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Composers of the Month for May: 'major minors'

Last month we discussed giving this a new direction, at least for the time being, by turning our attention to the so-called 'major minors' (major operas by minor composers). GuillaumeTell, Folantin and I compiled a list which is here.

As we have been doing a lot of Italian and French works recently, how about German this time? Perhaps 8 or 10 operas from the list. Is that about the right number? 19th century? Would that be OK?--Kleinzach (talk) 00:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Very much OK by me. --GuillaumeTell (talk) 01:33, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
In that case, I suggest this list:
--Kleinzach (talk) 11:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, still very much OK. I've seen three of those (at Wexford, where else?), know some of the music from two others and know a bit about all of the rest except the Nessler (and, indeed, Nessler himself, of whom I've never heard). I'd be happy for Wilhelm Kienzl's 1895 Evangelimann to be included, too. --GuillaumeTell (talk) 17:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Good. I've added Evangelimann. One question. Should it be Gräfin Dubarry? as indicated in the Millöcker article? --Kleinzach (talk) 23:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Andrew Lamb in Grove reveals that Die Dubarry (1931) has a totally new libretto and a score arranged "from Gräfin Dubarry and other pieces..." So, yes, it should - my mistake! --GuillaumeTell (talk) 00:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Or not my mistake exactly - it was I, or rather my younger self, who included that information when I created the Millöcker article, as you perhaps noticed. --GuillaumeTell (talk) 00:05, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I've altered it --Kleinzach (talk) 02:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC) PS. I understand that from a genetic point of view we age significantly every half hour - and not only when we are on WP.

Only two of us seem to be here. Any other opinions? Otherwise in the words of VDT "going, going . . . ." --Kleinzach (talk) 00:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll just send my best wishes for now and wait for the 20th century. Btw, E. T. A Hoffmans Undine is notable as a treatment of a popular theme. Sparafucil (talk) 01:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

OK. I've put the list up for May. --Kleinzach (talk) 09:03, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Plácido Domingo

I just took a brief look at the Plácido Domingo page. It has a lot of akward wording and/or bad grammar. I don't have time right now to edit it myself so I hope one of you will take up the cause.Nrswanson (talk) 02:35, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

In these cases it's probably better to tag the article directly - there are dozens of others with similar problems. From what you say the best tag would probably be {{copyedit}}. Tagging will mean the article won't disappear below the radar (though in this case it's hardly likely!) and the article will appear in the project To do list where we can deal with it in a systematic way. Thanks however for noting it. Best. --Kleinzach (talk) 10:05, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
And talking of famous tenors, Franco Corelli has a tag with an appeal to the Opera Project which no-one seems to have notified us about. I can do a bit of fixing (when Rossini Month is over) and there's a whole lot of info (maybe too much!) at Frank Hamilton's site, but getting the article into good shape looks like a big job. --GuillaumeTell (talk) 12:05, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Franco Corelli - and 17 other articles so tagged - are listed in the To do list! I'd strongly recommend everyone looking at the list from time to time to see if there are titles that are easy to fix (and remove the tags). --Kleinzach (talk) 12:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing this out - I wonder if it could somehow be given more prominence on our front page, though. Is it updated every month? Incidentally, the other 17 articles are not "so tagged". The Corelli article is tagged for "attention from an expert..." and specifically refers to WikiProject Opera. Only one other article (Michael Tippett) has the expert attention tag but no project is named. All the rest, of varying quality, are tagged as orphans, plus three of them are sourceless and one needs wikifying. At least one (Stella Doufexis) is a prime candidate for speedy deletion, IMO. --GuillaumeTell (talk) 18:13, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
More prominence would be fine - but it is already in bold. Is there a super-bold? Thanks for noticing the bot problem labelling 'orphans' etc. as 'Expert attention'. Perhaps we need to talk to SatyrTN about this - when he's not too busy! I've taken your advice on Stella Doufexis. -- Kleinzach (talk) 03:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestions Klienzach. I normally would have just tagged it but as the article is our featured singer this month I thought it deserved quicker attention.Nrswanson (talk) 16:11, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Kleinzach has helped fixing and fine tuning some of the wordings / grammar at the Plácido Domingo page. Thanks - Jay (talk) 05:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

DYK on the Opera Portal

I've added some DYK's gleaned from the archives. I found quite a few that had previously featured on the WP front page. Not wanting to overwhelm the Opera Portal page, I created this sub page - Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Did you know? - to house the collection and added a "Read more" to that section on the portal. More can be added to the collection as we go along. And I don't think they necessarily have to be ones that were 'official' DYKs. Anyhow, if there's a better place to house the collection, feel free to move it. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 11:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

May Singer of the Month

And while we're at it, some suggestions for this one would be welcome too. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 10:44, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I would like to suggest Renee Fleming as the singer for the Month of May. For such a highly popular contemporary opera singer the article on her is sorely lacking in information. What little I know of her trumps the article and that is sad.Nrswanson (talk) 02:56, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, maybe it's time we did some contemporary singers - but are there some other singers we could combine with Fleming? --Kleinzach (talk) 14:07, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Well perhaps articles on contemporary American sopranos (b. 1940 on) would be good. Two sopranos of more recent note are Sarah Coburn and Lisa Daltrius. Coburn I had the pleasure of seeing in productions at both Tulsa Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. She stole the show on both occasions. Daltrius has sung several times with the Opera Company of Philadelphia and Seattle Opera and recently made her debut with the New York City Opera. She is debuting at the Lyric Opera of Chicago this season as Bess in Porgy and Bess. She's sung at a bunch of other companies as well. The articles on Christine Brewer and Deborah Voigt also need some major attention. And I am surprised there is not an article on Frances Ginsberg. I am sure i could think of more later.Nrswanson (talk) 16:34, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Some more suggestions: Pamela Armstrong, Heather Buck, Jennifer Casey Cabot, Anna Christy, Margaret Cusack, Susan Dunn, Nicolle Foland, Jill Gardner, Christine Goerke, Jan Grissom, Sari Gruber, Cynthia Haymon, Nicole Heaston, Kelly Kaduce, Linda Mabbs, Latonia Moore, Marion Vernette Moore, Kelley Nassief, Maureen O'Flynn, Marie Plette, Emily Pulley, Juliana Rambaldi, Patricia Schuman, Celena Shafer, Barbara Shirvis, Lauren Skuce, Diana Soviero, Korliss Uecker, Jennifer Welch-Babidge, and Margaret Jane Wray.Nrswanson (talk) 17:15, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Also an improvement on these articles: Karan Armstrong, Julianne Baird, Judith Blegen, Angela Brown, Kimilee Bryant, Helen Donath, Kallen Esperian, Amanda Forsythe, Elizabeth Futral, Denyce Graves, Constance Hauman, Judy Kaye, Roberta Knie, Jeanette MacDonald (the opera section), Catherine Malfitano, Alessandra Marc, Claron McFadden, Sylvia McNair, Julia Migenes, Aprile Millo, Elizabeth Parcells, Mary Beth Peil, Hila Plitmann, Patricia Racette, Jessica Rivera, Amy Shoremount-Obra, Ruth Ann Swenson, Dawn Upshaw, Erin Wall, Kathy Westmoreland, and Monica Yunus. User:Nrswanson|Nrswanson]] (talk) 17:15, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Are all the singers you are listing American? Any particular reason? Perhaps you feel that American singers are particularly neglected? --Kleinzach (talk) 14:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh and my personal feeling is that the project needs to pay more attention to contemporary singers as often times these articles are some of the first articles that people look up on wikipedia in regaurds to opera. It reflects badly on our project if pages on contemporary opera singers are poorly done.Nrswanson (talk) 18:35, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes all the singers listed above are American sopranos and I chose the topic of contemporary American Sopranos for two reasons. First, I have noticed the quality of these articles is usually pretty low and second I'm just interested in the topic. And since I suggested Fleming at first it just seemed a natural grouping to pick. I probably would choose to do a section on contemporary European sopranos another month (or other voice types). In terms of singers articles, I would have to say that the pages the project has worked on are very good, both old and contemporary. However, most of the contemporary singers pages were not created by project members and the quality of these pages as a whole do not match the project's standards. For example the page on opera star Aprile Millo has no references. In contrast, the articles on singers of the past have typically been created by the project and are therefore better articles. I went through the entire category of American Sopranos yesterday and most of the contemporary opera singer articles made the needs improvement list above. The ones that didn't were mostly pages that I either created or worked on extensively. That indicates to me that this is a topic the project has overlooked.Nrswanson (talk) 15:09, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Oh and I added tags to several articles. Some of the articles, like Aprile Millo, are quite lengthy and do need pruning but at the same time have very little biographical information and are really just glorified lists of roles performed and houses performed at. So they also need expansion as well to fit with wikiproject biography standards.Nrswanson (talk) 17:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
"Oh and I added tags to several articles" I noticed. ;-) Personally, I think those expansion tags are redundant and in most cases unnecessarily obtrusive. I tend to remove them when I find them. All those articles are already tagged as stubs needing expansion (some with stub markers for more than one project!). A whacking great third tag at the top isn't really called for, in my opinion. It's more important to add concrete suggestions to the talk page as to what kind of information is lacking. Far more pertinent, are tags flagging up the need for copy-editing, references, or improving style/tone where that occurs. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:05, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
My practice is to normally put opera stubs on short articles. I put expand tags on non-viable one, two or three sentence articles like the ones in the 'Expansion needed' section of Can you help on the project page. That brings attention to their egregious shortness! --Kleinzach (talk) 03:23, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's my approach too. In general the egregiously short ones are often written simply as a means to get the singer in Wikipedia and get a link to their web site. In my experience, first the creator (often the singer or their agent) tries pasting in their entire CV. When that gets reduced to a stub (or they do it themselves) because the article is about to be deleted for copyvio), they just leave it. It's serving its purpose as far as they're concerned. Take a look at the early edit history for Arianna Zukerman, for example. However, a reasonable stub doesn't need to have expansion needed slapped on it in addition. And it's quite inappropriate to use it simply because a longish article (e.g. Aprile Millo still lacks some information. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 10:41, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Good points. So do you think this would be an appropriate list for May singers?Nrswanson (talk) 19:45, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
You have my vote for 'Contemporary American sopranos' - but on one condition! We need to reduce the list to no more than 12 names!--Kleinzach (talk) 03:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't mind trimming the list but why so few? There are 29 singers for the month of April.Nrswanson (talk) 04:23, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
The April singers are 17th/18th century with little information available in few, but accessible, places.--Kleinzach (talk) 04:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Ok. Well how about 12 new singers then and then eight of the more popular ones that already have articles that need improvement? Christine Brewer, Renee Fleming, Denyce Graves, Constance Hauman, Aprile Millo, Ruth Ann Swenson, Dawn Upshaw, andDeborah Voigt as our needs improvement (they are the most high profile on that list). Pamela Armstrong, Sarah Coburn, Lisa Daltrius, Susan Dunn, Frances Ginsberg, Christine Goerke, Cynthia Haymon, Marion Vernette Moore, Marie Plette, Patricia Schuman, Diana Soviero, and Margaret Jane Wray as our new articles.Nrswanson (talk) 05:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
In my view this list should be no more than 12 in all. Six existing articles for improvement and six 'red links'. It's not good to have a load of red-links at the end of the month. A while back someone argued strongly for "new music divas". We narrowed the red-linked ones down to the five most prominent. I wasn't particularly keen on writing about those singers, but at the end of the month, I had to write 2 of them myself. The remaining 3 are still red-linked. No one else from the project touched them, nor did they work on the blue-linked ones for improvement. A possible way to prune the current proposals down to a manageable number is to use the criteria of how long they've been singing major roles in major houses, or if they have created any roles in new operas. The 1650-1750 singers is a special case because we won't know which ones will be do-able or we need to prioritize until the April CoM to which they are linked gets underway. It shouldn't be used as a precedent. It's better to concentrate on 5 or six red-linked singers for May and spend the time necessary, not only to write reasonably long stubs (as a bare minimum) but to format them correctly and proof-read them. Slap-dash articles written in haste to meet a quota with a load of bare links and poorly formatted references look bad. I honestly don't think there are the resources here to tackle more than 6 new articles that are properly written, researched, formatted and referenced. Voceditenore (talk) 11:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

A new idea has occured to me. The following list of singers are the only women to have ever been awarded the coveted Richard Tucker Award. There are only 13 of them and most of them were alreaady on the above list. Here they are: Joyce DiDonato, Susan Dunn, Christine Goerke, Diana Soviero, and Margaret Jane Wray are new articles.

Old articles needing attention: Stephanie Blythe, Renée Fleming, Jennifer Larmore, Aprile Millo, Patricia Racette, Ruth Ann Swenson, Deborah Voigt, Dolora Zajick.Nrswanson (talk) 18:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

And we could use the male winners of the award as the singers for the month of June. There are 16 in all but only 8 new articles.Nrswanson (talk) 18:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

List of men who have won the Richard Tucker award: Rockwell Blake, Lawrence Brownlee, Eric Cutler, Dwayne Croft, David Daniels, Harry Dworchak, Paul Groves, Brandon Jovanovich, Richard Leech, Barry McCauley, Matthew Polenzani, J. Patrick Raftery, John Relyea, Roger Roloff, and Gregory Turay.Nrswanson (talk) 18:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm technically "away from my desk" (and truly will be tomorrow) but I think the Tucker theme is a great idea! Best, Voceditenore (talk) 20:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
OK, the new article singers suggested (Joyce DiDonato, Susan Dunn, Christine Goerke, Diana Soviero, Margaret Jane Wray) are all sufficiently notable. However I'm against having another all American list for June. It's better that we keep a rigorously international perspective and choose the best singers irrespective of nationality when we do contemporary artists.--Kleinzach (talk) 22:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Well I agree we need to keep an international perspective but we also need to pay attention to gender as well and as we are covering notable American female singers I think it is only fair to cover notable American male singers as well. And using the Richard Tucker prize is a very good indicator of notability. And I don't think we have ever done a category that included many American singers since I joined the project, so in the interest of an international perspective I think this broadens rather than narrows the projects focus. I was going to suggest also that later in the year we do two months of contemporary European singers, one for women and one for men. But not right away of course.Nrswanson (talk) 23:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, we will discuss this under a new topic anyway. --Kleinzach (talk) 01:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. We can discuss that later. Well it looks like everyone interested is ok with the list so I am going to put it up.Nrswanson (talk) 03:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Opera (Main article)

An anonymous IP has just stuck a performing arts navbox right near the top of the article. It looks awful in my view. Could someone move it at least to the bottom? It might be a good idea to move the Opera Portal logo/link to the bottom too. I suspect this new portal has rather raised our profile. We may be getting lots more attention in future, welcome or otherwise.;-) Best, Voceditenore (talk) 17:35, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

The template was created today and pasted all over without discussion. I removed it from the Opera page as it added nothing, covered some text, and was unremarkable except for being ugly anyway.Theshoveljockey (talk) 20:25, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
The portal symbol is difficult to manipulate. Does anyone know how to centre it? I agree about the ugliness of the navigation box, which was done in an amateur way without the vde buttons etc., but IMO it would be helpful to have a performing arts navbox for the top level article - the idea is good. Maybe it's also worth mentioning that the introduction to this article still needs rewriting - it's just not up to the standard of the sections that follow it. --Kleinzach (talk) 22:58, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I have had a go at dealing with some aspects of the Opera header but it's tricky deciding what should go in and what should come out....--Smerus (talk) 09:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks - that was useful. I've had a go as well. Let me know what you think. I've tried to make the English smoother and more natural rather than concentrate on definitions. --Kleinzach (talk) 09:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Discographies

It might be useful to define the priorities on discographies for singers. Having found the one in Kiri te Kanawa dominated by solo albums and musicals, I've added all her studio opera recordings in which she played principal parts (so no mention of flowermaidens and woodbirds). WHat would other peoples have gone for.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm an agnostic on these matters, but do take a look at Cheryl Studer. --GuillaumeTell (talk) 23:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Peter cohen: If you are interested in working on discographies there is huge scope for improvement. For models, see the 'special' complete discographies Pelléas et Mélisande discography and The Flying Dutchman discography. For formatting see Article styles and formats.
If you would like to join the Composer of the Month team, we always need discographies for new opera title articles. --Kleinzach (talk) 23:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Singer category reorganization

We've now completed the transfer of singer articles from general top level voice categories (Category:sopranos etc.) to specific opera ones (Category:Operatic sopranos etc.), also from non-national (Category:Opera singers) to national categories (Category:Belgian opera singers etc.), consistent with project guidelines.

Our 9 main opera singer categories are now:

We also have 60 Category:Opera singers by nationality categories:

Each singer should be in at least two groups, for example Enrico Caruso is in Category:Operatic tenors and Category:Italian opera singers. IMO this level of categorization should be sufficient: 69 categories are accessible and manageable and we now have the most accurate count of articles to date.

Some points:

  1. There are still some (anomalous) non-operatic singers left in the top level voice categories (Category:sopranos etc.) Perhaps someone would like to try to give them more specific categories?
  2. Opera categories are not exclusive. Many singers should also probably go in Lieder, oratorio etc. categories which don't exist now. This is a matter for the Classical Music Project.
  3. The 69 'opera singer by range' and 'opera singer by nationality' cats inevitably remain incomplete. If you notice articles that don't have them then please add them!

In the past I've argued against singer category reform this because of the huge labour involved, and after spending 30-odd (it feels like 300-odd) hours on it, I can only say it was a huge labour. Fortunately Black Falcon was kind enough to handle the bulk moving with AWB. (Many thanks!)--Kleinzach (talk) 05:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hoax?

Is Vocal theory a hoax? "Vocal theory is a framework for understanding the interrelationships between vocal registration and societal angst that is increasingly common in younger segments of the population of developed countries." Huh? If it’s real it really needs sources to prove this isn’t OR. --S.dedalus (talk) 06:16, 9 April 2008 (UTC) I’m also asking at WP:CM.

This page has been around for a while, but the present article seems to have been created by Hard2Win on 17 November. (Perhaps it's both a hoax and OR!) --Kleinzach (talk) 07:28, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I am pretty sure it is either a hoax or original research. Regardless, the article is not well written and has some major flaws in accuracy and content which I pointed out on the article's talk page.Nrswanson (talk) 01:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Opera company lists

Just thought I would let everyone know that I have created several lists of opera companies by regions and edited the North American list. The lists are: List of Latin American and South American opera companies, List of North American opera companies, List of opera companies in Africa and the Middle East, List of opera companies in Asia, Australia, and Oceania, and List of opera companies in Europe‎. Feedback and contributions are welcome. Nrswanson (talk) 04:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Well done! But do the map links work? I see the South America map is auf Deutsch. --Kleinzach (talk) 02:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Is the idea to replace List of opera companies? Or will that become a list of the above lists?
Also, I've made some additions and alterations to the England section of the Europe list. I'm rather doubtful about the counter-intuitive arrangement of the lists by the contents of the third column (though I've adhered to that). IMO, either they should be arranged by location (as now), but with the locations in the first column, or by what is now the first column, the name of the opera company. I'm also a bit doubtful about the inclusion of amateur companies (such as York Opera). --GuillaumeTell (talk) 17:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Good points. Well I think the idea here is to orgnanize by location so it would just be a simple matter of switching the collums around. I personally think these pages should be inclusive to all wikipedia worthy companies. Basically if someone can write an article on it that meets notability guidelines it should be allowed to stay. And these lists are not meant to replace the current one. That list is helpful in the sense that it mentions the opera houses with the highest standards and reputations. They are the world's most important opera houses and I would hate to see that list get devoured by these others. These new lists are a useful tule for those wanting to find an opera company in a particular area and also help the project keep a record of the world's opera companies.Nrswanson (talk) 04:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree that it's important to exclude amateur companies. --Kleinzach (talk) 14:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
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