Talk:Oedipus rex (opera)

Rex vs rex

Note: I believe the "Rex" of the title is capitalized, but there is a redirect page of that title. Am I correct, and if so can this page be moved?

When you capitalize the R in Rex and click the "article" link, it brings your to the same page as this talk page does, so I don't see why there would be any objections. I say go ahead and do move it. Kiega 00:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Oedipus Rex is indeed correct, in so far as it is Stravinsky's capitalization. Capitalization of French titles is far from standardized, though, and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Opera#Operas:_original_language_titles adopts Groves' usage which simplifies matters by choosing the one French convention that is the same as other romance languages, ie, first word and proper names only. To make matters worse, Wikipedia:WikiProject France has its own manual of style. I notice that the Oxford Dictionary uses Rex, but the Oxford Companion rex... Sparafucil (talk) 22:14, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The question of capitalization has nothing to do with French capitalization, which as it happens is not so much lacking standardization as having too many standards (as Sparafucil intimates). The point is that the title in French would be Oedipe le roi or Le Roi Oedipe. Stravinsky's title is in Latin, and here we really do not have any standard for capitalization, since Classical Latin did not make a distinction between capital and lowercase letters. The forms that we now regard as such developed out of the letters used in antiquity for carving in stone and for handwriting with a brush. Modern norms for Latin tend to follow the usage of the language in which the Latin titles are embedded. The present article, being in English, should probably follow English capitalization. However, even in French I would imagine there may be the issue of whether "Rex" ("rex") is merely the word meaning "king" (as in my first hypothetical form, "Oedipus (in his time as) king"), or if it is part of a title (as in my second hypothetical form, "King Oedipus").—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:30, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

An excellent point, though my score's title page is otherwise in French. Hm, the Opera Project doesnt actually have an explicit policy for Latin! I would expect the usual argument that Grove Opera must be followed. I've grown quite provoked in the past, not so much over policy (after all, no dab is nessesary for La mère coupable and La Mère coupable! La mere coupable & La Mere coupable) as by what appeared to me a determination to sweep difficulties under the rug, including reversion of all attempts to mention other standards or wikilink WP France to the OperaProject page. If someone of your stainless reputation revived this probably futile battle though, he could count on one ally. ;-) Sparafucil (talk) 07:19, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

This sounds like a can of worms I would just as soon stay clear of! Perhaps the reason the Opera Project has not got a policy for Latin is that there are so few operas with unambiguously Latin titles, let alone with Latin librettos. Concerning score title pages, keep in mind that formatting standards are not immovably fixed by the form taken in the first publication. If this were so, then we would be required to maintain Cyrillic spellings for most works by Russian composers, for example. In the case of French titles, this would also require inconsistency even on one and the same page if, for example, in their first publications one title followed the "sentence case" standard and another used the "capitalize to the first noun" format. Come to that, it would also mean that a score whose typography designer decided to render the title in full caps, or in caps/small caps, would have established the irrevocable standard, and perhaps even the font and face size.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:44, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The opera is listed as Oedipus rex in New Grove Dictionary of Opera. The main discussion on the general issue of title capitalization, and particularly French capitalization at the Opera Project is here. We don't claim that there are no other "correct" capitalization systems, but for consistency, we use the style for rendering original language titles used by the Yale University library system and The Chicago Manual of Style, amongst others. It also happens to be the style used in the five principle opera reference works, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, New Grove Dictionary of Opera, The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera, and The Viking Opera Guide. There are currently over 1600 articles on individual operas, the majority of which have foreign language titles. Unlike many, if not most, projects at Wikipedia which regularly deal with foreign language works, we apply that style consistently to avoid confusion between articles. We also provide numerous redirect pages for various possible versions of the spelling and/or capitalization to aid readers in finding the article. Capitalization and use of diacritics does not affect the Google search results either. Voceditenore (talk) 07:37, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a reasonable policy to me. I would just reiterate that the title is not French but Latin (I think you must know that, but your second sentence suggests otherwise). I don't know what the Yale Library policy is, but the Chicago Manual produces an interesting conundrum: "The tendency of editors around the world is to capitalize Latin according to the principles of their own languages. In English-speaking countries, however, titles of ancient and medieval books and shorter pieces are capitalized not as English titles but as English prose; that is, only the first word, proper nouns, and proper adjectives are capitalized". However, the Chicago Manual continues, "Modern works with Latin titles are usually capitalized in the English fashion: Novum Organum, Religio Medici". If this is to be taken at its word, the Sophocles play should be capitalized Oedipus rex, but the Stravinsky opera (as a modern work) should be Oedipus Rex. It would seem to me awfully silly to insist on this distinction, however.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:59, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I knew you were discussing a Latin title,;-) but I was also responding to the comments about French titles by another editor in this section. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 06:31, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

removing "opera oratorios"

I think the category "opera oratorios" is redundant... if it's in the categories of both Opera and Oratorio it does the same job as having a redundant category for those few compositions that the composer called an "opera-oratorio", which itself was never a proper genre. I've removed the category from this article.

Fred 18:24, 29 April 2007 (UTC)