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Metropolitan Opera

Hello. I have been considering getting the Metropolitan Opera article to GA/FA status. The discussion is at Talk:Metropolitan Opera#GA/FA?. Input, comments, opinions or ideas from project members would be very much appreciated. Thanks, Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 04:53, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Good luck with that! I (very briefly) started to work my way through the opera house articles, trying to add some standardised context -- length of season, number of titles, number of performances, audiences, budget, background info on in-house resources, etc -- that is, factual information about the company as it is now. There's always a danger that, without context, every reader projects their own local knowledge (or lack thereof) onto inappropriate models.

Without doubt the Met does attract many of the world's leading singers and it is something special, but it's also (1) vast (in a comparison of auditorium sizes, it's around 3x the European average), (2) not the most adventurous in programming (see point 1 and, more importantly?, the long tenure of Volpe), (3) has a comparatively short season (from late Sept to late April or the first week in May), (4) has a modest attendance rate compared with other houses, and so on.

Many WP articles endlessly bash on about the history of their subjects (perhaps because of the laws on copyright lapse?), far over and above providing info about what those subjects are today (and why they are relevent). As an exercise, when I first load a new article in my WP edit windows, I cut away everything historical. In some cases, eg the Paris Opera, there was nothing left... rien.

So, my tip is: If you want readers to best understand what the Met is now, and how it works now, then hide the history and add international context. (Hmmm ... having written this, I just may have to restart working on the other company articles myself :-) Best, Scarabocchio (talk) 13:20, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Tobias and the Angel

It seems to me that this article is now the subject of a major "conflict of interest" issue. Regards.81.83.142.142 (talk) 22:11, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Not anymore. The material was reverted by another editor. In addition to that, it was copyvio. Unsurprisingly perhaps, 3 weeks fom now, a fledgling opera company (Highbury Opera Theatre) is putting on Tobias as its first production [1]. I then noticed that the previous version still contained a shameless (and outdated) plug for the 2008 Opera Vivente production and the chap who sang the Angel in it [2]. Anyhow, I've expanded, referenced, and cleaned up the article and will keep an eye on it.

In the process, I noticed that the article on its composer, Jonathan Dove, needs a lot of work. His Flight needs clean up, as do The Adventures of Pinocchio, Mansfield Park, etc.. Voceditenore (talk) 12:12, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Radio opera

I've just knocked up an article on Radio opera, plus (rather laboriously and over a long period of time) List of radio operas. The sorting of the latter seems to work OK but I'm not sure that I've got all the refs right. All assistance, comments, brickbats, etc., gratefully received. I was wondering whether it might perhaps turn into a Featured List at some point? --GuillaumeTell 17:43, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't know whether it was specifically written for radio broadcast, but William Alwyn's Miss Julie which is not included in the list, was premiered as a BBC3 radio broadcast. Regards. 94.226.155.79 (talk) 22:34, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I've been nosing around google books, and it looks as if Alwyn didn't intend Miss Julie to be a radio opera. With Christopher Hassall he started work in 1954, though this petered out, and Alwyn finally completed a libretto in 1971. He'd hoped that Sadler's Wells would premiere the opera, but when they didn't get back to him, Elaine Padmore at the BBC was contacted (all this is on pp. 236-240 of The Innumerable Dance by Adrian Wright). I have a feeling that some of the other "radio operas" in the list may also not qualify, and I'm thinking of adding an extra column for date(s) of composition (Sadie is quite good on these), which would perhaps reduce the list a bit. Any thoughts, anyone? --GuillaumeTell 21:22, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I know it would be putting an extra burden on editors, but I think the onus is on them to prove that an opera was originally intended for radio. I've done a bit of research on radio music and the press always makes clear when an opera is intended as a work expressly written for the radio. Speaking of which: would you include Blitzstein's I've Got The Tune? It has very little dialogue but it wasn't designated as an opera. -- kosboot (talk) 22:07, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, he called it a "song play" (not a million miles away from singspiel) but Boosey & Hawkes lists it as an "Opera in one act" [3], and it's called a "radio opera" in Marc Blitzstein: His Life, His Work, His World (Oxford University Press). [4]. I'm going to copy to copy this + another suggestion to Talk:List of radio operas, otherwise they'll get lost in the shuffle, especially when this page is archived. Voceditenore (talk) 11:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm the William Alwyn Archivist at Cambridge University Library and can confirm that 'Miss Julie' was never intended to be a 'radio opera'. There were problems staging it and the hope was that the broadcast, which was indeed the premiere, would stimulate interest in the work. It has been staged since both abroad and in the UK. In general I think that there should be evidence of the composer's intention that this was how he had always intended the work to be 'staged' before categorising the work as a radio opera - not always easy, I know! Benregis (talk) 11:17, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Eyes please - Tosca and Bohème articles and discographies

An IP has been stubbornly adding and re-adding pirate recordings to the discographies and red-linking the brands e.g. Premiere Opera, and in the process completely messing up the tables. They are also insisting on adding Bocelli's recordings to the main articles on these operas and attempting to hijack existing references for the purpose [5]. I've already reverted them twice with lengthy edit summaries, but to no avail. Voceditenore (talk) 10:16, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

• Update. The editor in question ended up socking using 3 different IPs. I was about to ask for semi-protection for these pages when they registered an account. Despite multiple messages on the "new" user's talk page, they simply refused to discuss and continued to edit war over the pirates as well as keeping up the bizarre claims and fake references to support spurious assertions. Perhaps the article talk page and user talk page messages have finally sunk in. After a brief attempt to extend the piratical listings to Luisa Miller, things seem to have calmed down now. Voceditenore (talk) 13:17, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Free Questia subscriptions

I got my free subscription to Questia and it's proving really useful. Lots of reference books on opera. You can still apply for round 2 of the free subscriptions at Wikipedia:Questia.

Requirements

• You do not have free online access to Questia through your local library or university
• You have your preferences enabled to receive email messages on English Wikipedia
• You have an account that is a minimum of 1 year old
• You have a minimum of 1000 edits to the encyclopedia
• You are active in content generation, research, and/or verification work

You can browse and search to see what they have even without a subscription here. - Voceditenore (talk) 13:24, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

October CoM and OoM

Spontini was suggested for a future Composer of the month. We could use him or hold him over til next month and use Michael Balfe. There are several more of his operas which have sources available but no articles. And October 21st marks the 150th anniversary of the premiere of Balfe's Blanche de Nevers. Thoughts?

For Operas of the Month we could do some radio operas, following GuillaumeTell's brilliant creation of List of radio operas. Perhaps create or expand articles for some of the operas or composers on it. I'd need some advice on which ones are most needed/important. Thoughts?

Voceditenore (talk) 18:02, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Re radio operas (and thanks for the compliment): I don't think that I've heard any of those listed (except for, ahem, Emily Butter), though I have seen a concert performance of Il prigioniero, so I can't really say which ones might be worth pursuing. Two possible approaches spring to mind:

1. Recordings of some of the operas listed have been released - can't remember which, but maybe a quick trawl through the refs of ones which aren't sourced from Grove Opera/Sadie would be possibilities for article creation?

2. Radio operas (without articles) written by the best-known composers (Henze, Pizzetti, Martinů, Gruenberg, Ibert, Rota, Zimmermann?) might supplement the opera articles that we already have for them.

Hope this helps. Oh, and User:Almost-instinct suggests an article on television opera - er, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Owen Wingrave, uh .... --GuillaumeTell 17:48, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Aha! I knew there was more than one ;-) almost-instinct 11:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Jonathan Dove's TV opera "When She Died" was apparently seen by over 1m viewers ... no, I didn't see it either. Scarabocchio (talk) 14:08, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I think a very interesting article on opera on television could be written. Marcia Citron wrote extensively on the topic in Opera on Screen, at least on American tv, and Jennifer Barnes wrote a more comprehensive account in her book Television Opera. I have written an article on the NBC Opera Theatre and several articles on operas that were commissioned for television by the company. CBS and PBS also commissioned some original operas for television in the US among other networks. In the UK the BBC, HTV, and Channel 4 also commissioned operas. There are a few NBC operas that still lack coverage, and most of the other networks to make commissions have no articles. Here is a pretty much comprehensive list of TV operas from the US/UK. An associated cat to television operas is Category:Operas for television. 4meter4 (talk) 18:08, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree, there seem to be plenty of sources (and operas!) out there and it could be a really interesting article. Voceditenore (talk) 13:06, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

• Re the CoM and OoM... I went with Spontini after all for the October CoM. It turns out the 150th anniversary of Blanche de Nevers is November 21st. Doh! And I put some suggestions together for radio operas in the October OoM. Feel free to add/amend. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 13:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Francisco Negrín

Recently created AfC about opera director Francisco Negrín. It's really a good first-effort and I think could do with some touching-up and editorial TLC by interested WikiProject Opera members. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 20:04, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

List of television operas

Per our conversation above, I have started a list of television operas article. If anyone cares to help improve it, please do. The list is currently very US/Canada/UK oriented. There surely must have been operas made for television in other parts of the world, but most sources in English seem to focus on English speaking countries.4meter4 (talk) 15:39, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Vocal range for non-classical singers

• Interesting discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musicians#Vocal range. When this came to my attention, I found some amazing statements in my perigrinations—assorted pop singers variously described as heldentenors, kavalierbaritons, spinto sopranos, dramatic contraltos, etc. (many, but not all, of these now reverted by other editors). Voceditenore (talk) 12:50, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Don't tell me that my thesis that Neil Arthur of early 80s synthpopsters Blancmange was really a Jugendlicher Heldentenor will never see the light of day?! :'-( almost-instinct 13:06, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Adina Cleanup

I'm currently trying to cleanup the Adina article. Two items need citations:

• The statement "Adina was commissioned in 1818 by Diego Ignazio de Pina Manique, police superintendent of Lisbon and inspector of Portuguese theatres." needs a citation as it is unclear just where this information originated.

• One reference is given as "Gallo (2002). p. ?." If anyone has a copy of the relevant book, or access to it, could the please clarify which pages it comes from.

Also needed are details on it's performance history since the revival in 1963. I'm currently engaged in trying to put together a synopsis.Graham1973 (talk) 13:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I found the reference for "Adina was commissioned in 1818 by Diego Ignazio..." and added it. It was Holden. I couldn't find anything in the Gallo book that remotely supported either of the two other statements. But note that one of them, "composed anew only four of the work's nine numbers: the Introduction, the disarming Cavatina for Adina "Fragolette fortunate" (Lucky little strawberries), the Quartet, and the Finale; for three others he turned to the opera Sigismondo written in 1814; the remaining two were written by a collaborator." is a verbatim copypaste from the the introduction to the critical score. See [6]. The other bit allegedly referenced to Gallo, "Music critics praise the opera for avoiding pure archetypes and successfully achieving a unified style" is quite vague. I'm not sure you will find a source for it. This article (in German) from the Deutsche Rossini Gesellschaft has a lot of information about the opera including a fair amount on the performance history up to 1999. There are several pages about it's performances at the Rossini Opera Festival, including a detailed synopsis here Hope that helps. Voceditenore (talk) 15:12, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing up the first of the issues. I'm going to remove Gallo from the references until this can be sorted out. Might tag that copypaste sentence as something to rewrite. I've downloaded a copy of the summary from the festival and did some digging. The Rossini in Wildblad festival apparently put Adina on in 2012 [7]. I've run Google Translate over the german page and it looks useful.Graham1973 (talk) 23:00, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Another matter: the section "recordings" in this article consists of two pirate recordings. It should therefore be removed entirely. Regards. 81.83.142.134 (talk) 22:45, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I've now removed them. Voceditenore (talk) 12:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The material falsely attributed to Gallo, i.e. most of the Performance history section is a virtually verbatim copy paste from this page at the University of Chicago Center for Italian Opera Studies website. Voceditenore (talk) 14:03, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I've put the relevant material on quotes and correctly attributed it, but it would be prefereable if someone rewrote it eventually. Voceditenore (talk) 12:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

DYK Giovanni Battista Ferrandini

I did not know Giovanni Battista Ferrandini, nor about the opening of the theater now named after its architect. The fact is not mentioned in the theater article, why? If I had time I would look myself ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:20, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Gerda. It used to be there (Cuvilliés Theatre) in a section on notable premieres, but the whole section was inexplicably removed a year ago [8]. I've re-added Ferrandini's opera and the opening to the text itself. I've also added some references since the article was completely unreferenced apart from an external link to the theatre's web site. I didn't re-add the list itself as none of it was referenced and I think some of those premieres may have confused the Cuvilliés Theatre with the National Theatre Munich e.g. Meyerbeer's Jephtas Gelübde. Anyone have time to check it? Voceditenore (talk) 13:41, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

User:TonyTheTiger

Do we need a policy on the numerous "franchises" by the above user which have started cluttering up the end of opera articles? Quite a few of them are more or less identical with our navboxes and may also include other information that already appears in the articles' leads. An example is:

Plenty more here, plus some dialogue yesterday between TTT and User:Ssilvers here. --GuillaumeTell 21:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

From what I understand, the information in the navboxes is much more valuable as it provides information in a structured format (crucial for when Wikipedia is mined as in DBpedia). The templates are pretty, and possibly useful if one doesn't bother to read the article. To me, it seems like a lot of people are investing way too much time in creating templates with the erroneous idea that they are useful or wanted, when they should be creating/editing articles. -- kosboot (talk) 22:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The template shown above is almost a complete duplicate of {{Puccini operas}} and should be removed from all Puccini operas. Neither is it useful on List of compositions by Giacomo Puccini. This leaves Messa (Puccini), an article which probably needs improvements of many kinds, but adding a navigation box is not among them. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:59, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

They're pretty pointless in almost all cases, but least they're parked at the bottom. More problematic are the ones he's making for individual operas. The last two I saw had some bad errors and were very misleading to the reader. I've fixed Carmen and Madame Butterfly. If any more appear, I suggest scrutinizing them carefully for misleading entries. Voceditenore (talk) 15:05, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

La rondine redirect

Although a search for 'La rondine' takes you directly to the page about Puccini's opera, a search for 'rondine' takes you, via a redirect, to a page about the printing company Nebiolo Printech (Rondine is a typeface the company developed). Do you think we could remove the redirect and turn Rondine into a disambiguation page with links to the opera and the printing company? It seems likely that more people would be searching for the opera than the typeface. OperaBalletRose (talk) 10:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Good idea. Done. :) Voceditenore (talk) 14:23, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Great, thanks! OperaBalletRose (talk) 15:22, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Richard Wagner

Some editors are now trying to get this toward FA status (with a view to the bicentenary next year). The article has been substantially gone over and there are numeorus comments on the talk page. Additional comments warmly welcomed if anyone is in the mood.--Smerus (talk) 19:11, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Singer's personal Twitter account...

After getting back from Wexford on Friday, I bluelinked some recent redlinks added to the List of operas performed at the Wexford Festival‎‎ (and wondered whether to delete the 2013 tba operas added at the bottom by, I assume, Wexford staff). Now I have just discovered that User:Frisbeeralf has bluelinked Jessica Muirhead in the List to her personal Twitter account. Eeek! Do we really want this? Is there a WP guideline on this sort of thing? I envisage utter chaos if not. I'm off to bed now but all comments are welcome. --GuillaumeTell 00:49, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

This kind of "blue-linking" is very tempting (and I, too, have succumbed to it in my early days at Wikipedia), but it fails WP:EL on two counts: a) Twitter by itself is not reliable for anything; b) point #2 in the 1st section (WP:ELPOINTS): "External links should not normally be used in the body of an article." -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:13, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've removed the link per WP:EL. First of all, external links should never go inline with article text. Secondly, the Twitter account is wildly inappropriate. She has an official website (with links to her Twitter and Facebook accounts). Her official site can be added to an external links section if/when she has a WP article, but additional direct links to Twitter and Facebook do not belong on Wikipedia. Voceditenore (talk) 06:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Re the 2013 "tba" performances, I have removed them to Talk:List of operas performed at the Wexford Festival with an explanation. As I explained there, the article is a list of past performances, not a schedule for future events or an alternate website for the Wexford Festival, which incidentally doesn't even list them yet. In general, I don't think it's appropriate to list future performances in any articles, even for rarely performed operas, unless the scheduling of the opera has received coverage in reliable secondary sources, i.e. press coverage—not simply the company's website. It turns encyclopedia articles into magazine articles and encourages opera companies to use WP articles for box office publicity. I must remove that kind of stuff at least a couple of times a month. Voceditenore (talk) 07:47, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, both. Bookmarks with announcements about the following season are to be had at the Wexford Opera House during most seasons, but it's not unknown for things to change in the interim. Last year, Mercadante's Francesca di Rimini was announced but replaced by L'Arlesiana this year. And Il cappello di paglia di Firenze was announced in 2009 and replaced in 2010 by a double bill of Chabrier and Rossini. --GuillaumeTell 11:02, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

The 2013 Wexford titles were announced from the stage on the final night [9]: "... Artistic Director, David Agler also took the opportunity to announce the repertoire for the next festival, ‘Our 62nd Wexford Festival Opera will include Il Cappello di Paglia di Firenze (The Florentine Straw Hat) by Nino Rota, something I have wanted to do since I began my tenure here. Thérèse/ La Navarraise by Jules Massenet and Cristina, Regina di Svezia by Jacopo Foroni complete the mainstage opera repertoire for 2013. We will announce the creative teams and cast next spring before the opening of booking. The 62nd Wexford Festival Opera will run for 12 days from Wednesday 23 October to Sunday 3 November 2013. Booking for Friends will open on 7 May 2013, with general booking commencing on 4 June 2013." Scarabocchio (talk) 14:04, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Possibly worth mentioning in Wexford Festival Opera, although I find even that a dubious practice, especially months before anything is finalized or tickets even go on sale. There's a lot of water still to flow under that operatic bridge. But it should definitely not go in a list of past performances. On the off-chance that they do keep to their plans, I've created a stub for Cristina, regina di Svezia. There's enough material in the sources to expand it considerably, including the roles and the synopsis. Voceditenore (talk) 14:24, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Zhhenitba sound sample.mid

file:Zhhenitba sound sample.mid has been nominated for deletion -- 70.24.186.245 (talk) 07:36, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Libretto from DM's opera site

Hello there. Is it possible that you could add a link to “La fanciulla del West” libretto? Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_fanciulla_del_West Libretto: http://www.murashev.com/opera/La_fanciulla_del_West_libretto_Italian Unfortunately, I can't add links to my own website, but I was told that you can do it for me. Thank you. --Murashev (talk) 11:36, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Our speedy Michael Bednarek has just added it. [10]. Do let us know if there are other libretto links to add. We still have a lot of articles linking to libretti on Karadar.com, but they've all gone behind a pay wall.

Thank you very much! I'll write you as soon as I add a new libretto which is not presented on Wikipedia. --Murashev (talk) 15:24, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• Cripes! I just did a search here and we have almost 100 articles with defunct external links to the Karadar.com libretto pages. They're all going to have to be deleted and replacements found. I'll try to do the deleting in bits and I'll list the pages here that no longer have any viable libretto links so we can look for replacements. Voceditenore (talk) 16:27, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
  • It could be an interesting task for me to find many librettos though it could take much time. I'll write here when I have something new to offer. For example, I have libretto in four languages to Rossini's “Il turco in Italia”, yet I didn't place it on my website.--Murashev (talk) 07:50, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Could you please add line-by-line Italian-English libretto to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_clemenza_di_Tito http://www.murashev.com/opera/La_clemenza_di_Tito_libretto_Italian_English --Murashev (talk) 10:30, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

• Done. --GuillaumeTell 11:35, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Line-by-line Italian-English libretto to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_turco_in_Italia : http://www.murashev.com/opera/Il_turco_in_Italia_libretto_Italian_English Thank you! --Murashev (talk) 20:31, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

• Also done. --GuillaumeTell 22:09, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Could you please add two line-by-line librettos which also are very thirst by opera lovers? “Don Giovanni”, Italian-English: http://www.murashev.com/opera/Don_Giovanni_libretto_Italian_English and “Carmen”, French-English: http://www.murashev.com/opera/Carmen_libretto_French_English Thank you! --Murashev (talk) 18:35, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Askold's Grave (opera)

This article claims that 'In actuality the opera was largely written by Verstovsky's friend Gioacchino Rossini, based on Verstovsky's ideas, for a fee that was intended to cover Rossini's card debts' and gives as justification a reference to a book published in Russian in New York in 1956 - which is rather difficult to check on. Can there be any justification for this claim, which would seem to be rather far-fetched? Rossini was pretty wealthy by 1828 and had no need to write other people's stuff.....--Smerus (talk) 20:02, 14 November 2012 (UTC).

No mention of Rossini in Grove Opera's article on Verstovsky, and no mention of Verstovsky in Osborne (1986). --GuillaumeTell 21:56, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Curious - I've actually found Arbatsky's book in PDF (in Russian) on the internet - on pp. 231-2 he claims that he has seen 'extensive correspondence' between Verstovsky and Rossini and that V. paid R. 5089 roubles for polishing up V.'s own ideas for 'Askold', which R. needed for a gambling debt. No source given for the correspondence, but Arbatsky adds that V. was cautious enough to request all his letters back when paying R. So - not quite as the article has it - but even though Arbatsky was serious enough fellow, and his account appears circumstantial, the whole thing seems distinctly odd....--Smerus (talk) 07:32, 15 November 2012 (UTC).

There's also an article in English where Arbatsky makes the claim and explicitly calls them "Secret Archives" . It's on Jstor to which I don't have access:

• Yury Arbatsky. "The Soviet Attitude towards Music: An Analysis Based in Part on Secret Archives". The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Jul., 1957), pp. 295-315

Meanwhile the following article seems to be very skeptical of the claim, but it's only in snippet view, so don't know the reasoning:

• The Monthly Musical Record, Volume 90

Voceditenore (talk) 08:38, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I've in the meantime edited the opera article and also the Verstovsky article (where the story is also repeated), correcting the details, giving the exact source and making it clear that the story is a claim only.--Smerus (talk) 08:45, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Seems like the best approach, Smerus. As an aside, according to Rosselli and to Osborne, Rossini's soon-to-be ex, Isabella Colbran, had run up BIG gambling debts at the card tables in Bologna at about the time Askold's Grave was being composed. However, Osborne claims that Rossini, who was living in Paris at the time, paid some of her medical bills but refused to cover her gambling debts. So who knows? Voceditenore (talk) 10:24, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

A wish

that the red link turn blue in

• ... that the second version of the Christmas opera Das Christ-Elflein} by Hans Pfitzner premiered on 11 December 1917 at the Semperoper? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:48, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Merry Christmas, Gerda! I've started a bare-bones stub which I'll try to expand in a couple of days. Meantime, do wade in there one and all. German is most decidedly not my forté. :) Best, Voceditenore (talk) 12:17, 14 December 2012 (UTC) (aka "The Christmas Elf")

Thank you! - Looking at the English, something seems wrong, "Christ" seems refer to the person rather than a season, but I will see, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:28, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I've changed it to The Little Elf of Christ per the title translation at Boosey & Hawkes, which seems more literally accurate. However, several English sources use the less literal title The Little Christmas Elf. I notice also that some sources don't hyphenate the title, i.e. Das Christelflein. Not sure what to do about that. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 13:01, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

For the English, list both. For the German, can we find out what Pfitzner wrote? Hyphenisation is a German disease since the last orthography reform, asking to say Weihnachts-Oratorium instead of Weihnachtsoratorium. I took the hyphen from the de-article, and also think that with a hyphen, it's easier to be understood for a non-German reader. Probably also list both. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:12, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

ps: to make things more complicated, the ref has no hyphen in the title, but at least one hyphen in the text. (For reading, I guess, "Christel" is a German given name, easy confusion.) The article says that Pfitzner thought it would have been "something for the Americans", that the first version has melodrama, that even the final version has spoken dialogue, and that the final was not necessarily an improvement. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:20, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

(Nice progress towards a Christmassy DYK!) Next German: "Tannengreis, the Old Fir Tree" - Tannengreis means a very old man (Greis) of the firs (Tanne = fir, Tannen is plural), hard to say that in simple English. Anyway, it's a man, not a tree! - I had to mention Schüchter, the conductor of my first symphony concert ever, and (today's DYK) Gianni Schicchi, "my" second opera ever and still a favourite! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:49, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Learning: he is a man, but not a human being, Elflein and he are myth figures, - then Elflein goes to the humans, against his warning - reminiscent of Undine, also Lortzing. Elflein (Little Elf, diminutive) is not a Christ-Elflein until late in the story. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:31, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

The German reads as if Bruno Walter wrote about the first version, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:36, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I've never heard of this work before, and my German isn't up to much. I had a look at Casaglia's Almanacco where it says that Elisabeth Rethberg sang the role of the Elflein in the Dresden premiere of the revised version. Not sure if there are other RS that confirm this. --GuillaumeTell 11:19, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I had seen Amadeus on this but discounted it as a ref because the entries for both the 1906 and 1917 premieres contain too many obvious errors and what's there is very incomplete. For example, they got the conductor wrong for the 1906 premiere, and they also list Rethberg as singing Christ-Child and Grete Merrem-Nikisch as singing Christ-Elfein in the 1906 version when they would have been 12 and 19 years old respectively. According to The New Grove Book of Opera Singers, Merrem-Nikisch didn't make her stage debut until 1910. Several sources confirm that Merrem-Nikisch did sing the title role in the 1917 premiere. I've got one in the article now. Here's another. I think this time Amadeus really balled it up. :/ Voceditenore (talk)

PS. These indicate that Rethberg sang Christ-Child in the 1917 Dresden premiere. Voceditenore (talk) 19:28, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the year correction ;) - I was dreaming of Peace music, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:18, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the synopsis, making me think about the gender of the children. In German both Christ Child and Elflein are neutral. It makes sense to say "he" for Christ Child, but for some unexplainable reason Elflein seems feminine to me (soprano, replacing the girl Trautchen). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:59, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

More gender: de has "Reigen der Tannenjunker und -jungfrauen, den der Tannengreis eigens für das Elflein tanzen lässt, können es nicht abhalten" - dance of the Fir young men and young women (literally virgins) arranged by Fir old man for Elflein. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:10, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Since German uses the neuter pronoun, I think I'll stick with "he" for the elf. All the English descriptions of the opera use the masculine pronoun, and there's no use confusing the readers. :) Voceditenore (talk) 16:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

fine, I didn't see those sources, - any stage pic by chance? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:33, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Here's one from the 2008 Hamburg production with Elflein looking suitably androgynous and wearing ice-skates (!) Voceditenore (talk) 16:55, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

matching German ;) - could you place androgynous somewhere and explain that German is so? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:17, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd rather not. I don't think that kind of intricate, minor, and ultimately speculative detail is appropriate in an article for general readers. Grammatical gender doesn't always correlate with "natural" gender characteristics in German, e.g. Mädchen and Christkindchen which clearly do not denote androgynous persons. I think it's best to stick with the English sources for now and leave it at that. Voceditenore (talk) 18:05, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

HighBeam Research partnership

HighBeam Research [11] -- an online, pay-for-use search engine for newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines and encyclopedias has agreed to give free, full-access, 1-year accounts for up to 1000 Wikipedia editors to use. HighBeam has access to over 80 million articles from 6,500 publications, most of which are not available for free elsewhere on the internet. Aside from a free 7-day trial (credit card required), access to HighBeam would cost $30 per month or $200 per year for the first year and $300 for subsequent years, so this is a wonderful, free, no-strings-attached opportunity. To qualify, editors must have at least a 1 year-old account with 1000 edits. Please add your name to the WP:HighBeam/Applications account sign-up page if you are interested. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 14:59, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I strongly urge members to take up this offer. I've been subscribing to it for years and find it very useful for sourcing articles. Voceditenore (talk) 18:40, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you -- this is the post that led me there. I am loving it. Very rich resource. Antandrus (talk) 21:32, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

• Update There are still subscriptions available. So if you haven't signed up yet, get going, folks. :) Voceditenore (talk) 08:30, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Insertion aria

Not one of my better efforts, but I've been hanging on to this so long I wanted to get it out of the way. -- kosboot (talk) 06:04, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I read the article with interest and while I was there I added some wikilinks, did a bit of copy-editing and removed the deadend tag (also wikilinked five of the six incoming links - the sixth (Ch'io mi scordi di te?), to my astonishment, miraculously linked itself without any help from me. I also looked in Grove Opera and couldn't find any reference to insertion arias, or rather I skimmed through the very long Aria article there and didn't notice any. I wondered whether there's another synonym for it somewhere else in Grove?

P.S. You should see the number of articles I've started and haven't finished yet! --GuillaumeTell 12:06, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah, that makes me feel better. :) I did see one user's work area: he had 4 different sandboxes!! -- kosboot (talk) 13:15, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

One synonym in Grove is Suitcase aria. Here's the entire article verbatim: Term used for arias that singers carried around with them, to insert in any or every performance in which they sang, during the period in the 18th century when such practices were accepted. See Pasticcio. Scarabocchio (talk) 11:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

btw, the Grove article on Pasticcio gives the Italian term for suitcase arias as arie di bagaglio. For some (no doubt) warped reason I find the idea of given singers coming with a certain amount of baggage amusing. (Sorry, Gerda, I can't explain). Scarabocchio (talk) 14:44, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Benjamin Britten

Hello. I am planning to contribute and expand upon the Benjamin Britten article with the intent of making it an FA. The ultimate goal is to get this as a TFA on 22 November 2013, the centennial of Britten's birth. The discussion can be found at Talk:Benjamin Britten#FA push. Input from project members would be very much appreciated. Thanks, Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 04:36, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Good goal! Busy now, but will look, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:40, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Krzysztof Penderecki

In addition to making Benjamin Britten an FA, I am also going to make Krzysztof Penderecki an FA with the goal of making it a TFA on 23 November 2013, the composer's 80th anniversary of his birth. The discussion is at Talk:Krzysztof Penderecki#FA push?. Input from project members would be very much appreciated. Thanks, Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 01:17, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Ernani (1903 HMV recording)

Hi. Can anyone perhaps help with providing the conductor and cast for this, the first "complete" opera recording? In ictu oculi (talk) 03:12, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Samson et Dalila

A few questions related to the DYK above on Samson et Dalila - and I really did not know ;)

• The theatre was then the "Großherzogliches Theater (Grand Ducal Theatre)", not "Grossherzogliches (Grand Ducal) Theater". Groß stayed Groß (not Gross) even after the orthography reform, certainly was Groß for the date of the premiere, and we do have the diacritics.
• The theatre is now the Nationaltheater, whereas Staatskapelle is the name of the orchestra (compare Staatskapelle Dresden).

I don't want to make a mess by changing and perhaps moving, but ask to consider this ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:18, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

People (and, more importantly, their web browsers) are getting more sophisticated now. There is a big increase in the number of 'foreign' accents that are routinely used in 'English' texts, following the widespread adoption of the Unicode standards about ten years ago which meant that those accents would be rendered correctly on most browsers. When in doubt about whether to use accented versions, I'd choose the original and canonical form: always Groß and not Grosz (or Gross). Scarabocchio (talk) 11:49, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Backing out multiple edits?

Some idiot has hacked out random portions of Opera Lyra Ottawa in two edits. I can see how to undo one edit, but what is the approved way of taking out two? Scarabocchio (talk) 11:08, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

There is a gadget that you can use called Twinkle which apparently will get rid of the edits in the twinkling of an eye, but it does look rather daunting (to me at least). What I do is to undo them in chronological order - in your case revert the 00.08 edit and then the 00.09 one. --GuillaumeTell 11:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Done. Thanks! Scarabocchio (talk) 11:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Just for your information: another way is to go to the History page, click on the date of the last correct version, then click edit and then save, which restores the last correct version. I have found this to be the easiest way to revert multiple edits. Regards. 81.83.143.52 (talk) 22:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I do too. Much faster. By the way, that article was an unreferenced, disorganized mess which had suffered from the ministrations of a couple of SPA accounts, no doubt from Opera Lyra, before it was vandalized. I've completely re-written it. Voceditenore (talk) 17:31, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

That's an excellent and comprehensive rewrite!! The article is a different animal, and much improved for it -- congratulations! Scarabocchio (talk) 23:34, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

José Cura

José Cura is 50 today, needs a better, more factual article, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:03, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

He certainly does! I hope someone gets to it eventually. I usually don't have the stomach for fixing up articles on living singers unless they are BLP or copyright violations or flaming PR. Voceditenore (talk) 15:44, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Richard Conrad

Given Richard Conrad's relevance to the history of the bel canto tradition in the 20th century, I've created a bit of an article.

His own website contains far more detail than any other sources I've been able to track down. But the site contains at least one outright and easily disproved untruth - a claimed "world premiere" of Arthur Sullivan's opera Ivanhoe (which had no less than 161 performances in its debut season in 1891) - so I've been very sparing in my use of it.

There are various mentions of him on opera chat sites and the like, but I doubt any of them qualify as reliable sources for our purposes. If anyone can come up with some more independently sourced material, that would be great. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:59, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

There's quite a lot on him from the Boston Globe, Opera News etc. via Highbeam. I can email you the articles if you like. I have a subscription. However, there's a problem with all those links to YouTube you've added. For now, I've moved them to the "External links" section. That kind of stuff never goes in the main body of the article, and frankly, I think the number of them is excessive. Also, quite a few of them are links to copyright infringement and need to be removed immediately per WP:EL. The clips on the official VAI channel are OK, but not the privately uploaded ones snaffled from copyright recordings and videos. Voceditenore (talk) 13:56, 16 December 2012 (UTC)