Talk:Andrij Dobriansky

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Opening new discussion for article

Please WP:AGF, and move discussion about this article to this WP:TP instead of WP:BRD. Thank you, tufkaa (talk) 17:45, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

edits for tone

At the e-mailed request of an individual with COI, I am making some necessary edits for professional tone, removing minor biographical details and removing some puffery. DGG ( talk ) 23:01, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Appreciate the edits, and have a question about 2 details.

• Regarding the removal of the Siege of Lviv, I'd like to reconsider if that would fall under "puffery". According to the timeline, the subject had just turned 9 years old when he survived a 10 day siege of very modern warfare for the time, which ended up costing the lives of thousands of combatants and civilians around him, and laid significant waste to his home city. I would propose that surviving such an event would be a significant detail about a person's life, but would also invite an explanation of why it would not be.
• Regarding the removal of the mention of the concert celebrating 1000 years of Christianity of Ukraine, you kept the reference to it which makes clear that the subject of the article was the artistic director of that event (a major concert reviewed by the New York Times, NJ Evening Star and others).

Again, thank you for your editorial eye tufkaa (talk) 00:00, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry to disappoint you , but the details of the Soviet & German occupations of Lvov are in no way specific to her biography. The overall background of WII in Europe is influential in the life of everyone who was alive at the time, and is not specific to her. Family historians may want to include it in a separately published biography, but a WP article just refers to the general articles. I am editing this as a volunteer, with no COI.

The subject was a notable singer, but never a world-famous star, and only a limited amount of coverage of his early life in appropriate in an encyclopedia--For an explanation, see WP:EINSTEIN. It seems obvious that anyone wanting this excessive level of detail does indeed have a COI. I am reinstating most of the editsI made, and will ask for assistance if you continue to revert them, because of the obvious COI, please follow our rules at WP:COI and confine your edits to suggestion on this talk page, or to obvious correction of detail DGG ( talk ) 05:52, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

other edits

It is also important not to go too far in the other direction. It is normal in articles for musicians to briefly discuss their musical environment when young; for deceased people, we often do include the gravesite. DGG ( talk ) 03:45, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree, DGG, and I'm glad Drmies has restored the further material deleted by User:ALU0819. I have copyedited the restored material slightly for coherence. I have made a few other changes.

1. I removed "Under the management of Sol Hurok, Dobriansky made his Metropolitan Opera Company debut in 1970". Neither of the references support the fact that this very prominent impresario managed Dobriansky's career and the date and role of his Met debut is already covered in the following sentence.
2. I changed "Although he performed larger roles throughout his career, his facility to master numerous such comprimario roles over the years led to his becoming a staple in the Met roster." to "His repertoire of comprimario roles led to his becoming a staple in the Met roster." I carefully checked the Metopera Database, which documents his entire career there—he sang only comprimario roles at the Met, apart from Leporello in Don Giovanni (at two matinees) and Rocco in Fidelio (at one Met concert performance in Prospect Park, not in the opera house itself). See [1].
3. I replaced the {{infobox artist}} with {{infobox person}}. The former is for visual artists only. I also removed the "resting place" parameter. Apart from being slightly intrusive, there is no evidence whatsoever provided that he was buried in St. Andrew Cemetery (a link piped to St. Andrew Memorial Church).

Voceditenore (talk) 15:37, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

I have removed "His versatility also extended into the role of impresario, where he staged and directed operas." Apart from the puffery, the inline citation following that assertion did not verify that at all. It was from 1965 and concerned a performance of La Cenerentola by the Met's touring company in which Dobriansky was one of the singers. I have been unable to find any mention in published sources that he ever directed operas or acted as the impresario responsible for their staging. Voceditenore (talk) 10:05, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Newport Daily News, July 22, 1977, page 8, by Eunice Gordon: "...The little opera, 'The Nocturne,' by Lysenko, a Ukrainian composer-musicologist, had been discovered and was directed here by Andrij Dobriansky of the Metropolitan Opera...". Also discussed at length in an interview with Robert Sherman on the Listening Room, July 15, 1977.tufkaa (talk) 22:30, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I understand that Voceditenore is away for now, but still wish to thank him and again DGG as well as Drmies for turning the article around towards Wikistandards. Advocating IRL for Ukraine-related issues has pulled me away again unfortunately, but I would like to continue the discussion here on the talk page as DGG proposed when the time allows. Whenever it is most convenient for any of you, I have 4 notes:

• The word "Lvov" was inserted into the article some time ago. Not sure what that is about.
• I was not the source for a good deal of the "puffery" as you refer to it (name-dropping) in the article, however at this point in the editing process, it seems that we may have overcompensated since not a single contemporary of the subject is mentioned throughout the career section of the article. As I brought up at Wikiproject Opera, I find this odd given standard conventions for the music world, especially when we're talking about a career spanning 1,000+ performances. From my perspective, removing any and all contemporaries in effect isolates the reader from discovering more about the artistic period the subject was active in, and delving deeper into resources of Wikipedia.
• As to the provenance of my edits: all the information that I included in the article was derived from already published sources, which I believe I cited meticulously. Many facts I discovered while in the process of editing the article and combing through said references. I stand in full agreement that it would go against accepted norms to do otherwise.
• Which leads me to my chief disagreement with the article: the eliding of 1939-1944 into "Nazi and Soviet invasions". Between the ages of 9 and 13, the subject of the article survived 2 separate invasions which each have their own Wiki article. Chiefly, is the Siege of Lviv. In what I consider a genuine DYK chapter of the subject's life: days after his 9th birthday, this future operatic singer became entrapped with the most famous (arguably) female opera singer of her age (who just happened to have arrived back in town coincidentally) in what ended up being 10 day siege by Nazi and Soviet invaders that destroyed major infrastructure around them, left all residents without power and water, and destroyed the lives of 3% of the total population of this historic capital city. This was a brutal ordeal according to all contemporary accounts. Not only that, but the building they were in was specifically affected by occupying forces after each invasion, according to the published memoirs of Krushelnytska's niece. This is purely a historical account about established events, so I continue to be puzzled at this deletion of this from the article. (A more sappier, non-encyclopedic biography would probably point out that the subject would go on to perform at the Metropolitan where said opera star never got to perform despite the invitation by Toscanini, or that the subject's debuts came coincidentally in Puccini operas, with whom the opera star had a close relationship.)

After some of the information I added to the article began to be deleted, I stopped editing to step back from the subject and look at it anew in the spirit of WP:AGF and to ask others what I was missing. I am particularly sensitive to bias against Eastern Europeans and the reduction of their centuries of tragic history by western audiences, so I wanted to make sure that I wasn't getting my hackles up too quickly. Please accept these notes in a spirit of collaboration, and I would welcome your responses. tufkaa (talk) 21:19, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

He is not notable for having survived in Poland during a horrendous period of history. Millions of people survived similarly, and millions did not even survive. Hundreds of thousands of people all over Europe lived in buildings partially occupied by invading armies. Everyone who survived the period obviously considered it a milestone in their life . The memorial literature is enormous. The details belong in a family memorial, not in WP. You should consider whether you are too close to the subject to see it in proportion. DGG ( talk ) 02:16, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for responding, DGG. I'd love to hear more thoughts on the matter from others. While I continue to WP:AGF, I wanted to politely share that your tone comes across as dismissive in some of the communication you've had with me thus far. I hope that my tone has not come across that way. That being said, perhaps there is a policy guideline on World War II that I'm missing. I'm willing to listen to your take on established guidelines, but so far your explanations are coming across as subjective. If "notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article" perhaps what you meant is that including this historical reference is an example of WP:UNDUE? If so, I'd like to understand more, as this would apply to any future editting on my part. With regards, tufkaa (talk) 18:52, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

yes, UNDUE is the relevant guideline--see also WP:EINSTEIN. DGG ( talk ) 19:33, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• This just to say that I agree with Voceditenore's edits. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 00:50, 4 August 2016 (UTC)