Talk:Maytime (musical)

Precise genre?

Cut 'n' paste from my talk page of discussion on this point with Ssilvers:

I wish you would reconsider this. I believe that the piece has more characteristics of a musical than of an operetta like Fledermaus, and I think we should keep the opening sentence simple. We have this article categorized in the musicals project category tree rather than the opera project category tree, and if it is more an operetta, it should be categorized in the opera cats instead and follow the opera project guidelines for structure instead of the musicals project guidelines, which it currently follows. Not to mention that the slash in the description is not an encyclopedic format. Obviously, there are a lot of musicals with characteristics of operetta, and we have never used a slash or hyphen - we have tried to clarify with narrative explanation in the body. If you want to note that there are some characteristics of operetta, could you please describe them lower down in the body of the article, rather than in the first sentence? I'd appreciate it. Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Certainly it is more like a musical than Fledermaus - but then so are a lot of other works that we would unhesitatingly class as operettas! The discussion that (rightly) forms an important part of the Music theatre article of the differences (and the broad overlap) between light opera, operetta, and what we might call the "operettarish" end of the "musicals" spectrum is a case in point. I have in fact just bought a recording of a production of Maytime, and have renewed my rather rusty aquaintance with the work (that's what brought this on). When I looked up the Wiki article (just after my first "listen") to confirm the leading facts for my computerised catalogue of my CDs I was just a little startled by by unequivocal and unqualified description of this work as a "musical". While it IS a musical really - it definitely has a strong taste of operetta about it.

That's all I wanted to say - I would NOT go into a great treatrise about exactly what distinguishes very light operetta from the kind of "musical comedy" we are talking about here - the place for anything like this is in the musical theatre article - where I think it already gets quite enough emphasis.

I can see why you don't like the slash - perhaps "Maytime is a musical (or a very light Broadway operetta)..." might be neater? A reader who objects that we really should be able to tell the difference needs referring to the musical theatre article perhaps?

In any case I always defer to you on musical theatre matters - if you would rather simply revert my edit of this article I most certainly am not going to bother arguing or (heaven forbid) edit warring. I suspect that your own point of view on this one might be a little closer to mine on this one however, so do give it some thought. Best wishes, and my compliments on the general very high standard of musical theatre articles on wiki - which I am aware owes a great deal to your untiring efforts. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 22:59, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the message and the kind words. Actually, I focus mostly on musical theatre before 1925, especially G&S. I do an embarrassingly small amount of work on modern musicals. With your permission, I have reverted, as I feel strongly that either the slash or the parenthetical statement in the opening sentence would look really bad. However, it would be extremely helpful if you would add a sentence in the body of the article (assuming that you have a reliable source to cite) to describe what aspects of the piece are operetta-like. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:22, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I am NOT going to accept your invitation to discuss the "operetta" side of this musical in its own article - mainly because I feel this is of very parenthical relevance. Do we want to add a similar discussion to the article of every musical with operettarish tendencies? Or to every very light operetta that borders on being a musical, for that matter? Especially when we have a general (and rather good) section on the subject of "overlap" in musical theatre elsewhere anyway. Personally, I must admit I would have preferred to keep a simple hint that Maytime's precise genre is just a tiny bit ambiguous in the lead - where surely it belongs (if anywhere) - but having disavowed the desire to argue I have painted myself into a corner on this one! Nice to have a chat with you now and then, anyway. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 00:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Plot summary and other info.

There is a fairly detailed plot summary here (as well as other information about the musical (or operetta if you prefer). If anyone has the time and inclination, they could use it to expand the very brief synopsis that we have in the article currently, and probably to expand other information about the original production. It also mentions a Canadian production. -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:01, 6 June 2017 (UTC)