Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 101

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Calling all Australians

I've just found a considerable number of articles relating to Matthew Dewey (as well as his own article) that have been created (or heavily edited) over the years by the same editor. I've been busily cleaning the copyvio out of them. I can't find any sources to support notability for several of them, although Dewey himself might just scrape by if non-primary sources can be found. He's a 26 year old opera composer and singer from Tasmania. Anyone out there who's heard of and/or has references for him or any of the following?

• Hobart Chamber Orchestra (commissioned a symphonic suite from him)
• Nicholas Dewey (his brother who writes poetry that he sets to music)
• The Priest's Passion (his one-scene "chamber opera")
• Tasmanian Composers Collective (he's the founder, but the article is very problematic. See Talk:Tasmanian Composers Collective)
• Robert Jarman (directed another of Dewey's operas). Might scrape by notability-wise but the referencing is very poor.

– Voceditenore (talk) 17:58, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I managed to miss this, till now. I ain't heard nuffink about this guy, ever. Tasmanian Composers Collective rings a vague bell. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 10:00, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Operas by world premiere location

Having noticed that there was a category for operas that premiered at the Met, I created a few more such categories and started populating them; they're now all under Category:Operas by world premiere location. Want to help out? Think it's a bad idea? Other thoughts? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:11, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I think it's a great idea; interesting category. (Quick trivia question: which standard-repertory opera received its world premiere in a Rocky Mountain town which now has only 515 inhabitants?) Antandrus (talk) 00:33, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

And the answer is... The Ballad of Baby Doe. :-) You've inspired me to put my Sills CD on. I like the cat too!4meter4 (talk) 00:36, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

That didn't take long -- lol. I should ask a harder one ... Antandrus (talk) 00:38, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Lol. Well consider your audience on this page. I've got one for you. This Met premiere features a libretto that was completed without a composer in mind. The work is set in 17th century Massachusetts, is loosely based on a story by Hawthorne, and concerns Puritan fanaticism, sexual obsession, and demonology.4meter4 (talk) 00:46, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I could be way off here, but is it The Garden of Mystery by Charles Wakefield Cadman? Not sure if it was done at the Met. Antandrus (talk) 00:58, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Nope. I'll give you two hints. First, we have a substantial wiki article on the opera (see Category:Metropolitan Opera world premieres). Second, it's based on a short story in Twice-Told Tales.4meter4 (talk) 01:44, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh heavens. Merry Mount, of course. I even know this piece. Antandrus (talk) 01:53, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Now you got it. :-)4meter4 (talk) 06:47, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

So...want to help me out a bit? :) Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 07:34, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Who forbids it? :-} --Smerus (talk) 08:46, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Related question: I'm having a bit of trouble with the Opéra-Comique premieres because of the several mergers that happened. I think it's fairly clear that performances at T. Feydeau after the merger are "Opéra-Comique premieres," ditto Comédie-Italienne, but what about before? Same category because of the later merger? Different category as a subcategory of "Opéra-Comique premieres"? Different category altogether? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:03, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

It's a real headache. At least it makes my head ache. ;-) Presumably these categories are for the company/institution rather than the specific theatre? In which case, I would think that you're right, except that now the Opéra-Comique article says that it is both a theatre and company (implying that it it still is) and then goes on to say that the theatre is now part of the Paris Opera! According to their website, they were for a while, and then got their independence back in 1990. [1] Also it seems that the theatre was used by the Paris Opera at times and that in turn the Opéra-Comique sometimes used the Théâtre du Châtelet. Groan. Anyhow, today they produce their own operas, but they don't have a resident orchestra or chorus. By the way, I thinks the new cats are a great idea. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 19:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest putting the premieres at the Théâtre Feydeau before the merger into a different category altogether. After all, the two companies were rivals during this period. It wouldn't be right to lump them together, or the Feydeau as a subcategory of the O-C. Regarding the Opéra-Comique and the Opéra, the relationship is not always very clear. The O-C seems to have had differing degrees of independence, sometimes mostly independent, but still administratively (formally speaking) under the Opéra. --Robert.Allen (talk) 06:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I am surprised to hear the O-C used the Théâtre du Châtelet. When was that? If it's since 1972, it's not covered by Wild & Charlton. According to that book the O-C used the Théâtre Lyrique on the Place du Châtelet ca. 1887–1898. Is that what you are thinking of? Or is it more recent. --Robert.Allen (talk) 06:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Since the main category name "Operas by world premiere location" does not apply very well to the subcategories for Paris, where it is more by company rather than location, we might consider making a subcategory "Opera world premieres in Paris", sorted under "P". (Or should it be "Opera world premieres in France"?) This is such a different word order from the other subcats that it would be very clear that it includes all the different companies, rather than just those of the Paris Opera. ("Parisian opera world premieres" might be too confusing.) Then "Paris Opera world premieres", "Opéra-Comique world premieres", "Théâtre Lyrique world premieres", etc, etc could all be subcategories in the "Opera world premieres in Paris" subcategory. --Robert.Allen (talk) 08:37, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Hiba Tawaji

Another singer of questionable notability. Should we take this to AFD?4meter4 (talk) 01:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Did someone already try to PROD it? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:50, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

We could try a PROD first. It's looks like an AfD candidate, but she does claim to have sung lead roles in in a couple of Lebanese musicals. There's this if you google her in Arabic. The translation is pretty garbled, but it seems that these shows might be part of a "star academy" set-up not "real" shows. Voceditenore (talk) 06:23, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I have never put up a prod before. I put up an unreferenced blp prod but it was removed by the editor (although they did add some sources of questionable note). What now?4meter4 (talk) 00:12, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

• I think there is probably enough there now to scrape a pass at AfD, alas. I'd just leave it be. She's not an opera singer anyway. I'm going to banner it with the Bio and Lebanon projects and let them worry about it.;-) Voceditenore (talk) 16:54, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
  • This seems like the best approach. --Robert.Allen (talk) 21:35, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Main page to potentially include sound

Given that there are a few opera featured sounds, I thought project members might be interested in commenting at Talk:Main Page#Featured sounds vote.4meter4 (talk) 07:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Update: Discussion closed with consensus to trial a Featured Sound section on the Main page starting in March. Voceditenore (talk) 16:45, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Categorizing Metastasio

There currently exists a category Category:Libretti by Metastasio, but not all operas to libretti by Metastasio are categorized there. Is this just an oversight? Should every opera with a libretto by Metastasio be categorized there? Or should the category be just for libretti, if such a thing is possible, and operas can be in a subcat "Operas with libretti by Metastasio" or something like that? (For reference, the other librettist categories are applied directly to the operas.) I definitely think they should be categorized together in some way. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:14, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

The subcategory you suggest "Operas with libretti by Metastasio" sounds reasonable and useful. --Robert.Allen (talk) 07:44, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Category:Libretti by Metastasio is what it says - each of the articles that I've just looked at is about a libretto written by him and not about an opera. Most of the articles include lists of operas which use the libretto in question. I'm dubious about a category "Operas with libretti by Metastasio - the List of opera librettists has a Metastasio section which could be expanded. --GuillaumeTell 12:02, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I've never understood when one should use a category vs. a list. In general, I try to avoid categories on Wikipedia, except for adding already existing ones to new articles. I find categories confusing, and they seem to be somewhat more controversial than lists. You can end up doing a lot of work that is then undone by other editors. (Maybe that's because of inexperience!) --Robert.Allen (talk) 05:40, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Categories are basically wikipedia's answer to an index for an online encyclopedia. It's a helpful search tool which helps organize articles. Categories are a tool to aid searches but are not intended to be informative. List's on the otherhand are intended to be informative. Lists organize content in a more detailed way than categories can. In addition to being informative, lists may also act as a search aid. For example List of operas by Handel provides a detailed overview of Handel's operas whereas Category:Operas by George Frideric Handel is merely a search aid. Both are useful in my opinion.4meter4 (talk) 21:15, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! That seems like a pretty good explanation. I will come to you the next time I think about creating a new category. --Robert.Allen (talk) 05:09, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Eugene/Yevgeny Onegin

I know that historically Onegin has been called Eugene Onegin in the English-speaking countries. (Was this in the same way that Queen of Spades was called Pique Dame?) In my own experience of what is current in the UK, the habit is to call it Yevgney Onegin. Firstly, does anyone find this also to be the case? Secondly, how would we go about assessing current usage? The standard translation used in the UK, by Lloyd-Jones, uses "Yevgeny" throughout. For what its worth, to my eye, Eugene Onegin looks outdated; if its shown that current usage is Yevgeny correct, should the page be renamed? almost-instinct 11:55, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

In writing about the opera itself and at opera houses, including the Met [2] and the ROH [3], it's called Eugene Onegin, unless it's being performed by the Bolshoi when it's sometimes called Yevgeny. Compare Google News: Yevgeny and Eugene. Google web: Yevgeny 15,000, Eugene 169,000. I wouldn't monkey with its current title frankly. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 12:31, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I had no intention of monkeying with anything! almost-instinct 12:39, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I didn't mean you personally, I meant the OP collectively :-) Voceditenore (talk) 12:44, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

This discussion reminds me of Le nozze (above), difference: for the Russian we need to have a transcription anyway unless we use Russian letters, whereas Le nozze di Figaro is the original title, announced (to my knowledge) like that even if it's not an Italian company's production. (But how would Google know?) - Please explain the term 'monkey', if you don't mind teaching me. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:53, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

And another indicator that I must be living in some Yevgeny ghetto: Names of Onegin DVDs sold by Amazon.co.uk ;-) almost-instinct 13:02, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

PS Monkey almost-instinct 14:25, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

DVDs: that's plenty "current" for an old monkey like me... --Robert.Allen (talk) 04:59, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Maria Ferrante

This article is being discussed for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Maria Ferrante. – Voceditenore (talk) 19:36, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Operawalker

May I draw attention to the conversation at WPSpam about Operawalker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam) going on here? Cheers, almost-instinct 12:23, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I've responded to the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Opera recordings but basically, although spammy the edits are useful. Operajumper and Operawalker are clearly connected to the record company Dynamic. Operajumper recently created the article for the company originally under the article title "DYNAMIC" and it looked like this when I found it. I re-wrote and referenced it and moved it to Dynamic (record label). Annoying as the original mess article was, this is actually (now) a useful article. It's a very well known record label, particularly in Italy but also elsewhere. They specialise in rarely recorded operas and have made several world premiere recordings (both cd and dvd) and have received several awards. The later spamming by Operawalker to Recordings sections and opera discographies has at times been very annoying, as he/she doesn't pipe the links and was creating loads of inappropriate red links too. Having said that, I have re-added the two recordings that were removed as spam because they are valuable additions to articles which had no recordings listed at all. The Recordings sections consisted entirely of an external link to the listing on Opera-dis. I'm slowly fixing these. Sections should not consist solely of an external link. If they are empty, then they should be removed and Opera-dis moved to an external links section. If they do contain recordings then Opera-dis should appear as inline cite using <ref></ref>. Voceditenore (talk) 08:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Tom Sutcliffe

Does anyone know if this article is confusing two people or not? Is the journalist the same person as the opera critic/countertenor?4meter4 (talk) 21:30, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

This source seems to indicate that they are the same person. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:33, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

They are very definitely not the same person. In my Who's Who in British Opera by Nicky Adam (1993), Tom Sutcliffe (critic and counter-tenor) was born on 4 June 1943 in Norwich. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford (1960-63), managed Musica Reservata (1965-71), was a counter-tenor in Westminster Cathedral choir (1966-70), worked for Music & Musicians (1975-87), was music, opera and theatre critic for Vogue, worked for The Guardian (1973-1996) and also wrote for Opera News.

He's also written Believing in Opera (Faber, 1996), where the blurb says that he appeared as Ottone in Poppea for Darmstadt Opera in 1970. In 1996 he became opera critic for the Evening Standard and (I think) still is.

--GuillaumeTell 22:15, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

And the other things are the other Tom Sutcliffe? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:19, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks like it. Refs 1, 2 and 3 are the broadcaster and journalist, ref 4 is the critic, as is ref 5. The whole of the first para of the WP article is about the broadcaster; the second para is mostly about the critic, except for the bit about studying English at Cambridge. --GuillaumeTell 22:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Much, much more about Tom Sutcliffe the critic on his blog here. Scroll down to the bottom for his autobiography and the before 'n after pictures.--GuillaumeTell 22:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

GuillaumeTell, would you mind seperating the content into 2 articles, one on each individual? That would be very helpful and much appriciated.4meter4 (talk) 00:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for my mistake above. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:52, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

No problem! And Faber themselves actually mixed up the two of them by putting the broadcaster's book on the opera critic's page. I've now separated them, in a rather rough-and-ready manner, into Tom Sutcliffe (broadcaster) and Tom Sutcliffe (opera critic), and they're both to be found at Tom Sutcliffe. I'll do some tweaking tomorrow. However, if you click Thomas Sutcliffe and then "What links here", there are masses of links that need to be reallocated, most of them to the broadcaster but some are MPs and suchlike. I've done some, but if anyone has any free time, be my guest, as I'm off to bed. I'll do some more tomorrow morning if there are any left. --GuillaumeTell 01:53, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks GuillaumeTell for sorting out this tangle. I'll try and fix some of the incoming links.4meter4 (talk) 04:23, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

And thanks to you for a) first raising the problem and b) fixing nearly all of the links and the dab page. I've done a bit of tidying and added another redlinked Thomas Sutcliffe (who seems to have had an exciting life) to the latter. --GuillaumeTell 16:38, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Le dernier sorcier

Bet most of you have never heard of this opera by Viardot/Turgenev. I've been sitting on it for nearly a year, and I need to get it out, so I created a page. Anyone wanting to revise is welcome. -- kosboot (talk) 04:40, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Composer navbox - links to complete lists of operas/operettas

I recently added a link to List of operettas by Offenbach to the list title for Template:Offenbach operas, but it was removed, since it has not previously been our practice. Composer navboxes only contain the operas which already have an article in the Wikipedia, so a link in the navboxes to a complete list of operas would facilitate finding the many excellent pages starting with the title "List of operas by". Currently these can be a bit difficult to navigate to using the Wikipedia "Search" box. I generally end up clicking on the link at the top of the navbox to the composer's bio and then searching that page for the link to the list of operas by that composer. Typically that is lower down on the composer page, and the section heading under which it will appear is not always totally clear. In any case, finding the list page seems to involve multiple steps or a lot of typing. A link like this doesn't seem to detract from the layout of the navbox and would certainly add to its navigational utility. I suggest it should be allowed. --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:26, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

It's difficult for me to give any sort of feedback without actually seeing the proposed change in use. Could you perhaps create a template for us on one of your sandbox pages so we can actually see it. Best.4meter4 (talk) 20:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Check Euphrosine. This link has not yet been removed. --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:58, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I can see how this would be useful and can't forsee see any potential problems. You have my support.4meter4 (talk) 21:03, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I've looked at Euphrosine, where there's a wikilink saying "Operas" alongside a wikilink saying "show" - rather confusing. "Operas" leads to a completely different page ("List of operas by...") whereas "show" expands the navbox to show which operas have a WP article. This isn't self-explanatory by any means. I can see the point of the extra link, but what you'll get if you click which link should be made clearer. My three ha'pence. --GuillaumeTell 22:22, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

When the cursor hovers over the "v", "d", and "e", some help text pops up. Would it be possible to add popup help text for the "show" link, such as, "Show/hide links to articles on operas by this composer"? --Robert.Allen (talk) 22:46, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

An alternative to linking the list title might be to add the link to the bottom of the list. See here. This is not perfect, but perhaps it avoids the confusion generated by linking the list title to the list of operas page. --Robert.Allen (talk) 23:14, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

That looks OK on first sight. Here's the permanent link since the sandbox is cleared every 12 hours:[4]. I can see the value of having a link to the full list but not where it was. My other concern with the original edits was the use of *Operas and Operettas" as the heading for Offenbach. It looked like this: [5]. 1. It's so long that ot runs into the "show" link and 2. in the past we haven't distinguished them on the basis that operettas were operas, just a sub-genre e.g. Template:Lehár operas. There may be a better way of doing it, if people think it would be a good idea, by separating out the genres like Template:Handel or Template:Rossini operas. By the way the deletion discussion notice for that template was not put there by the opera project. Grrrrrr. ;-) Voceditenore (talk) 06:38, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Operas vs. operettas is really a different issue. I only modified the title trying to follow the principle of least surprise in making the link to List of operettas by Offenbach, but I really have no problem with leaving the list title as "Operas". And you're right, the longer title takes up too much space. --Robert.Allen (talk) 08:25, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't prefer putting the links to the "List of operas by..." articles at the bottom of the list. Having the link at the top without having to expand the list is a lot handier. For those of us who use these all the time, it would probably quickly become intuitive, but for occasional users, perhaps it could be a problem. Whatever we do decide to do, it obviously needs to be consistent. --Robert.Allen (talk) 08:25, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Of the two options, I prefer by far the one integrated into the list title, as in {{Méhul operas}}, but I also see the validity of counter arguments raised here (confusion between "[Show]" and the linked term "Operas").

(deep breath) I also have some sympathy for the bottom/horizontal navigation box based on {{Navbox}} or its siblings. That kind of box lends itself much better to customization through parameters like |above=, |below= and, where required, its grouping mechanism. Its use would also, quelle horreur, open the top right corner of opera articles to info boxes. If we had a well designed such box, the recent exercise of categorising Operas by world premiere location could have been done by a bot, I believe. Other Wikipedias have such boxes, e.g. de:Vorlage:Infobox Oper or it:Template:Opera. I know that info boxes are not looked upon kindly around here, and I have removed a fair number of disinfoboxes from biographical articles myself – so this is merely food for thought, ready to be dismissed without further deliberation if it offends the esteemed assembly (he said and hastened to duck and cover). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:17, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I have to confess that I have some sympathy with that view too, believe it or not, and I'm certainly open to discussing this more. In fact I was the one who made the horizontal Rossini template when we were thinking about this before [6]. I just don't want our current Template:Rossini operas summarily deleted at the TfD right now for the silliest of reasons, leaving 41 articles to fix in a hurry and out of synch with all the rest until we've had a chance to think it through. Like you, I find that these vertical boxes do tend to "hog" the spot in the upper right hand corner which could be better used in some cases. As for the opera infoboxes, I'm not opposed to those in principle, although some of them like the Italian one are I think over the top, cramming half the article into it. I used the play infobox when I wrote La Tosca (Sardou's play) and I think it looks quite nice, but that's also because it's quite a long article. In short articles, they can interfere quite badly with the layout/images, the main reason we went to the collapsible navbox in the first place. Voceditenore (talk) 14:33, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I realize this discussion is now a bit off-topic, but I'll add some more, for what it's worth. I feel changing the current system of a navbox in the upper right is almost unthinkable (probably because I like it so much where it is). One way to create more space for more images is to expand the articles. Then more images can be added lower down. I find that a more satisfactory solution. (Carmen is a good example.) But maybe for a composer like Handel or Donizetti, this can be more difficult because the expanded list is so long! (It's too bad the images get pushed down rather than moved to the left of the list box. Wikipedia layout options seem to be somewhat limited, or at least advanced layout is beyond most of us editors.) An alternative might be to get rid of the expandable list for these composers, and just provide a link to the "List of operas by..." page. That would also avoid the problem of the possible confusion between the link and the "[show/hide]" toggle button, although the more I think about the latter, the less important that seems to me. The link to the "List of operas by..." has a popup with the name of the target page; it's the "[show/hide]" button that lacks a popup. In any case, a lot of web page "actions" (links, buttons, etc) are at first confusing until one has tried them. The "v • d • e" buttons are an example, and although they do at least have popup help text, it is a bit difficult to position the cursor over them to display it. --Robert.Allen (talk) 09:21, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

• I don't think it would be practical to start changing the navboxes to horizontal and ditto developing an opera infobox. There are just too many current navboxes that would have to be changed, not to mention the time-sink involved in developing and agreeing on an opera infobox, for not much gain in terms of actually improving articles themselves. Perhaps our grandchildren will get round to it. But... I would like us to get back to discussing the business about linking the heading 'Operas' in these navboxes to List of operas by X. This really ought to be consistent so can we have opinions on these four possibilities please. Voceditenore (talk) 18:11, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Navbox options

Option 1. No link to the complete list anywhere in the navbox, the status quo

Option 2. Linking the heading 'Operas' to the complete List of operas by that composer as in the current Template:Méhul operas

• This seems to me the most elegant and least intrusive method. If this is not feasible because of multiple such entries or more complicated wording, I'd prefer the |below= solution. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:10, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Option 3. No link on 'Operas' but link to the List of operas as the final bullet inside the navbox as in this version of Template:Mehul operas

Option 4. No link on 'Operas' but link to the List of operas as an italicised See also inside the navbox (at the end) as in this version of Template:Mehul operas

Option 5. A link in the "below" section to "Table of all Xcomposer operas" as in this version of Template:Mehul operas

• Comments: In theory, I'm in favour of including the list if it is clear what's going on. So no (for now) to Option 1. Option 2: I'm against it, as it's insufficiently clear - if one clicks on "Operas", why should one notice that there's also another list, accessed by clicking "show", that shows all the operas which have WP articles. Option 3 looks better but rather odd to me, given that all the bullets above are individual operas - people might think "isn't the list what's above here?". So I'd go for Option 4, but would prefer a more explicit (but less concise) see also link, such as "See also: Complete list of Méhul's operas". --GuillaumeTell 18:51, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
• Options 2 or 4. I'm OK with either of these, although (of course) I still favor Option 2. Options 3 and 4 are more cumbersome. I would rather have a link than not, so I oppose Option 1. --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:04, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
• Option 4. Option 2 is just to confusing/contradictory. Three is also a bit confusing. And I agree with GuillaumeTell re using See also: Complete list of Méhul's operas. Voceditenore (talk) 17:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
  • NOTE:. Someone did this to the Handel template, yesterday. I removed the icons, which are hideous, uninformative, visual clutter, in my humble opinion. ;-). I left the actual links, but why on earth does the category need to be listed all over again in the navbox? Voceditenore (talk) 17:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I looked at Template:Composer navbox but I do not see any documentation of the "below" option. Would it be possible to add a link below the expandable list something like this or labelled as a table? (I realize the current "below" option is not quite suitable, but just to give the idea.) Also, I'm not proposing this for all opera composer navboxes. For instance, for Handel almost all works have articles, so a link to the list pages is not needed nearly so much, and would clutter up his navbox. But for composers like Méhul, who composed lots of operas for which we have only a few articles, this could be very handy. Also in his case, it would not be cluttering up the navbox. --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:54, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Like you say, a link to the category might well be rather redundant, so maybe it should say Table of all operas, or something like that. --Robert.Allen (talk) 21:21, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

• As you can see, I've added a 5th option above for the "below" solution. I have to say that I am quite opposed to 2. It is very confusing to the casual reader, even if some of us know what it means and there's no way to fix it that isn't cumbersome, inelegant, and will run over one line for composers with long names. Option 5, the "below" solution, is OK-ish, although I still vastly prefer 4 as the least confusing to the reader and least obtrusive. If we do decide on 5 as a solution, again I think there is a possibility of confusing the reader, unless we specify the composer's name. Table of all operas leads the reader to assume that it's a table of literally all operas. I do think the use of the word "Table" is preferable to "List", as it makes a bit clearer (although not completely clear) the difference between what's in the navbox and what's in the... er... table. But my own view is that clarity for the reader should always take precedence over convenience for editors. Voceditenore (talk) 14:25, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
  • For me, either 4 or 5 would be OK, provided we can agree on the wording. Option 4 is OK more or less as is - the user clicks "Show" and gets all the operas in WP and simultaneously (as Voce suggest), a "See also: Table of all Méhul operas". In Option 5, I suggest that, instead of just "Operas" below the image, we could have "Operas in Wikipedia", with "Table of all Méhul operas" where it is now, leaving the user to click whichever they prefer. --GuillaumeTell
    • Wikipedia articles aren't supposed to be self-referential, i.e. mention Wikipedia itself. I suppose something like "Méhul opera articles" instead of "Operas" beneath the image would serve a similar purpose. But the main reason we went to the collapsible navbox in the first place was precisely to stop it from eating into the page space and restricting the format of images and text. Now they're getting bigger and wordier again. Yes a link to the full list of operas is useful, but why does it have to be at the cost of a biggish extra chunk pasted onto the outside of the navbox + a wordy caption beneath the picture which will vary from navbox to navbox, when a See also complete list of operas by X (without a bullet) at the end of the collapsed list would serve the purpose just as well, in fact better? Voceditenore (talk) 17:06, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
      • Semi-jocular footnote to the above: if Wikipedia articles aren't self-referential, what is Wikipedia? --GuillaumeTell 00:16, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
    • I prefer Option 4. It's the cleanest and least confusing. --Folantin (talk) 17:57, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
    • If we were to decide on Option 5, do we really need the word "all"? I like using the word "Table" because it makes it clear there is more information than just a list of operas. But if we use Option 4 with "See also:" then I think we should use the article name as done in the example. (I'm at a loss to explain why I prefer that!). I mainly would like a link for certain composers, i.e., those who composed many operas for which we do not have articles. I would suggest that adding the link be optional and not required, and obviously there has to be a target List page, which is not always the case. Of course that might lead to lots of individual discussions over particular composer navboxes, but that might happen anyway (Handel is a good example) and would keep us talking to one another. Perhaps Option 4 is the least controversial suggestion, so I am now leaning toward 4, although I do like 5 in the case of Méhul, where there is not much else in that part of the navbox. There are certainly lots of options to consider, but not many editors are chiming in. Maybe it's not something people really care a lot about one way or the other. --Robert.Allen (talk) 04:44, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
      • Actually 4 editors commenting and expressing a preference is pretty good. Since Option 4 seems to be the one that 3 out of 4 agree would be acceptable, and 2 actively prefer, we should go with this. I'm really loathe for these navboxes to start getting externally bigger and bigger and for their format to randomly differ. I'm going to add the following to Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera#Navigation box templates:

When not all of a composer's operas have articles, it can be helpful to include a link in the navbox to the complete list of their operas, if one is available. See Template:Méhul operas for an example.

OK? Voceditenore (talk) 21:20, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

This sounds good to me and brings some closure. If other editors discover they now have other opinions, it will serve as a basis for further discussion. In the meantime, we will a guideline for how to proceed. Thanks! --Robert.Allen (talk) 03:28, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Fine by me. --GuillaumeTell 10:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

YouTube spamming?

YouTube seems to have a new feature - an "artist identity" with a brief biography and links to all videos of them on YouTube. Here's an example. However, these are not the same as official YouTube channels run by an artist, recording company, or operahouse, e.g. this one, and the vast majority of videos are pirate/copyvios. Two new editors, [7] and [8] have added these to hundreds of articles at a furious pace, including many for opera singers and one has even made several templates for adding them, e.g. [9]. In my view these should be reverted per WP:ELNEVER. I've asked advice from Moonriddengirl, who's an expert on copyright issues. If I hear back that my view is right, I'm going to start reverting. Voceditenore (talk) 08:54, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I have put this template up for speedy delete See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 March 7#Template:YouTube artist.Moxy (talk) 09:19, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

March OoM and CoM

Cripes! Despite my best intentions, March is 2 days away. Here's what I did, pending anyone suggesting something else:

I held over the anniversary boys at CoM, as we could use more articles, and I'd like to write a couple of them. I spent my time this month considerably expanding Henri Desmarets (whose life was like a soap opera) but didn't get time to do any of his operas, although 4meter4 did one for us. (Thanks!).

For the OoM, I selected several completely unreferenced opera articles to be sourced, including two by Rossini and one by Glinka. See:

• Composer of the Month for March
• Operas of the Month for March

Voceditenore (talk) 17:32, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good voced. Thanks for keeping the project running on task each month. I wanted to try and knock out one more from the list too, but issues at DYK and helping with Rinaldo/related articles had monopolized my time this month. Keeping the list up for March will be a help. If you could let me know which operas you want to do that would be good; that way I can focus my efforts elsewhere. I really just pulled together some basic material for Didon, but there is enough online references out there to improve the article much further. If anyone cares to help expand Didon that would be great!4meter4 (talk) 23:22, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking of picking up the slack towards the end of this month. So just list here what one(s) you are planning to do (this applies to everybody who's thinking of working on any of these) and I'll work on a couple that are left. Voceditenore (talk) 09:03, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

French capitalisation

Kleinzach said on my Talk page:

I note your comment here. This is an issue that will never go away, but some people have been saying that the guideline (Wikipedia:WPO#Operas:_original_language_titles) is hard to find, presumably because the heading refers to titles, rather than capitalization. Is this something your group might consider fixing to give the rule more prominence?

I think this is a good point. Any suggestions? --GuillaumeTell 11:21, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps rename that subsection (currently Operas: original language titles) to Operas: capitalisation and diacritics. It would be a lot clearer and that's what it's about. Note that this is a subsection of Article titles which is in turn a subsection of Article guidelines, so repeating "titles" in the heading isn't necessary.

I'm very much in favour of changing it, but be warned, it won't make the problem go away, especially re French titles. In fact, in one such episode a capitalisation maven found the guideline and edited it to suit his view [10]. Another found the guideline just fine and promptly slapped a {{disputedtag}} on it. [11]. Voceditenore (talk) 14:07, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Operas: capitalisation and diacritics looks good to me, even though we all know that the problem won't go away (any more than the date of Shakespeare's birth or the number of "c"s in Gioachino will go away). --GuillaumeTell 21:41, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Not to mention Ruggiero/Ruggero Leoncavallo. Since this seems an uncontroversial change, I'm going to go ahead and do it. It will also make it easier for OP members to find the guideline. Voceditenore (talk) 11:57, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Rather annoyingly, it's now a little difficult to check what the guidelines actually say, as all of the previous links to them are now broken. Pardon my ignorance, but is it possible to remap the original wording to the new Wikipedia:WPO#Operas:_capitalisation and diacritics text so that any past links will continue to function? Incidentally, I'd have to side with the French [12] on this, and say that the English WP guidelines for French titles are in fact wrong (Grove may be an authority on music, but not on language!). Scarabocchio (talk) 12:15, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I feared this might happen, but there is no way I know of to check for incoming links to a section. Where did you find a broken link? Anyway, I have now added an {{Anchor}} with the old section header, so Wikipedia:WPO#Operas: original language titles should work again. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:40, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Excellent! Examples of (formerly) broken links were the talk page referenced from the word 'here' in the first sentence, and the link to the guideline 'original language titles' in the second sentence of this section. These both now go to a rational target. Thanks! Scarabocchio (talk) 15:28, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

"...a capitalisation maven found the guideline and edited it to suit his view [13]". As it says on that change log entry, this is not his personal view, but that of the Académie française. French is NOT capitalised the same way as Italian .. why not capitalise French as the French do, eg: Catégorie:Opéra du XXe siècle? Scarabocchio (talk) 16:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

We've already been through this in the archives (look it up in the index). To summarise: there is no one single system of French capitalisation, but several; Wikipedia.en currently follows one of these - the easiest to understand - as used by reliable sources such as Grove, Viking Opera Guide etc. ; French Wikipedia is not even consistent in following the Académie system of capitalisation; changing the capitalisation of English Wikipedia's French opera titles to a different system would take a great deal of effort and cause a great deal of confusion (fixing redirects etc.) for little appreciable benefit. --Folantin (talk) 17:03, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In short, Scarabocchio, because we capitalise French titles the way they are captitalised in all major English language reference works on opera, not just Grove, the way they are capitalised in all the major English language publishers' style sheets, and the way they are capitalised by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, which also uses "sentence capitalisation style". Past discussions are here, here, and most recently here. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 17:22, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Voceditenore, for taking the time to provide the links. This is a full order of magnitude more useful (and more friendly) than the aggressive and pointless RTFMS comments that almost permanently put me off contributing when I first came here (and I DON'T mean you). I see that most of the arguments have already been run through, so I will retire from the fray after pointing out a possible way of reducing the chances of future re-runs. Firstly, the BnF pages that you have linked to are not a dependable indication of the rules or usages -- a very quick skim shows a half dozen inconsistencies in various languages which would not be acceptable to WP ("White lake", "I Lombardi alla prima crociata", "Scarborough fair" etc), so we cannot assume that humans were involved in capitalisation decisions on this data. Drop this as a prop. You have a much stronger argument with the 'this is the form used by many of the major English language sources', so make this the main plank of the guidelines explicitly. Strengthen this phrase, and cut the "title is capitalized as it would be in a sentence in that language" phrase. It may not completely stop the subject being raised by francophones in the future, but it does give you a way of shortening the dialogue. Over and out. Scarabocchio (talk) 22:39, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Fictional opera characters: time for a list?

Some time ago, I created List of historical opera characters, because it seemed to plug a gap. Now, it seems we need a similar list for fictional characters. I'm forever coming across articles (on WP and elsewhere) about singers whose main roles are listed, but often the operas in which these roles appear are not mentioned, and the reader is somehow just expected to know. It's the cognoscenti writing for the cognoscenti, and it has all the hallmarks of snobbery – which is 180 degrees away from what WP is all about.

A case in point: I'm in the midst of writing an article on Amy Shuard: various sources tell me she made her debut in Johannesburg, singing Aida, Venus and Giulietta in her first season. Well, I know who Aida is; and I could guess that Giulietta is from The Tales of Hoffmann, and I've found a source verifying that. But who the heck is Venus? John Blow and Hans-Werner Henze (and probably others) wrote a Venus and Adonis, but I can hardly imagine any of those operas being performed in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1949. Further searching tells me of the existence of a Venus in Wagner's Tannhäuser, so that's probably it. I know a fair bit about opera but I'm not a Wagnerian's bootlace (obviously), so that wouldn't have occurred to me. There's no place I can go to on WP that lists all the operatic Venuses and in which operas they appear. Venus (disambiguation) doesn't tell me, even though it has sections called Music, and Fictional characters.

Wouldn't it be good to have a single list of these characters, so that when I see a reference to a "Leonora" or an "Alfredo", for example, I can go straight there and see the multitude of possibilities, rather than having to find the disambiguation page for each separate name and hope to find the details there. It's a very hit-and-miss affair at the moment.

I'm prepared to make a start if others are prepared to also assist (as they have on the Historical characters list), because there are likely to be thousands of names. But I certainly don't want us reinventing the wheel here, and if there's already a handy external list we can link to that's comprehensive, accurate and kept up to date, so much the better.

Ideas, anyone? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:29, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I think such a list would be impossible to maintain at a sufficient level of quality. People writing articles on singers just need to get used to wikilinking the opera titles when they mention roles - or even better, naming the opera in the article text! Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:06, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Jack's sentiment writing "thousands of names" and Roscelese: too big. As for the linking: identical links to the proposed list for every role in a singer's repertoire don't seem helpful to me. As Roscelese remarks, the proper linking is part of the author's job or later editors of such lists. Nevertheless, the articles on names, like Venus (disambiguation), should indeed include these role names; Mimi (given name) does that well with a link to Mimì (La bohème) which redirects to La bohème#Roles.
PS: IMO, Venus without further detail can only refer to Tannhäuser. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:32, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree on your last point. :) Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 07:37, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Which exactly demonstrates what I was talking about above. Those who know the character will happily agree among themselves that a reference to Venus can safely be taken as a reference to Tannhäuser, unless otherwise indicated. But those who don't know can arrive at no such conclusion, without some extra work, because they're not members of the club. They have to go googling, or searching, or asking a friend, or looking the name up in some reference book or List of Operatic Characters. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 09:02, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Since most opera characters are "fictional" rather than historical, this list would be almost infinite. Just cataloguing all the appearances of Venus (and other Classical gods) in Baroque opera would take pages and pages. --Folantin (talk) 09:44, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I was just about to say the same thing, not mention the Armida's and Dido's. If you're talking about a mention of Venus in a Wikipedia opera bio, all the editor in the article has to do and always should do is pipe Venus to Tannhäuser (opera)#Roles or to Venus and Adonis (opera)#roles. By the way, this is in the project guidelines. Why should the reader have go to a list, scroll down it, and then find the possibilities? That's equally time consuming and still doesn't solve the problem of which Venus is being referred to. If another editor comes upon an article and wants to fix the problem and there are no contextual cues, i.e. mention of Bayreuth, the only way to do it is to do a bit of research via the references or googling and then pipe to the correct opera. Voceditenore (talk) 10:07, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Fine, fanks for your feedback, folks.  :) PS. I wonder how well this book is selling these days. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 08:49, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Monica Yunus at AFD

Members may wish to comment here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Monica Yunus.4meter4 (talk) 01:42, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Finale (disambiguation)

There were several pages on works or composers that linked to the page Finale. That page is a disambiguation page. It currently includes definitions of finale in classical music, opera, and musical theatre, but none of the linked pages describe or define finale. As such, MOS:DAB suggests that they should not be included on the page.

Is there a better page for the DAB to point to? Should incoming links to the page be redirected to Wiktionary:finale? Or should they simply be removed? I have opted for the last, removing internal links from La romanzesca e l'uomo nero, Matilde di Shabran, Ivan Susanin, The Scottsboro Boys (musical), and Taualuga, as well as non-music-related pages Rozen Maiden and It's Tough to Be a Bug!. I would welcome a better solution, though. Cnilep (talk) 02:48, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

The best solution would be an article entitled Finale. Grove Opera devotes two and a bit pages to the subject, so there's plenty of scope. Then the rest of the Finale page could be renamed over the redirect as [[Finale (disambiguation)]]. --GuillaumeTell 11:50, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Further discussion is at Talk:Finale#Definitions. Cnilep (talk) 22:29, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Unreferenced blps

Here are two unreferenced blps within our scope if anyone cares to save them: Claudia Pop, Grażyna Brodzińska. Best.4meter4 (talk) 02:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I've asked a couple of experienced BLP people and they say that in terms of an unreferenced BLP, the general interpretation (for better or worse) is that a link to their website does not make them unsourced and thus a {{BLPPROD}} can't be used either. I've changed the tags on these to {{primarysources}}. I've also prodded Claudia Pop, after doing a search. I can't see this ever passing an AfD. Grażyna Brodzińska is notable [14], just needs better sourcing. Voceditenore (talk) 07:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh my, I would have thought personal websites would not have counted as a source. Sigh. Thanks for looking into these.4meter4 (talk) 09:25, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you, but apparently that's the way it works at the moment, although this issue will probably come up in a few weeks when there'll be a review RfC on BLPPROD. For now, it's better to use {{primarysources}} and tag for notability and PROD where relevant. I have to say, I'm getting mighty sick of non-notable opera singers/conductors/companies/etc. spamming their CVs to Wikipedia to "raise their profile". It's a colossal waste of everybody's time dealing with them, when we have hundreds of red links for people with music encyclopedia entries. Voceditenore (talk) 09:43, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree; although it's a compliment in an odd way to the work we've done at wikipedia. It means people are actually reading and valuing what we've written to the point that they want to get in on it. Nothing good comes without its downside I guess. Will this review process potentially make the sourcing qualifications more stringent for blp prod? Personal websites often have a lot of fluff in them, and I think they shouldn't count as a source for prod purposes.4meter4 (talk) 17:39, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hard to say what'll happen at the RfC. There's a difference between verifiability in terms of a BLP and notability, although they overlap. The contents of a personal website don't count towards notability at all, thus they can't prevent an ordinary prod. Having said this, an editor has added some sources and removed the prod on Claudia Pop, saying it should go to AfD if concerns still aren't met, which is probably right at this point. I'll watch the article for a while and see if anything else turns up before AfD-ing it. Voceditenore (talk) 18:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Opera Awards (Australia)

It's been prodded. Anyone ever heard of them or can provide refs? Voceditenore (talk) 18:37, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm the one who prodded it - perhaps I should have asked here first - but I can't find any evidence that this award is notable. I simply couldn't find coverage in reliable sources. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:14, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I notified the article's creator of the Prod the other day. It's not required, but it's recommended, as many new editors don't know about watchlists. I've removed the prod because sufficient sources have been added to make the deletion "controversial". This doesn't preclude taking it to AfD, if it doesn't improve further, and I've left a message to that effect at Talk:Opera Awards (Australia). Voceditenore (talk) 08:09, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I've dug out the last two annual indexes to Opera (magazine). Section I (General subject index) in both has a section entitled "Vocal competitions and scholarships", which includes a long list of things like the Opera News Awards, Richard Tauber Prize, Kathleen Ferrier Award, Queen Elizabeth Competition. One of the prize-winners (Shane Lowrencev) was listed in Part 4 (Index of artists) in the 2009 index, but only as singing in an Opera Australia production in Melbourne. --GuillaumeTell 11:07, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I suspect it's a reasonably notable prize in Australia, even if none of its winners seem to be wildly so. The first prize is something like $30,000 for overseas study + a further $4,500 scholarhsip + $2,500 cash.[15]. Voceditenore (talk) 16:28, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Given ongoing attempts to add sources, I'm not nominating it for deletion yet, but unless sources about the award are found, I probably will at some point. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:07, 10 March 2011 (UTC)