work, that giving a full recording right at the start lets the reader understand the article as a whole far better. However, more generally, I think it's usually best to have recordings as early as possible: In particular, the occasionally-seen practice of sticking them at the end is a horribly bad idea, as the reader will not know they're available until they've already read the whole article. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:52, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
I think both of you raise valid points. In my opinion the placement of audio files, just like images, should be based on an article by article basis. There are no hard or fast rules as where things must go. Just put things where they work the best in each article as long they don't interfere with any project wide formating that has been implemented (ie the operas by composers templates).4meter4 (talk) 22:27, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Credo accounts

Credo Reference is offerring 400 free accounts to active Wikipedians, subject to certain criteria. There's also an overspill list for anyone not meeting the criteria. So far there are more accounts available than takers, so the secondary list may be successful too. See Wikipedia:Credo for how to sign up. Voceditenore (talk) 08:20, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

RIP Lee Hoiby

Composer Lee Hoiby died today. His article is in poor shape and a nice tribute to him by the project would be to improve his article's referencing and content.4meter4 (talk) 00:05, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I've started improving the referencing and content. Any help would be appriciated.4meter4 (talk) 18:58, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

New cat:good or bad?

Category:Metropolitan Opera performers was just created by User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ). I personally think this is overcategorization and should be deleted. We already have a useful list at the List of performers at the Metropolitan Opera.4meter4 (talk) 00:37, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Even if it were a useful categorization (as opposed to the list, which seems fine), it will inevitably be applied to any person who has ever performed at the Met, which will be a disaster. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:02, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Me too. See Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Performers by performance venue. – Voceditenore (talk) 09:58, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Nominated it for deletion. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:14, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Template:Opera lists ???

Template:Opera_lists

How come Argentine operas get a look in, but French opera, German opera, Russian opera and Italian opera are apparently missing from all the navigation templates?

Which kind of indirectly leads to my next proposal: Perhaps we should do a drive to improve some of the general articles. Featured Sounds and Featured Pictures have produced a lot of useful illustrative content which could be added, and a good burst of concentrated work may well get some of them to FA, and hence on the main page. If you wanted, I could try to bring Featured sounds in. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:19, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

To answer your first question, Template:Opera_lists is a template for List-class articles in the opera project's scope. List of Argentine operas is a list, whereas French opera, German opera, Russian opera and Italian opera are not lists.4meter4 (talk) 01:28, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, but they don't appear in any of the other templates either. And why have three templates when you inevitably paste in all three, anyway? Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:38, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
As far as I can tell only French opera has the 3 opera templates in it. The others have none. The templates were added by User:Klingoncowboy4, who created the article, in 2006. That user is not a regular contributor to opera related articles and probably wasn't aware of the suitability of the templates. I would suggest removing the templates from French opera altogether. The majority of the articles do not need more than one of those templates, so I see no real need to make any changes.4meter4 (talk) 01:53, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
As 4meter4 pointed out French Opera is an anomaly. Generally speaking, speaking the nav remplates should only go on related articles, e.g. genres in genre articles, terms in terminology articles, lists in list articles, etc. So why combine them into one big template? Also, there's no need for every article to appear in some kind of template. "See also" sections for small lists of related articles are equally effective, especially for the articles on national opera traditions. Alternatively, make a template for national opera traditions, with links to exisiting articles only, not something like this. Voceditenore (talk) 06:12, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Article request

It would be great if we could have an article on critic and opera scholar Peter G. Davis of The New York Times and New York magazine. He's also contributed many articles to The Times of London and Opera News and is the author of the book The American opera singer: the lives and adventures of America's great singers in opera and concert, from 1825 to the present (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1999). He is currently referenced in more than 40 wikipedia articles in the english wiki; most of which are in our project's scope.4meter4 (talk) 14:19, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Nixon in China

This article has been expanded, and is now at reer review, here. Any comments or suggestions would be welcomed. Brianboulton (talk) 11:25, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations to Brian and Wehwalt for another successful FA nomination. The opera project looks forward to your next opera related collaboration.4meter4 (talk) 17:38, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Eyes please: Angela Gheorghiu

Following this note on my talk page, it would be a good idea to keep an eye on this article. I've the left the editor some guidance, but am not sure how much of it will sink in. Voceditenore (talk) 04:10, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Katinka

Any of you able to do something on Rudolf Friml's Katinka? I found a good sound file for it if you do. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

There's an article and synopsis at http://www.musicaltheatreguide.com/composers/friml/katinka.htm but I'm rather busy at present. Presumably the sound file is (ahem!) Allah's Holiday? --GuillaumeTell 15:59, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
Aye. It's a good example of Orientalism. Wouldmn't want to use it without context, but... =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:52, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Opera/G&S overlap

  • Note: I've taken this out of the archive and brought it back here, as there has been another comment to it today, and no will see it if it's in the archives. Voceditenore (talk) 16:54, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I've been adding a bit to John Fryatt. I see that the Gilbert and Sullivan people have put their banner on the Talk page, but he sang more roles in non-G&S operas for a longer period. I'm highly inclined to add the Opera Project banner as well. And, looking at Category:Gilbert and Sullivan performers, I can't help thinking that, for example, Charles Mackerras, Richard Van Allan, Beverly Sills, Valerie Masterson, and quite a few others who one doesn't immediately associate with nothing but G&S, ought also (IMNSHO) to have our banner too. G&S is theoretically a sub-project of ours, but I'm wondering whether they ought to be cut loose so that both projects can do their own thing. Comments? --GuillaumeTell 00:50, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I personally think the current organizational structure is fine. Splitting doesn't really make sense to me since some of the decisions made here would reasonably apply to articles at G&S. What would be useful is to incorporate the G&S banner (and the Wagner project banner for that matter) into the opera wikiproject banner. That way all of the articles for those projects also appear in the opera project categories. To give an example of a project banner with sub-projects incorporated see Talk:Toronto Symphony Orchestra where the Wikiproject Canada banner encompases 3 relevant subprojects.4meter4 (talk) 06:56, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't see any reason to add the other projects to the banner, nor do I have any objections, but the other projects might.;-) Part of the problem stems from the past insistence here on "no double bannering", which I personally think should not be carried to silly extremes. Project banners are there to help other editors locate a project which can help them with specific aspects of the article, not simply to claim "jurisdiction" and exclusive maintenance of an article. I'd go ahead and add the OP banner to John Fryatt, a clear case where it's silly not to, and any other singers to which this might apply. Voceditenore (talk) 18:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi. G-Tell just alerted me to this discussion. I think that each project should have its own banner. That is important to the G&S project in helping us to keep track of the articles that we maintain. I agree that the "no double-bannering" rule, however, caused a few interesting results. As to G-T's list above, I'd put both banners on Fryatt, Masterson and Thomas Lawlor, since their G&S was essential to their careers. I think we can leave ONLY the opera banner on Mackerras, Sills and Van Allen, since the G&S is a relatively small part of their careers. By the way, we have about 450 articles under the G&S banner, and I watch all of them. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:32, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Note: Currently Richard Suart has only the G&S banner. He's right in the middle - feel free to add the opera banner to his article if you think it would be helpful. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:00, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

CoM proposal

Suggestion: Sarah Hibberd's book 'French Grand Opera and the Historical Imagination' cites four five-acters premiered at the Paris Opera but for some reason not normally included in the Grand Opera canon - Bertin's La Esmeralda (1836), Niedermeyer's Stradella (1837), Niedermeyer's Marie Stuart(1844) and Balfe's L'Etoile de Seville........All lacking WP articles, even (suprisingly) Esmeralda.......--Smerus (talk) 16:17, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Opera in Spain?

Does anyone know much about opera in Spain? The Spanish Ministry of Culture awards two prizes for music every year, generally one for creation (composition) and one for interpretation (work by an individual artist or ensemble, or a musicologist). I've copied the list of award winners to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Scarabocchio/es to prepare an article (basically a translation of the Spanish Wiki page). The problem is that name used within Spain rarely matches the name used outside Spain. We know Victoria de los Ángeles López García as Victoria de los Ángeles, Cristóbal Halffter Jiménez-Encina as Cristóbal Halffter and so on, and so on ... (compounded by differences of Catalan and Castillian spelling differences). Is there anyone in the group who could help out on the above page? Thanks! Scarabocchio (talk) 23:20, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I can do a bit, starting now. --GuillaumeTell 09:41, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! A secondary question .. once we've located the English Wikipedia equivalent names, do I add redirects on every single one of the Spanish-style originals to stop redlinks if others take texts from Spanish sources? or just a selection where the names are different (stage names vs birth names etc)? Scarabocchio (talk) 10:53, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
My rule of thumb: look up incoming links (e.g. Special:WhatLinksHere/Victoria de los Ángeles López García). If there are no (serious) links, no redirect is required. If there's one, go to that article and correct it. If there are more, create a redirect. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:44, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Now that's a neat trick -- I didn't realise you could run this on non-existent pages. Thanks! Scarabocchio (talk) 15:25, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

DWEMs

I've entered a lot of wiki-linked names in the two articles that I have worked on today (Giorgio Battistelli and Schwetzingen Festival), and I'm suffering an increasing temptation to set the links to show just the surnames for the DWEMs, the Dead White European Males -- Haydn, Paisiello, Handel, Gluck, Diderot, Pasolini, Shelley, Garcia Marquez, Shakespeare. Is this up to the conscience of the individual Wikipedian, or am I subject to MOS police? Scarabocchio (talk) 21:48, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I have some sympathy with this. However, you need to check that the surname redirects to where you want it - Shelley, for example, doesn't. (Also, Garcia Marquez is neither D nor E) (nor, arguably, W, though he is M.) --GuillaumeTell 23:42, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
I came across DWEM as an acronym years ago, probably in a text on post-modernism where the author wanted to make the point that the vast majority of historical and cultural studies only ever dealt with Dead White European Males. I have no idea how widely used or known the acronym is, but it seemed to capture a useful group -- the people that you identify from their surnames only perhaps? (Joyce's "Daunty, Gouty and Shopkeeper" for instance). Scarabocchio (talk) 12:19, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Shortcut to style guideline

To make referring to Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Article styles and formats easier, I created the shortcut WP:WPOMOS, and added the appropriate template at the top of that article. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:27, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Capitalisation of French Italian operas

When did Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera#Operas: capitalisation and diacritics get disendorsed? See a string of edits by Urhixidur (talk · contribs) regarding La bohème (Puccini & Leoncavallo). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 15:35, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not even a French opera, it's Italian, so Italian rules apply: i.e. the consensus version before the recent change. --Folantin (talk) 16:11, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
"She's right, and she knows it"; I invited Urhixidur to raise the matter here. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:19, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
{{{Sigh}}} In preparation, past discussions are here, here, here, and most recently here. (Note that the recent page moves and capitalisation changes for these Italian operas have been reverted, one by me and the other by Folantin. Voceditenore (talk) 06:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
"It's not even a French opera, it's Italian, so Italian rules apply." My first thought (and what I had in mind at the time) was that this would be true if the title were given in Italian, but it was given in French (and thus French rules apply). It turns out that, exceptionally, the French and Italian titles are coincident in spelling. Examination of Google Books hits in Italian for "La Bohème", "La bohème", "La Bohéme" and "La bohéme" shows that capitalisation occurs in an overwhelming majority of cases (just like in French). (This makes the it.wikipedia decision to use lower case really puzzling; I'd love to hear an Italian editor's take on this)
The [New] Grove Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary of Opera and Viking Opera Guide usage rule is not a happy choice as these references are not available through Google Books except for the Viking (which offers extracts; by the way this confirms La bohème). I guess what threw me off was the follow-on paragraph:

For Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese opera titles, capitalize only the first word and any proper nouns (names of particular people or places) in that language, e.g. Il diluvio universale, Ugo, conte di Parigi, Le nozze di Figaro, Les mamelles de Tirésias, Les Indes galantes, Les contes d'Hoffmann, La vie parisienne, Margarita la tornera, La vida breve, Florencia en el Amazonas, Veinticinco de agosto, 1983.

This summary of the rule is flat out wrong for French; the examples given should be respectively Les Mamelles de Tirésias, Les Indes galantes, Les Contes d'Hoffmann, La Vie parisienne. For those who wonder, French case obeys a handful of rules : a) Proper nouns (and ethnonyms) are always capitalised ; b) If it's a sentence, only the initial letter is capitalised ; c) A leading indefinite article (le, la , les) is ignored for capitalisation purposes ; d) Only the leading noun is capitalised, along with any adjective(s) that may happen to precede it. I don't know about Italian, but I'd bet even money that their rules are the same.
To summarise, I would like to see the rule rewritten to clear up this confusion. Something like:

For Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese opera titles, the aforementioned Dictionaries and Guide capitalize only the first word and any proper nouns [...] Veinticinco de agosto, 1983. Note that this will usually be different from the capitalization rules of the languages in question.

Does this make sense? Urhixidur (talk) 18:43, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
(Hi, Urhixidur. Just for your context, I was the previous person to point out that the English Wikipedia rules are inconsistent). There are two distinct ideas -- capitalisation of titles as they would appear in the native language, and capitalisation as it tends to appear in English language sources. In the case of French these are mutually incompatible -- English reference sources just do not follow French usage. Full stop, point. As a consequence, capitalisation of French titles keeps coming up here time and time again (as you would expect). My closing suggestion on my round of this perpetual argument, was that the claim to match French usage be dropped, and replaced by concentrating on the general usage as found in English language reference sources instead.
You are correct in pointing out the fatal inconsistencies in the guidelines, and I would agree 100% with your corrections of the titles. I would say that you are NOT correct in your assumption that the title is French. If I saw Les Vêpres siciliennes, I would assume that this was the French version in French. If I saw I vespri siciliani, I would assume the Italian version, in Italian. If I see La bohème, I will be expecting an Italian opera (which indeed it is). There is no value in checking Google books as an arbitration source .. title capitalisation in US English doesn't match the British English doesn't match the French. If the majority of web pages come from US users, does this mean that we should capitalise every single word in every single title? No. Scarabocchio (talk) 20:49, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
PS: The Italian rules are quite different -- the first letter and any proper nouns are capitalised, everything else (no matter where it is in the title) are in lowercase. The Italian examples in that follow-on paragraph Il diluvio universale, Ugo, conte di Parigi, Le nozze di Figaro are all perfectly correct. (In fact, the English Wikipedia rules for French are being patterned after the Italian). Scarabocchio (talk) 20:57, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
No, Scarabocchio, the examples the Opera Project uses are not "being patterned after the Italian" nor are they "fatally inconsistent" if you read them carefully. They are patterned after the Chicago Manual of Style and the major English language reference books in the area for all non-English titles. I think you and Urhixidur have both misunderstood what is being said in the guidelines and what has been said in all the previous discussions. As you can see from the past discussions here, we are fully aware of the Académie française rules for titles (although they differ from those of the BnF which uses "sentence capitalisation), and quite frankly we are a little tired of being accused of ignorance. The Opera Project guidelines discuss how to capitalise non-English titles using the Chicago Manual of Style format, which we have adopted for consistency across all opera articles and which is widely accepted in the major English language reference works on opera. However, Urhixidur's suggestion for additional wording is is a good one to clear up any further misunderstandings, and hopefully avoid these situations in the future. But note it's applicable for French only and it does not apply to the other Romance languages. I would suggest that the wording say:
Note that for French operas this may often be different from the title capitalisation rules used by the Académie française.
– Voceditenore (talk) 21:54, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
In normal French prose mamelles, contes, and fille are never capitalised unless they are the first word in the sentence. Hence using the CMoS style, they would not be capitalised in titles either unless they were the first word. In normal German prose, nouns are capitalised wherever they occur in a sentence. Hence using the CMoS style, they are capitalised in titles regardless of their position. Similarly both French and German adjectives like parisienne (Parisian) and ägyptische (Egyptian) are never capitalised in normal prose unless they are the first word in the sentence and thus are not capitalised in CMoS style titles unless they are the first word. Some may object to this style, but it is not at all inconsistent. Voceditenore (talk) 01:10, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
Hi Voceditenore, I think the best way of escaping this damnably boring topic is to ask you a question ... why do YOU think that the topic of title capitalisation has been repeatedly raised by francophones? (and not by German, nor Italian, nor Spanish, but just by the French native speakers, and that time and time again)? Please don't dismiss the question as merely provocative, or as rhetorical (it's not intended to be either), but seriously think about this ... Scarabocchio (talk) 00:30, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
btw: when I said that the "English Wikipedia rules for French are being patterned after the Italian", I didn't mean to imply that there was a deliberate inheritance or causation in the relationship, merely that there was an assumption that French and Italian title capitalisation rules were the same, and that the rules used for French followed (were the same as) the rules used for Italian. This is the same error that Urhixidur made, except in the opposite direction -- she also expected the rules to be the same, but with the Italian following the French rules, and was therefore puzzled why Italian Wikipedia did not follow the French style of capitalising "La Bohème". (Once you assume that the French and Italian rules are the same, you are doomed to confusion and/or endlessly recurring topics on WP talk pages :-) Scarabocchio (talk) 00:30, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Scarabocchio, I think the questions you just posed are not very helpful. The current policy held by the opera project is simply to follow the capitalization rules in the Chicago Manual of Style which is the style used by Grove and the other major English language reference works that are used within this field of interest. The BnF also follows the same practice. It's obviously a legitimate method and the one that this project's members have chosen to adopt by majority consensus. These conversations repeatedly come back to affirming this consensus. At this point WP:STICK should apply and I suggest we all get back to writing new content or improving articles. Best.4meter4 (talk) 01:59, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
A couple of points: Dixit Scarabocchio: [...] I would say that you are NOT correct in your assumption that the title is French. (concerning La bohème). You misunderstand slightly: I at first took this for a French title, because it is the same in French as in Italian. This error was cleared up later on. There is no value in checking Google books as an arbitration source .. title capitalisation in US English doesn't match the British English doesn't match the French. If the majority of web pages come from US users, does this mean that we should capitalise every single word in every single title? No. You're using Google Books incorrectly. One can do a search that is restricted in language scope (to works in Italian, for instance). Google Books is imperfect, and other languages slip in, but they're easily spotted. So, when I said I checked Google Books in Italian, that is what I meant: I checked Italian books and excluded anything in English, French, or otherwise. Web pages don't enter into it, the printed world being a lot more reliable than the unruly, uncouth world of web pages. My observation stands: Italian printed matter tends to use La Bohème overwhelmingly, so I'm intrigued.
Dixit Voceditenore: In normal French prose mamelles, contes, and fille are never capitalised unless they are the first word in the sentence. Almost 100% true, but we're talking about title case, which is a different beast than sentence case.
Finally, to answer 4meter4, I don't dispute the choice of standard, I dispute the horribly confusing way that choice is allegedly explained in the page. Urhixidur (talk) 04:04, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Scarabocchio, in answer to your first question: "Why do YOU think that the topic of title capitalisation has been repeatedly raised by francophones?". The first time it was raised was by someone who spoke neither French nor Italian and argued that La bohème was an English title and should be capitalised as such. The second time (re La reine de Saba) was by an editor claiming to be "fairly fluent" in French and German but a native speaker of neither, who cited an alleged rule that in French "a noun refering to a character is capitalized". Another editor who is a native speaker of German and claims an "intermediate level" of French" and "near-native" level of English joined in that discussion to say that we shouldn't use the CMoS/Grove system because it is "wrong" and we should do what the French Wikipedia does. The third time was by someone who may or may not be a native French speaker, who objected to us using the CMoS system instead of the French system because the CMoS is "wrong". In my view, the main reason people keep bringing it up is that for most other laguages the CMoS system is quite congruent with those used in Italian and German, while it is not with the main French usage, and well, they don't like it and "need to set us straight". No amount of tweaking in the guidelines will forestall this type of editor.

Apart from the fact that only one of the above editors was (possibly) a native French speaker, the arguments haven't always been about French either. Here someone is complaining about how titles are capitalised in Brazilian Portuguese and that we are "wrong" to use the CMoS system. This one was slightly different as it concerned whether nationality nouns are capitalised in Italian sentences, and hence in titles.

In your and Urhixidur's case, you seemed to think that our guidelines and examples purport to describe the title case rules recommended by the Académie française and that this is causing the confusion/inconsistency. Instead they are demonstrating how to format non-English opera titles using the Chicago Manual of Style system. Can you please explain how the current wording of the guideline would lead someone to think otherwise? What do you suggest for a wording which would make this even clearer, apart from adding that the CMoS sytem is not the same as the Académie française system for French titles? We're open to suggestions.

Urhixidur, re Italian capitalisation in Italian language printed matter, I'm a fluent Italian speaker, but that is neither here nor there. Although the Italian standard is to use sentence capitalisation for titles, there is a fair amount of flux in modern Italian re capitalisation in general, and titles in particular, particularly if the title is a very short and very famous. Thus, fluctuation will be found more often with La bohème and La traviata, but rarely with La clemenza di Tito. This is is complicated by the fact that in Italian, the first two are often shortened to a single word, Bohème and Traviata, examples here and here. These vagaries are precisely why we have chosen the CMoS/Grove system for rendering all foreign titles. Voceditenore (talk) 10:57, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I've just tweaked Operas: capitalization and diacritics yet again. Opinions on this new version? Voceditenore (talk) 11:23, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
I like it better than the old one. I've made a few more tweaks myself. Ozob (talk) 13:57, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, even better. Voceditenore (talk) 15:08, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
4meter4: "I suggest we all get back to writing new content or improving articles". Good plan. Scarabocchio (talk) 07:54, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
Le temps l'horloge

I can't read all the above and don't speak French, but would like to discuss why the lead of Le temps L'horloge says what Le temps l'horloge is. I created a redirect for now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:17, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Wiesbaden

As requested some time ago, I expanded Internationale Maifestspiele Wiesbaden and started the theater (as in German and Commons) Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, nominated both for the premiere of Lolita (opera) on Saturday, any help is welcome, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:55, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

In particular: the list of conductors lacks people and dates. I would not know how to explain/link State Theatre or Staatstheater. The German articles came without refs, as usual, and the theater is all architecture, no performances, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:01, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I presume that the conductors are in fact the General Music Directors? I can't readily see a better source that the one you found (nor one as good, in fact).
I'd forget the idea of linking State Theatre/ Staatstheater -- it is so inconsistent as to have no meaning (being a national house in Austria, a house that receives significant funding from the region (Staat) in Germany, and merely happens to fall within the boundaries of a given state in the US). Scarabocchio (talk) 15:33, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the source for Caetani, which actually supports more than him. It makes clear that there were two orchestras (two conductors), one symphony, one opera, until they were united as the Hessisches Staatsorchester under a GMD. Can you word that? (The orchestra played Mozart's Coronation for us on Easter Sunday, Andreas Karasiak was the tenor.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
You seem to have worded it perfectly adequately to me. Just throw in the bit about it happening during the Amtszeit des Generalmusikdirektors Wolfgang Sawallisch (1958–60) (and add him to the list of GMDs, naturally!) and you are done. (My personal connection to this article is that I have met Achim Thorwald, the then Intendant of Wiesbaden, a couple of times -- one of the nicest people, and the most passionate about culture you ever hope to meet. I logged his retirement from the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe a few weeks ago) Scarabocchio (talk) 21:21, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Guess what, I just added both Sawallisch and Thorwald, but that's it for today, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:39, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Premiere of La donna del lago

An anon IP changed the premiere date of this opera in List of operas by Rossini from 24 October 1819 to 24 September 1819. I reverted this change twice yesterday, but (s)he has now re-reverted. The opera's article has October (from the Viking Guide), and so has Grove (where the details for the List came from). However, Richard Osborne's Rossini (1986 - I don't have the revised version) has September, so does Casaglia's Almanacco, and I've just discovered that the Oxford Dictionary of Opera has September. So that's 3-2 to September (and Italian Wikipedia has September). Is there a definitive source? --GuillaumeTell 10:59, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

The 2007 revised version of Osborne which is available here at Google Books definitively gives the premiere date as 24 October 1819 on page 62. Apparently the opening night had been scheduled for earlier but was postponed. Other sources giving 24 October 1819 are:
  • Roberta Montemorra Marvin (2009). Fashions and Legacies of Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera. Cambridge University Press. p. 32. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Denise P. Gallo (2002). Gioachino Rossini: a guide to research. Psychology Press. p. 304.
It is pretty clear to me that 24 October is correct as all of the most recent publications reflect that. What also leads me to believe that more recent research has been taken into account is that the first edition of The New Grove (1980) gave the date as 24 September but the 2nd edition (2001) gives it as 24 October. Obviously Rossini scholars have made some sort of discovery to indicate a later premiere night. Best, 4meter4 (talk) 11:39, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks very much - that looks pretty conclusive. It's not very difficult to confuse September and October, as they are IX and X in Roman numerals which are often used for dates. I'll see what the IP has to say (if anything). --GuillaumeTell 16:35, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Dutilleux

What's the name of his piece now, Le Temps l'horloge (article, + the strange ') or Le temps l'horloge (publisher, composer's article)? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I've moved back it to Le temps l'horloge, per the project's guidlines (which in this case also coincide with the publisher's). We don't capitalise via random Google searches. I left the actual names of the poems per their French capitalisation but changed the format of their titles to " " from Italic text per WP:MOS. The slanted apostrophes were also corrected. Incidentally, that's usually a dead give away that the article was pasted in from another source, and sure enough, it was a blatant copyvio from this. Not only that, the texts of the poems both in their original French and in translation are still in copyright and cannot be quoted extensively like that. I removed the lot. Voceditenore (talk) 17:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
PS As I posted at WikiProject Classical music, when I checked "what links here" to fix all the re-directs, I found that it was the product of a class assigment. Students in that class created or expanded about 30 articles on classical compositions, composers, and musicians in February 2008. Members might want to check the rest of the articles on the list at User:EvanCortens/MU222 for copyvio. Voceditenore (talk) 17:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
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