Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Online research

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Using and referencing online sources

The premier online source is Grove Music, the electronic version of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Access to the site is by subscription only. However, if you belong to a library which has a subscription to Grove Music, you can access the site via the barcode on your library card.

All the other sites listed on this page are publicly accessible, trustworthy and particularly useful for researching articles on opera-related subjects and finding public domain images. When using web sites not listed here, particularly amateur web sites and anonymously edited commercial database sites like IMDb, it is a good idea to check the facts in a second source if at all possible. Such sites can often contain errors and are generally not internally referenced.

Apart from the works listed in the Project Gutenberg and Source literature sections (and some opera libretti), the texts are generally all in copyright and must not be pasted verbatim into articles.

Referencing texts

When listing an online text as a source, be as specific as possible, giving the full bibliographic information and linking to the exact page where it appears, if at all possible.

Sample reference for a book which is also online:

  • Test, George Austin (1991) Satire: Spirit and Art, University of Florida Press, p. 93. Accessed 17 March 2008.

Sample references for articles from a journal or newspaper which are also online:

Sample references for articles and books which were published elsewhere and re-printed on another site:

Sample references for material appearing only on a web site (not previously published in hardcopy):

[edit] Programme notes and synopses

Teatro la Fenice in Venice publishes many of their programmi di sala online. The pdf files (in Italian) contain full librettos, extensive essays on the operas, many illustrations with original playbills and posters, role creators' portraits, original set and costume designs, score extracts, etc.

Opera America provides an extensive collection of notes and features on operas, including some rarely performed ones.

Playbill Arts has a large features section containing opera essays for the companies using Playbill to publish their programmes.

Opera Arizona

Baltimore Opera has a series of study guides to the operas in its repertory. They contain a synopsis, biographies of the composer and libretttist as well as essays on the opera.

The New York Metropolitan Opera has an extensive collection of synopses listed alphabetically by title and by composer.

[edit] Newspaper and magazine archives

[edit] Searching newspaper archives

With the caveat that journalists can sometimes be sloppy about checking facts, often the best independent sources for contemporary singers or productions can be mainstream press or journal articles. The Guardian (UK), The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The International Herald Tribune, and Time Magazine all have extensive archives that are largely free (except for certain NYT articles). The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (Melbourne) also have many free articles in their pre-2006 archives. To access their contents quickly, type the following in the search box at Google:

  • site:guardian.co.uk "Singer's name" (or "Opera company Name", or "Opera name")
  • site:query.nytimes.com "Singer's Name"
  • site:www.sfgate.com "Singer's Name"
  • site:www.iht.com "Singer's Name"
  • site:www.time.com "Singer's Name"
  • site:theage.com.au "Singer's Name"
  • site:smh.com.au "Singer's Name"

Examples using this method:

If you are looking for articles in smaller newspapers or just want to do a quick general news search Google News can be helpful, although it may miss articles that are available via the individual archive searches above. By default, the Google News search will give articles appearing in the last month. To go farther back, click on "All dates" under the "Archives" heading in the left hand column of the search results page.

Example using this method:

See also: The Opera Critic section below.

[edit] Specialist publications

  • Opera News published by the Metropolitan Opera Guild has extensive searchable online archives, many of the articles, even those going quite far back, do not require subscription for access.
Sample Opera News search result for "Juan Diego Florez"
  • Opera a UK based magazine but with reviews from around the world. Their online content is fairly minimal, although several lengthy articles can be found in the "Articles" section, news items from the current issue can be found in the "News" section, and past covers with downloadable pdf files of the contents are available in the "Buy back issues" section.
  • Gramophone, the UK based magazine, has many features and obituaries online as well as access to some articles in the Grove Concise Dictionary of Music.
  • La Scena Musicale, a Canada based magazine in both English and French, has virtually all their issues available online. Use the site search or browse the Back Issues page.
  • Ópera Actual, a Spanish language magazine, makes several main articles from the current issue available. Brief news articles are archived from the last two years. To browse, click on: VER TODAS LAS NOTICIAS. The site has no internal search engine, but the news contents can be searched via Google by typing the following into the search box:
site:operaactual.com/noticias/ "Key Word(s)"
Sample Google/Ópera Actual search result for "Simón Orfila"
  • Revistas Culturales, the official web site of the Asociación de Revistas Culturales de España, reprints many back articles (with the original illustrations) from Spanish classical music and opera magazines, most of which are only available in hardcopy. The magazines covered include Scherzo, Ritmo, Ópera Actual, and Melómano. To access the articles available from each magazine, click on the magazine name.
Sample summary page for Ritmo on Revistas Culturales
  • Opernwelt and Das Opernglas, the two main German opera magazines, have only the cover interview and one or two reviews from the current issue online, plus photos of their past covers. Das Opernglas has searchable archives, but payment is required to access individual articles.

[edit] The Opera Critic

The Opera Critic site has external links to international press coverage (English, French, Spanish, German and Italian) as well as production photos and schedules for each of the opera companies and singers listed below. The external links to press reviews and articles open in a new window and go directly to the newspaper or magazine source site. Note that the older articles may eventually become part of the newspapers' subscription-only archives.

[edit] Opera companies

Australia

Austria

Belgium

France

Germany

Italy

Russia

Switzerland

UK

USA

[edit] Individual singers

Female singers

Male singers

[edit] Books

[edit] Google book search

Google's specialized book search engine can be very useful, although the results will vary from citation only, to very limited 'snippets', to fairly extensive previews, to the full book. However, even a snippet can be enough if you just want to reference a single fact. You can set the search for the type of results you want (all books, books with previews, or complete books) via the 'advanced search' mode. Note that the books are not in text format. They are scans of the actual pages in the original work.

Selection of works which have a fairly extensive preview available and are internally searchable:

[edit] University of California Press

The University of California Press has made several complete opera and classical music-related books from their 'Scolarship Editions' available online. Note that although they are free, they are still in copyright and their contents must not be pasted verbatim into articles. All the books in the series (including those without full public access) can be internally searched. The page numbering in the online versions reflects that of the hardcopy versions.

  • UCP Search page The filter can be set to either all books or public access books only.

Selected UCP public access books

[edit] Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg has many opera-related full length books available including memoirs, opera reference books, and libretti. Note that as all these are out of copyright, i.e. published before 1923, the reference works may contain errors which have been corrected in more modern books. Unlike Google Books and University of California Press which provide access to the original publications, the books on Project Gutenberg are technically re-publications of the original works in text or HTML format and often do not contain the original page numbers or detailed information about the edition from which they were taken.

Unless you know the exact title or author you are looking for, it may be easier to do a key word search via Google by typing the following in the search box: site:gutenberg.org "key word (or words)"

[edit] Source literature for libretti

A selection of the literary sources for opera libretti:

  • Scènes de la Vie Bohème Novel by Henri Murger, 1847-49 (in English translation) - the source for both Puccini's and Leoncavallo's La bohème.
  • Madame Butterfly Novella by John Luther Long, 1903 - the source for Puccini's Madama Butterfly.
  • Carmen Novella by Prosper Mérimée, 1845 (in English translation) - the source for Bizet's Carmen.
  • La Dame Aux Camelias Novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, 1848 (in English translation) - the source for Verdi's La traviata.
  • Cavalleria rusticana Short story by Giovanni Verga 1880 (in the original Italian only) - the source for Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana.
  • The Queen of Spades Short story by Alexander Pushkin, 1834 (in English translation) - the source for Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades).
  • Don Carlos Play by Frederich von Schiller, 1786 (in English translation) - the source for Verdi's Don Carlos.
  • Wilhelm Tell Play by Frederich von Schiller, 1804 (in English translation) - the source for Rossini's Guillaume Tell (William Tell).
  • Billy Budd Novel by Herman Melville, 1891 - the source for Britten's Billy Budd.

[edit] Opera House archives

[edit] The Metropolitan Opera archives

The MetOpera Database is an invaluable tool for researching singers who have performed there. Navigating it can be tricky if you're a new user. Below is quick guide to using and referencing the database with Maria Callas as an example.

  1. Go to the MetOpera Database Main Page
  2. Click on: Key Word Search
  3. Insert Callas in the search box and click

The resulting search results page will have 31 items in chronological order. (Note that not all of these items will pertain to Callas performances, some may refer to a review of someone else's performance in which she was mentioned.) Any available photographs will be shown as thumbnails (click to enlarge). The first item in the list will be Norma {58}. (The number in curly brackets means that this was the 58th performance of that opera at the Met) Beneath that heading basic information will be listed:

Date and place of performance (Metropolitan Opera House; 10/29/1956)
If it was the Opening Night of the season (in this case, yes)
The Met's General Manager at the time (Rudolf Bing)
Any house debuts in that performance (in this case, Maria Callas)
If any reviews are availiable. (in this case, yes)

Clicking on Norma {58} will take you to a page with the full cast list and a reprinted review of the performance from Variety.

  1. Scroll further down that page to: Added Index Entries for Subjects and Names
  2. Under that heading scroll to: Met Careers
  3. Click on: Callas, Maria [Soprano]

This will take you to a page titled: Name Search For: Callas, Maria [Soprano] which lists all her performances at the Met. Unlike the keyword results, it is possible to provide a direct link to this page. For example, using Internet Explorer:

  1. Place your cursor on the page near the title (not on the left hand navigation frame).
  2. Right click and choose Properties
  3. Copy the Address (URL), which appears in the pop-up box.

The resulting complex URL will look like this:

http://66.187.153.86/archives/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=BibSpeed/gisrch2k.r?Term=Callas,%20Maria%20%5BSoprano%5D&limit=5000&vsrchtype=no&xBranch=ALL&xmtype=&Start=&End=&theterm=Callas,%20Ma%72ia%20%5BSop%72ano%5D&srt=&x=0&xHome=http://66.187.153.86/archives/bibpro.htm&xHomePath=http://66.187.153.86/archives/

A formatted reference to Maria Callas' Met performance record in an article would look like this:

[edit] Other opera house archives

These tend to be much less comprehensive that the Met archives, but can be useful.

[edit] Image sources

When uploading any images, check that they are out of copyright (published before 1923 or the artist/photographer died over 70 years ago). It may require extra research on your part to establish this unless the image is obviously old, e.g. a contemporary portrait of an 18th or early 19th century singer. Some later images such as portraits of deceased singers may still be used under "fair use", but this requires a detailed fair use rationale. (See image page help for guidance.) The Wikipedia image page for this Portrait of Nancy Storace provides an example of how to document a public domain image. The page for this Portrait of Dorothy Kirsten provides an example of how to document a "fair use" image.

The Naples Theatre Archives (Archivi di Teatro Napoli) are a valuable resource for portraits of singers, original set and costume designs, etc., especially for Rossini.

The Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main has many opera related images. You can either search by key word(s) "Freitext" or for a particular "Person". Note that not all the photos, drawings and paintings are out of copyright. However, the individual image pages generally have information (in German) about the date of the work and the photographer/artist.

The New York Public Library - Joseph Muller Collection has thousands of images in their digital gallery, predominantly of composers, singers and musicians. They date from the 16th to the early 20th-centuries, and are mostly engravings and lithographs, with some drawings,

The National Portrait Gallery (UK) has a large collection of opera related portraits, with good documentation.

Gallery search page
Sample results page for "Adelina Patti"

The National Portrait Gallery (Australia) has good documentation and accompanying biographical articles.

Gallery search page
Sample image page resulting from a search for "Nellie Melba"

The Library of Congress has many treasures, but the site is a labyrinth. Suggested collections to search include:

American Memory:Performing Arts, Music
Library of Congress Performing Arts Encyclopedia

La Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine (in French) on the site of the French Ministry of Culture is a very rich resource.

Médiathèque archives search page Enter your key word(s) in the "Texte libre" box and click "lancer la recherche". On the search results page, click on the small document icon next to the image for full details of the image and an enlargeable thumbnail.

Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has photos of many autograph or early edition opera scores and portraits of African-American opera singers.

Beinecke Library search page

Dealers in antique prints and music memorablia can be valuable because they tend to document the images well, although they are not easily searchable. Suggestions include:

  • Roger Gross Ltd. has opera singer and composer portraits, as well as posters and other emphemera. The most efficient way of searching for images on this site is via Google Images with site:rgrossmusicautograph.com "key word(s)" in the search box.
Sample image page resulting from a Google site search on "poster".
  • Harmonie Autographs and Music has a large collection of singer, composer, and musician portraits, as well as autographed scores, posters and ephemera. For this site, it's probably best to use their own navigation links. (Bill Ecker of Harmonie Autographs and Music, Inc. notes that the images on the site are protected and that is why it's difficult to find our inventory photographs on a Google photo search, direct navigation through the site is your best option.)
Sample image page from Opera Singers A in the navigation bar. (Click on "More details..." next to each thumbnail for enlargement and detailed image information.)
Portraits of Musicians and Composers
Antique Music Prints

Carthalia has an extensive collection of postcards depicting theatres and opera houses, many of which were published before 1923. The site has a search function as well as a navigation bar for quick browsing.

Historic Opera is an online collection of postcards and advertising ephemera depicting opera singers and and operas, many of which were published prior to 1923. The site can be internally searched.

Historic Opera main page
Sample page of postcards depicting singers at Bayreuth circa 1908

See also:

[edit] General resources

  • OperaGlass, hosted by Stanford University, has detailed information on many operas, including: libretti, source texts, performance histories, synopses, discographies, and role creators
  • The Virtual Rare Book Room at the University of North Texas Music Library has digitized scans of scores, libretti, and playbills. The collection is particularly strong in 18th century French opera.
  • The Aria Database holds a collection of information on over 1000 individual opera arias - role, voice part, fach, range and tessitura, setting and synopsis. The database also includes aria texts and translations for most arias. Note that the aria translations are contributed by volunteers and vary in quality and accuracy.
  • The Lied and Art Song Texts Page is an archive of over 25,000 texts used in lieder and other classical art songs as well as many choral works and other types of classical vocal pieces. Information is given about the musical setting(s). Many of the texts also have translations. These are contributed by volunteers and vary in quality and accuracy.
  • Operabase is a fully searchable database with details on opera performances worldwide (since August 2006), opera festivals and companies, and artists.
  • Operadis has extensive discographies of opera recordings (including operetta, Gilbert & Sullivan and zarzuela) that are or have been commercially available. The discography now lists over 16,000 recordings of over 3000 works, organized by composer and sometimes also by singer and conductor. (See Playback: The Bulletin of the British Library Sound Archive, Summer 2004, page 8, for more about the Operadis project.)
  • Del Teatro (in Italian) has reprints of many opera articles from Dizionario dell'Opera (Piero Gelli (ed.), Milan: Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2005 ISBN 888490780). You can browse alphabetically or use the search function. Some real rarities are included such as von Flotow's Alessandro Stradella and Schubert's Die Zauberharfe.
  • Klassika and Operone (in German) can be helpful for finding information on more obscure works and composers.