Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 14

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Future plans

As part of our scheme to overhaul our core articles, maybe we ought to think about improving Italian opera and English opera. I thoroughly revised German opera and French opera at the end of last year and I think these pages need the same treatment. English opera is merely a stub and Italian opera is far from ideal. It's worth making clear that by "Italian" and "English" opera, we mean opera in those languages. So the Italian article will contain works by Handel and Mozart, for instance. The English opera article should probably be renamed English-language opera, since I think it's worth including all UK, American and Commonwealth anglophone opera under this heading (as well as Weber's Oberon) to make a substantial article. In the same way, German opera covers both German, Austrian and other composers who used the German language for their works. I'm prepared to help out with certain areas of English opera (I know very little about American and next to nothing about Australian or Canadian opera) and with Italian opera up to the death of Mozart. Anyone else want to collaborate (NB:it might be May before I have the time necessary to do some serious work here)? --Folantin 10:00, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Count me in. I agree about renaming the article. My Oxford Dictionary of Opera is quite good on America, Canada, Australia, etc. I can scrutinise the articles and do some thinking during the rest of this month. --GuillaumeTell 15:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Great. What I did with the German and French opera articles was sketch out the subsections and their contents on the talk page first. I think I'll start that now. Obviously, it's completely provisional, so feel free to change anything you like, but I think this is a good way of structuring the article and ensuring nothing important gets left out. --Folantin 15:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Some excellent ideas. In my view Opera in English, Opera in Italian etc. would be more elegant than English-language opera but would that be inconsistent with other work? Could the articles be candidates for 'Work in Progress' on the Project page? (BTW can we now remove 'List of Important Operas' since it is no longer in progress?). --Kleinzach 22:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Opera in English is definitely better. I'm not that concerned about consistency - too much concern with homogeneity tends to create problems at Wikipedia (the infoboxes being a glaring example)- and I'd probably keep Italian opera as it is. Yes, the two articles should be put in 'Work in Progress' and the 'List of Important Operas' removed. Maybe we can rope in other editors to take on some of the specialist areas. For instance, I doubt if we'll have much problem getting expert help on the G&S section of 'Opera in English'. --Folantin 08:00, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm at a bit of a loose end at the moment, so I'll make English opera my next big thing. Cheers, Moreschi Want some help? Ask! 10:23, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
A humble start has been made at User:Moreschi/Workspace 1. Feel free to chip in and add stuff as you deem it necessary. Moreschi Want some help? Ask! 10:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Great. I think we should copy and paste the English opera section from the main Opera article as a stopgap while we work on the revision in the sandbox. That's what I did with French opera. --Folantin 11:04, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Done. Everyone, feel free to edit my sandbox, please. It makes life quicker: Folantin and I worked together when fixing up French opera at his sandbox. Cheers, Moreschi Want some help? Ask! 11:10, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I've now fleshed out the American section at Talk:Opera_in_English#Planned_revision_of_this_article and will make a start on the text on one of my user sub-pages later today. --GuillaumeTell 11:15, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

As there have been no objections, I've removed the 'List of Important Operas' from 'Work in Progress'. Do you want Opera in English in its place? - Kleinzach 16:19, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

That would be ideal. Best, Moreschi Talk 16:21, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps others would like to sign up? I don't feel qualified to help with this one, so I doubt I'll be active here. How about adding the excellent List of opera librettists to WIP? I'm very enthusiastic about this one. - Kleinzach 02:55, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, sure. Is there any way we can identify which articles have the "librettist" template on their talk pages? That would help build the list.--Folantin 08:17, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
This won't be very helpful, because I haven't added it to very many thus far, but try [1]. Cheers, Moreschi Talk 08:45, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, there is Category:Opera librettists. There are 84 names. - Kleinzach 10:08, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Excellent. That gives us plenty of material for expansion. --Folantin 10:14, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Romantic operas

We've been making a lot of progress editing the genre categories - the French compound plurals are now corrected! - but some issues remain.

Category:Romantic operas now has five Wagner operas, two Weber and one each from Gounod, Glinka, Marschner, Rimsky-Korsakov and Sullivan. There is no article on Romantic Opera as such here, nor is there one in Grove (which ignores Romanticism as well). The Oxford dictionary likewise. The Rough Guide has a section called the 'Age of Romanticism' which lists composers from Cherubini/Beethoven to Weber/other Germans to Rossini/Bellini/Donizetti. (The next section is 'Verdi, Wagner and their contemporaries'.)

So, is Category:Romantic operas a genuine genre that can be made viable, or should it be deleted as lacking definition?

BTW The article Romantic music (to which the dreaded composer infoboxes link) states The era of Romantic music is defined as the period of European classical music that runs roughly from the early 1800s to the first decade of the 20th century, as well as music written according to the norms and styles of that period. The Romantic period was preceded by the classical period, and was followed by the modern period.

Category:Romantic composers also explains that Romantic composers are those individuals who wrote music in the Romantic era, between about 1815 and 1910. - Kleinzach 02:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Let's get rid of it. It's way too vague to be useful. Most 19th century operas could be included in this category. --Folantin 11:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
As no-one has objected, I have put this up for deletion. - Kleinzach 02:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
No objections, not really a genuine genre. Moreschi Talk 07:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I seem to have missed this. The reason that I described Der Vampyr as a Romantic Opera in the lead and later added it to that category is that that's how it's described in the Viking Guide article (which means that that's probably how Marschner or his librettist described it).--GuillaumeTell 08:38, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
"German Romantic opera" is indeed a valid category. It's just the umbrella term "Romantic opera" is probably too vague. --Folantin 08:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Further inspection of the Viking indicates that all the operas designated there as Romantic Opera are by German or Austrian composers (only three by Wagner, BTW), plus a couple of Czechs and Sullivan's Ivanhoe. I favour keeping the category but applying it only to works so described by librettist or composer. --GuillaumeTell 11:07, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that if it continues to exist - especially without a relating article - IMO it will continue to attract random attributions. - Kleinzach 11:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Three points:
  • Other existing sub-categories within Category:Operas by genre do not have relating articles
  • It is open to us to write a relating article and to then define the category, as has been done for, say, Category:Drammi giocosi ("The Dramma giocoso per musica is a genre of Italian opera that developed out of the Opera buffa."). Then we can get rid of interlopers.
  • As I've said before, I'd like to use sub-categories of Operas by genre exclusively for librettists'/composers' descriptions of their operas - indeed, I'm contemplating an article on Dramma per musica following recent severe maltreatment of this term on opera-l!
--GuillaumeTell 18:10, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Dramma per musica/Dramma in musica has a short entry in Oxford and might well be viable if it can be distinguished from Opera seria. --Kleinzach 00:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
I wrote quite a few sections on German Romantic opera for the main German opera article. How about using them as the basis for an expanded sub-article? --Folantin 18:29, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I have made some comments on the opinions expressed at Romantic_operas. Although IMO German Romanticism is a movement rather than a genre, one solution might be to rename the category as 'German romantic operas' (small r OK?) and simply refer to the relevant section of Folantin's German opera article. --Kleinzach 23:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: GuillaumeTell's comment that "Other existing sub-categories within Category:Operas by genre do not have relating articles", this is true but hardly ideal. Our reform of the opera categories has been going on for some time, and much remains to be done. This is such a tricky area and I think it's best to consider them one by one. --Kleinzach 00:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

New volunteer

Whilst looking for ways not to do my real work, I've had a look through my collection and have identified the following operas as ones for which I have libretti and for which no plot summary is given on Wiki. A number of these are also missing cast lists or even complete entries.

I'm happy to gradually work on some of them, but I don't know whetehr their are criteria on what opera deserves what detail. (I've picked ones for which I have full libretti as I've seen comments about the danger of plagiarism in articles especially by newbies.)

  • Dvorak: Jakobin, Kate and the Devil;
  • Janacek: The Excusions of Mr Broucek, From the House of the Dead, Kata Kabanova;
  • Magnard: Guercoeur;
  • Massenet: Amadis, Le Cid;
  • Nielsen: Saul and David;
  • Rimsky-Korsakov: The Tsar's Bride;
  • Smetana The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, Dalibor, Devils Wall, Libuse;
  • Strauss: Capriccio;
  • Verdi: I Lombardi;
  • Wagner: Die Feen;
  • Weill: The Silver Lake;
  • Weir: Blond Eckbert.

I haven't yet checked to see whether there are indications of cuts.

I also have a programme from the first production of Metcalf's Tornrak. So I could create an entry with first performance cast if wanted.

What would people like to work on?

Peter cohen 20:26, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

First, we don't have any rules on what opera deserves what detail, but I think we'd all agree that every opera entry should have at the very least a list of roles and a synopsis as well as the fairly standard intro as detailed on the Project page. If there are other things that you can add (background, performers of roles at premières, performance history, recordings, etc.), feel free to add them. There are a lot of "minor" operas that have better treatment than some of the "major" ones - see note on Mozart above - and that's because somebody or some people has/have a particular interest in each of them. Have a look at the Featured Articles and Good Articles listed on the Project Page - they provide good models.
Second, apart from Composer of the Month and other things detailed at the top of the Project page, we mostly do our own thing - so why don't you work on whichever of the above operas you feel are the most important for you? If it was me, I'd do Capriccio, the Janaceks, the Dvoraks and Blond Eckbert first.
Third, if you want any help, feel free to post again here, or contact any of us by leaving a message on our Talk pages. --GuillaumeTell 21:17, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Peter, welcome to the Opera Project. As GuillaumeTell has suggested, we contribute according to our resources. Ideally we try to provide references and sources because WP is rather demanding about this. However if you don't have access to the main reference books, we always need good synopses, better illustrations, recordings section etc. You may also decide to write about your special interests and projects on your user page. Hope you enjoy contribuing to the project. --Kleinzach 23:34, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you to those who gave feedback here or on my message page. I have stuck my toe in by editing the Wieland Wagner page adding mention of Wieland's mother, wife and children, to Hitler and Wieland's involvement in the Bayreuth concetration camp. Presumably the article should be de-stubbed. What do others think Peter cohen 18:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
I've had a look and made some alterations. It's important to say at the start of the article why the subject is notable enough to appear in an encyclopedia, so I've done that. I added some headings to break up the text and provide an automatic table of contents, and moved the text around so that his life and career come next. The links with Hitler and Nazism are important, so I gave them a separate section at the end. I also added links to the singers and conducters who were mentioned (hint for the future: put square brackets round everything that moves, then press the Preview button to see what works and what doesn't - and what sort of works but needs amending or piping - and then alter as appropriate before pressing Preview again and checking, and then pressing Save). I left it as a stub, because there is a lot more that could be said about Wieland's productions, etc.
Hope it doesn't look too much like the Texas Chain-Saw Massacre! --GuillaumeTell 21:29, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Seeing as you're a fellow Worcester man, I'll let you off this once. :-)
I have now added enough to remove stub status -- Peter cohen 13:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Il pastor fido

I'd like to suggest moving Il pastor fido to "Il pastor fido (opera)", and then creating an article regarding the original play by Guarini at "Il pastor fido" (not sure if admin assistance would be needed to do this in place of the redirect that would be left by the move of the opera article). The play by Guarini is notable in its own right as a literary source or inspiration for many later works of art. (I would be interested in starting an article on it).

Alternative suggestions would be to create the article on the Guarini play as "Il pastor fido (play)", with a dab page at "Il pastor fido"; or keep "Il pastor fido" as the article on the opera, with dab link to "Il pastor fido (play)".

Thoughts? Thanks, Lini 14:12, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

You're right. Guarini's famous play should get priority at Il pastor fido with "Il pastor fido (opera)" for the musical work. --Folantin 09:19, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Somewhat off the topic of the WPOpera talk page, because it is a play not an opera, but, relevant to the discussion above, I've started a sandbox article on the Guarini play here; I will be adding more later before "promoting" to main article space. --Lini 13:15, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Beijing opera up for FAC

Hello, I have been improving the article Beijing opera over the last couple of months, and recently put it up at FAC. I realize that Beijing opera isn't really opera in the Western sense. Nonetheless, if anyone wishes to improve the article, feel free, and feel free to comment on it at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Beijing opera.--Danaman5 06:15, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

See comment on Beijing opera page. --Kleinzach 10:56, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Opera ballet

We have an ambiguous Category:Opera ballet containing two Rameau items, plus Puccini's Le Villi. We also have a viable article on Opéra-ballet. Should we change the name of the category to match the article and clarify its definition?

If so, can we use the plural form opéras-ballets? I realize that some people may disagree with this, but this is the form used by Grove and the French WP article on Opéra-ballet. --Kleinzach 01:43, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

This is evidently not controversial so I have created a new Category:Opéras-ballets and I will be putting the old one up for deletion. --Kleinzach 04:27, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Composer of the month for June

Lots of progress with our French opera composers, so can we think about June?

Rossini is a obvious target, and some time ago we talked about re-furbishing Mozart as soon of his entries are quite poor. Other possibilities might be Joseph Haydn, Paul Hindemith, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, or Johann Strauss II or perhaps two or three neglected 18th century Italian composers like Cimarosa, Pergolesi, Gazzaniga, Galuppi, Salieri, Sarti etc. Any other possibilities? - Kleinzach 02:53, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I rather like the idea of doing Salieri. It has a certain glamour about it. He seems to have written enough operas to keep us busy for a month. Moreschi Talk 19:56, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Salieri, Sarti and Sacchini? --Kleinzach 23:47, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Another major one to bear in mind is Francesco Cavalli. I wouldn't recommend doing him next month, but some time in the near future. Salieri and Sacchini sound fine, though I have little info on Sarti. How about replacing him with Piccinni, another international Italian of that era? --Folantin 07:29, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
IMO Sarti and Salieri go together as a Mozart background pair. (Sarti's opera is quoted at the end of Don Giovanni). The Sarti bio page is quite good. Piccinni might be better off with with his Paris rival Sacchini. --Kleinzach 02:08, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Project mastheads (ours and others)

I notice that the opera project is missing from such pages as Richard Wagner and Traviata. What are the rules for inserting it? DO we have to have re-edited them or something?

I assume that the masthead should be inserted into Wieland Wagner as two of us have been updating it.

The Wieland article is rated as stub-class by Wikiproject biography(arts and entertainment). Do we get them to re-rate it? And Wieland hasn't been rated by project Germany, but brother Wolfgang has. Do we mention the article to them? -- Peter cohen 17:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Peter. As a member of WPBio (in addition to WPOpera), I've updated the Wieland article assessment, for WPBio, to B-class, as a follow-up to the work you've done on it. It is my understanding that a somewhat different assessment system is also "in the works" as part of the Opera project, for all Opera-related articles, including biographies. Nice to meet you, Lini 18:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
And to meet you. Thanks, Lini. -- Peter cohen 22:03, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Peter, you can insert the Opera Project banner on relevant pages as appropriate. We don't have any formal procedure but it's a good idea to put it in as it encourages discussion here if there are any problems.
Regarding assessment by the Wikiproject biography (arts and entertainment group or more commonly musician-work-group ), this has been almost entirely by bot, i.e. when a stub tag is found by the bot it is marked as stub class. (Actually I don't think the two work groups actually exist - I haven't been able to find any page or list for them). The activities of the bot - and by extension the Biography Project - have been controversial as you will see from other discussions here. This is no criticism of Lini who has put a lot of effort into trying to maintain communications between all concerned. --Kleinzach 00:36, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Then please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Arts and entertainment and Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians. Both pages are actually linked to on the Biography projects sidebar, by the way, which is what I used to find them myself here. John Carter 22:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians is a popular music project which apparently has no active members. It is closely connected with the Biography Project and shares their banners. The Biography Project bot(s) that have been going through all the Opera Project articles about people have been leaving the value "|musician-work-group=yes" on the opera Talk Pages (which are then categorized, manually or automatically, as 'Musicians work group articles needing attention', 'infoboxes', 'discographies' etc.) So far I have been unable find out who the musician-work-group actually are. Maybe the Musicians Project? But then they have no active members. Warlordjohncarter (above) is a member of the Biography Project so perhaps he can tell us? --Kleinzach 00:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
You could hit the gray bar saying "Active members" and it would show you all the active members of the project, all 50 of them. I realize the Biography project has a considerably more complicated format than this project, but, honestly, the information you are looking for is and always was on the page I linked to. Maybe you could look a little more closely next time? :) John Carter 00:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Ah, minute type/eccentric layout, but now I see it. And the answer to my question? The one about the 'Musician work group'. Who are they? Where is their page, I wonder? --Kleinzach 00:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
They're the same thing. The Musicians project decided to become a sub-project of Biography. The Biography Project banner was changed to accomodate them, but, as there seemed to be no particular need to change the name of the project, the name wasn't changed. That isn't exactly a unique practice there, although I guess I can see how the name difference might conceivably throw people off. John Carter 00:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Opera title navigation boxes

Thanks to Whjayg for a terrific effort on developing GuillaumeTell's work on these. However I am wondering about our policy on red and black names. For example Template:Vivaldi operas lists 21 operas compared to 9 in the The opera corpus, and 5 in Grove. I wonder if some of these articles will ever be written? --Kleinzach 07:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. Probably not. Most should, I guess, be delinked. According to himself, he wrote 94, so perhaps we should count our blessings. Best, Moreschi Talk 11:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
There are “good” and “bad” leaving the red links in the articles or the navigation boxes. The good is, it will encourage people to find info to fill it in (to un-red the link). The bad is, if the “red” stays forever. ~ Jay 15:50, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I'd probably keep the red links, but check to see if the scores of those Vivaldi operas have survived. There is one record label (Naive, I think) which is trying to record all his extant operas, so it's possible a Vivaldi expert/fan will come along and fill in those missing articles. --Folantin 17:56, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Listing red-linked works from The opera corpus for which information exists in the usual sources is OK. However these boxes are for navigation (not for listing complete works which is done in the article itself) so perhaps it's better not to list black names or red-link items that were previously black. (I'll try and explain that in a different way if I am not making myself clear!)--Kleinzach 23:12, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I ahve removed all the red links from the navigation boxes. - Jay 04:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Numa (opera)

Has anyone got any proof of the existence of any such opera by Georges Bizet? In the Viking Guide it's not even listed among his uncompleted fragments. Either it's a hoax or someone has misinterpreted a Portuguese word as being a title or it's a garbled version of "Namouna", the poem by Musset that Bizet used for Djamileh. Could someone look in Grove? (And if you want a laugh, look at the version of the Numa page before the last edit.) I put a note on the Bizet Talk page but no replies there yet. --GuillaumeTell 16:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Difficult. It's listed on the French page and various internet pages, but not on the German and Spanish pages. Everyone seems to agree on the date 1871, but perhaps it all originated here? --Kleinzach 11:17, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Checking Grove, zilch. Nothing. I checked to see if this was a cantata or a song mislabeled, as well. It's either not by him or doesn't exist, full stop. This, the original version is also somewhat suspicious. Yet someone else, apparently, knew of this and judged that this was the second of three operas - great edit summary, GT, I almost fell off the chair laughing. So either a hoax, something so obscure Grove and Viking haven't heard of it - searching Grove for "Numa" gives nothing, either - or some crossed wires somewhere. Any takers? Either way, this should probably be deleted. Cheers, Moreschi Talk 11:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I've got no info on it either. I think GT's explanation about a confusion with Musset's Namouna is plausible. I did think it might have something to do with Daudet's novel Numa Roumestan. After all, Bizet wrote the music for Daudet's play L'Arlésienne. But the novel wasn't published until 1881, when Bizet had been dead for six years. It might crop up in a Bizet biography somewhere, but let's face it, even if it exists this piece is so obscure it's doubtful whether it could stretch to a full, separate article. Put it up for deletion (without prejudice to recreation). --Folantin 12:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Numa (opera). Cheers, Moreschi Talk 13:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Satirical opera

This is the last of the opera genres to remain as a singular. We need to decide whether to make it a plural (Satirical operas) or delete it. At the moment the category has three Kurt Weill items, one Prokofiev and one Shostakovich. It's really a subject-matter genre rather than a stylistic one, but at least it's reasonably well defined and might even support an article. So keep or delete? --Kleinzach 12:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Get rid of it per Kleinzach. --Folantin 08:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I think subject-matter genres are just too subjective, and this one could also reasonably include a lot of G&S, Offenbach, The Golden Cockerel and who knows what else (Capriccio - a satire on opera?). Stick to composers'/librettists' designations and delete this category. --GuillaumeTell 15:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I have put it up for deletion here. --Kleinzach 23:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Giulio Cesare

I know this is a bit off topic but I need a favor from those who could help. I have been looking for “Giulio Cesare” opera DVD acted by Plácido Domingo as “Sesto”. I don’t know the performance year or the theater but one thing for sure is, Plácido Domingo at that time was very young. If anybody know where I could get the DVD, please let me know. I asked here because I just don’t what else to do and how to get it, sometimes I been thinking, the play was probably never been recorded. - Jay 03:22, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I have had a look but can't find anything. Incidentally if you do find information about recordings/DVDs the article Giulio Cesare could certainly benefit from a recordings section. --Kleinzach 23:41, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I think (hopefully I am wrong) I know why I couldn’t find the DVD. From the record, it says that he sang "Svegliatevi nel core" based on studio recording in 1968 (Wembley Town Hall, London, England) accompanied by Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. - Jay 06:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for adding the recording details. That's useful. I see you have also started Svegliatevi_nel_core. Actually we have a policy of putting texts such as this on WikiSource, not on WP. --Kleinzach 23:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
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