Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Numa (opera)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete. Cbrown1023 talk 03:35, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Numa (opera)

Numa (opera) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Allegedly an opera by Bizet, no one can find any evidence that this isn't terminally obscure or just doesn't exist. Checking standard reference works, such as the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and the Viking Opera Guide, returns nothing, when these books are meant to cover pretty much everything, and certainly everything by such a major composer. Google returns only Wikipedia, mirrors, and other-language wikis. Per discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera#Numa (opera), it has been suggested that someone became confused somewhere along the line: Bizet once set a text with a similar name. Either non-notable or a mistake. Moreschi Talk 13:35, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Delete. as unsourced. --Kleinzach 14:14, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Article consists of one sentence and the balance of evidence suggests that it is an incorrect one. Even if this piece exists it's probably too obscure to have an entire article devoted to it. --Folantin 14:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Probable keep. It seems to turn up a reasonable of ghits, although many of them are either mirrors of the Wikipedia article Georges Bizet or are in languages that I don't understand. However, this would appear to be an independent corroboration in English. If this is so, then the question is one of whether Bizet is of sufficient stature to confer notability on his more obscure works. If he is then the article should survive as a stub until somebody is moved to expand it. BTLizard 14:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Expand with what? There just seems to be no data available. Bizet is notable, sure, but we have to think about what we can actually write here. Moreschi Talk 16:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep The opera is listed on this this official French State department website, in this list of works for a French Classical music TV station This site includes a première date "His other works besides those mentioned are the operas, Numa and Djamileh, produced at the Opéra Comique in 1875; ". The work and its premiere is discussed in "Lettres à un ami [Texte imprimé] : 1865-1872 / Georges Bizet ; introd. de Edmond Galabert Publication : Paris : Calmann-Lévy, [19??] Bizet, Georges (1838-1875 ) -- Correspondance ISBN : FRBNF39235259" I believe that the work does indeed exist. Whether this opera is notable or not is another question. However, I believe that Bizet is probably notable. Gretab 16:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Even this is problematic: in the links provided I've seen two different dates for first performance, 1871 and 1875. Which is right? I'm tempted to think that everyone's taken their date from a single incorrect source: maybe this opera was attributed to Bizet for a while but isn't by him after all. And even then we have the problem of actually writing a viable article on this, which just seems as though it can't be done with the data available. Moreschi Talk 16:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
      • It would seem that Alphonse Daudet, for whom Bizet wrote music for his play L’Arlésiennein 1867, published a novel entitled "Numa Roumestan, mœurs parisiennes" in 1881. Is the novel a reworking of the libretto of a failed opera? It certainly seems possible to me. If the libretto is indeed by Daudet, then this would make the work more notable. The correspondance of Bizet himself certainly seems to prove the existence of the work. However, one might want to contact the Friends of Georges Bizet in Paris and ask for more information. Their contact information is on the Bizet Article in French.

Another possibility is locating the programs at the Opera Library in Paris, where the Opera Comique archives are kept. They must have a copy of the program there.Gretab 16:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment: Numa = Namouna? Djamileh was premiered at the Opéra-Comique on May 22, 1872 - not 1875. So the reliability of that site may be a little questionable. Actually, I've just found that the original libretto of Djamileh was called Namouna when Bizet began work on it in 1871. It was changed to Djamileh at the director's suggestion before its premiere in 1872 (source: Viking Opera Guide p.117). Maybe that's the source of the confusion. It's definitely not a version of Daudet's Numa Roumestan, which appeared in 1881, six years after Bizet's death. I've read the book and I can't really imagine Bizet making an opera out of it anyway. --Folantin 16:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: It's possible that this is a mispelling. The address of the Friends of Bizet Association is here : [1]. Certainly, they must know. Before the article is deleted, someone should at least ask. Gretab 16:59, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, you can certainly contact them if you like though it might take a while to get a reply if all they give is a snail mail address in France. I strongly suspect, however, that the Numa of 1871 in the French article is in fact the Namouna libretto Bizet definitely set in the same year which was subsequently retitled Djamileh. --Folantin 18:02, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Comment Hmm, it would seem to me that making such assumptions without sources would violate WP:NOR, since we're supposed to be reporting what is in sources without trying to interprete whether they are actually true or not. If you could come up with a source which said that your position was valid, I would certainly conceed this. It would seem however that many sources speak of this opera as existing. The fact that the opera does not exist in some sources does not invalidate the fact that it exists in others.Gretab 20:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Look, there is such a thing as using common sense. Bizet is a major composer and Grove would and does list his complete stage works - and all his other works, for that matter. If this isn't in Grove, in all likelihood it's not by him, he never wrote it, or it got renamed to something else somewhere along the line. Even if Grove has slipped us and this somehow does exist, the lack of information around means that at best this should be a redirect to Bizet's article. Moreschi Talk 07:47, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Comment Could I ask Gretab where the following reference comes from? It doesn't seem to be in any of the sources that (s)he cites above. Does this really refer to Numa?
The work and its premiere is discussed in "Lettres à un ami [Texte imprimé] : 1865-1872 / Georges Bizet ; introd. de Edmond Galabert Publication : Paris : Calmann-Lévy, [19??] Bizet, Georges (1838-1875 ) -- Correspondance ISBN : FRBNF39235259"
More generally, I agree with those above who surmise that all references to Numa (1871) that anyone has been able to find seem to be based on a single source. The complete absence of any other information about it whatsoever in any online or printed source that any of us has seen seems pretty telling. Does anyone have access to a copy of Winton Dean's book on Bizet? If it ever existed, it ought to be in there somewhere. --GuillaumeTell 21:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
P.S. I see that this alleged opera appeared in the very first edit (in March 2004) to the Bizet article in French WP here. --GuillaumeTell 21:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Comment The book in question is a book of correspondance between Bizet and a friend in which he writes, in several letters, about writing this opera. It may be that there was a misunderstanding about the spelling, but the name of opera is indeed in the book. It may be that this opera became the second opera when it was produced, but there is no evidence to prove that this is the case. There is an ISBN number. You probably should be able to get a copy from a university library or from inter-library loan.

The friends of Georges Bizet have a website and an email address. I'm going to write to them and I will let you know what they say. Could we perhaps wait until they give me a response before this article is deleted?Gretab 21:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Moreschi Talk 07:47, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
No word yet. I'm told that it's some sort of bank holiday in France right now, though Gretab 07:17, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. The opera doesn't exist in any serious catalogue. --Al Pereira(talk) 23:46, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge to Georges Bizet as this seems to be a real named opera attributed to him, but there doesn't seem to be anything to say about it. Is it lost? Was it never completed or performed? Was it reworked into something else? We don't seem to know. --Dhartung | Talk 06:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment One thing's for sure: we can discount two of the online links given for the existence of Numa. We know for certain from reliable authorities that Djamileh appeared in 1872, yet the French diplomatic site [2] claims it appeared 1878 and this one [3] that it was 1875. The only site claiming that Numa exists, which also gets the date for Djamileh right is this one [4]. --Folantin 09:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Also lost and unfinished operas are listed in the New Grove Dictionary. --Al Pereira(talk) 11:50, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment There is no mention of it in Winton Dean's substantial "Georges Bizet: His Life and Work" (1965). --GuillaumeTell 00:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the research, GT. I think Winton Dean, one of the most famous musicologists around, decides the issue pretty conclusively. --Folantin 07:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. -- Ssilvers 12:57, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.