Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 43

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Archive 43

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Singer of the Month for November

A couple of people liked the idea of 'Great Verdi Baritones'. I'd suggest concentrating on one (or some) of those who were actually his role creators, i.e 19th century. Below are some suggested names, We have no articles for these:

And these are only stubs:

  • Victor Maurel created Iago and Falstaff also Simon Boccanegra (1881 version)
  • Giorgio Ronconi created Nabucco (and several Donizetti roles too) His current article describes him as a "baritone vocalist" ;-).

Comments? Further names to suggest? Etc.? Best, Voceditenore 09:31, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that would be good selection of names to start off Singer of the Month. Did any of them record - other than Maurel? -- Kleinzach 10:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
"Did any of them record - other than Maurel?" I don't think so. All the rest died in the 1880's early 1890's. Voceditenore 10:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
How about notable living baritones like Sherrill Milnes, his article is tagged with “require cleanup” and “no citation” and others too like Cornell MacNeil, Renato Bruson, Juan Pons, Ruggero Raimondi – many more. I can’t help noticing that most baritones received less attention compared to leading actors/actresses (Tenors/sopranos) just like audience’s attention to them while onstage. Most of baritone articles are short, some of them are too brief - Jay 10:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, they need work too, although at least they have articles. In general, there are very few 20th and 21st century singers whose articles don't need work. Some are more like fan pages and do not do justice to the singer at all. But if I were to prioritize I think it's probably more important to at least have short, but accurate articles for Verdi's most prominent role creators. ? Voceditenore ?
Vanished user has kindly set up the boxes (above). -- Kleinzach 01:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
One suggestion: perhaps SotM should alternate between men and women? -- Kleinzach 01:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree. It should not only alternate between men and women, but also between periods, and between voice types. December's singers should be women, in my view. I'll put my thinking cap on some suggestions once the November one is finalized. Meanwhile, if anyone has any suggestions for December....? Best, Voceditenore 07:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Since tomorrow is November 1st, is everyone reasonably happy with "Great Verdi Baritones"?

Voceditenore 13:44, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I certainly am, especially as I put most of the role creators into the frames on the Verdi operas' pages. The Ronconi article (to which I've already made a couple of corrections and some small additions) is pretty crummy, but that's the 1911 Britannica for you. Editing to add that I hope you or someone will add the relevant info to the box up at the top here before the chimes of midnight. --GuillaumeTell 17:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I've filled in the box on this page. Am I right in assuming that it automatically gets transferred to the main page when the clock strikes midnight? Maybe Kleinzach or Vanished user could check that I've done it right? Voceditenore 18:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
You're right that that's what it does (which is why I mentioned it), and it doesn't need anyone more technically adept than I am to check that it worked OK, which it did. --GuillaumeTell 01:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

L'isola disabitata

Sparafucil started this article in August, translating the title as The Desert Island. On the basis of Grove, and my shaky Italian, I changed this to The Deserted Island but Sparafucil reverted - unfortunately without any explanation. So which is it? Is the island sandy or depopulated? Can someone with more Italian than I possess please tell us? -- Kleinzach 23:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

"Desert" in "desert island" means "deserted". It's one of those words that only get used in a single phrase. (disabitata, by the way, means uninhabited, unless I'm much mistaken. Shares a root). I'd go with The Desert Island as it's more idomatic English. That's what they're almost inevitably called. Vanished user talk 00:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Ah, it hadn't occurred to me that this might be an English problem. Speaking for myself, I don't equate 'desert island' and 'deserted island' - the former is hot, sandy, has palm tress and few people, the latter is simply depopulated and could be in the arctic. What do other people think? (We normally follow Grove and try not to proliferate translations.) -- Kleinzach 10:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
From the description in the libretto, the Island would be hot, sandy and deserted, and probably have palm trees too. It's somewhere in the West Indies. Gernando, Costanza, and Silvia were sailing to join his father who was the Governor of some West Indian colony. They end up on the deserted island to recover from a storm. While they're recovering, Gernando is captured by pirates. Costanza doesn't know this and thinks he has deserted her. After thirteen years as a slave, Gernando manages to escape and returns to the island in search of Costanza. At this point the opera begins. Incidentally, I think the synopsis would be a lot more understandable if this prelude to the action is included. (It's the part at the beginning of the libretto entitled 'Argomento') Voceditenore 11:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
You do have a point, VdT; I was working from a program libretto that omited the argument and presented the background as it unfolded in the singing- obviously the East Indian governor got by me.
In my last edit I linked to Desert island, itself a redirect to Deserted island, which might help to unconfuse anyone. If a compromise is neccesary I could live with uninhabited, which strikes me as slightly less elegant. We dont want to suggest depopulated, I think.
btw, I think this discusion should be linked to the talk page, having little to do with Project Opera as such. Or are we some sort of court before which individual miscreants are to be hauled for judgment whenever someone disagrees whith an edit? Sparafucil 02:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for responding. The main reason for talking here is that we've had an informal policy of sticking to Grove translations to avoid proliferation. If that's going to be challenged, it would be best to do it on a project page. Of course, there was also a possibility that the Grove translation was wrong, but I think it's clear now that Grove is correct. (BTW I've suggested that Deserted island be moved to Desert island, though that's not relevant here.) -- Kleinzach 03:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the policy is absolutely advisable as far as articles on works not known by their non-English titles are concerned, but I dont think it nessesarily applies here. The Groves editors have put more thought into Pique Dame vs. the Queen of Spades than I ever will, but must we always stick with their less fortunate choices? (The Affirmer still makes me cringe). Sparafucil 06:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't see any problem with The Deserted Island. Perfectly good English, and less used than Desert Island. I don't like The Affirmer either, but there may have been special reasons for using it. IMO the Grove editors were also, like us, trying to avoid introducing new titles. Would we be happy with The Crowning of Poppea? The Dusk of the Gods? The Stories of Hoffmann? Conversations of the Carmelites? The Fleeing Dutchman? -- Kleinzach 06:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
A brief reminder that to translate Der Jasager as The Affirmer is a shamefully poor piece of scholarship that ignores the events of the piece (only a singular, climatic event is 'affirmed') and the translation used by the standard critical edition of the works of BB, which renders it as He Said Yes (which he did, once). Loyalty to some second-rate scholarship is the 'reason'? DionysosProteus 15:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Welcome back, Dionysos! I dont think I properly welcomed you before as a fellow Brechtian. I dont mean to re-ignite anything, but a parenthetical title serves as a translation of the original as well as a reminder of extant English versions, which is why I favor "He Who Says Yes" (the former standard translation). But when we're not talking of article names there's no reason not to include the titles of both versions, is there? Btw, "The Affirmer" may not be the nadir of Brecht scholarship ; I recall somewhere seeing a reference to "The Approver" {:o Maybe someone with a rubber stamp...

When we offer a translation and not an alternate title it seems reasonable to be guided by taste (I wonder how we can disagree;-)), and "deserted" just strikes my ear differently. Sparafucil 07:23, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Singers of the month for December

A gap I have noticed is in coverage of the New Music divas: Dawn Upshaw and Meredith Monk have articles well underway, but Bethany Beardslee, Joan LaBarbara, Cathy Berberian, Judith Bettina, Jane Manning and others who have shaped the music of our own age all have rather skimpy stubs (if that).Sparafucil 06:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

My suggestion would be The great contraltos: Clara Butt, Louise Homer, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Kathleen Ferrier, Marian Anderson, maybe some others. Taking existing (fairly long) articles on some major figures and bringing them up to project standard would give us benchmarks for future articles. (Some other ideas: Coloratura mezzos before Bartoli, French dramatic sopranos from Calvé to Crespin . . .) -- Kleinzach 07:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Move opera excerpts to WikiSource ?

This being an encyclopedia, I'm not sure we should have entries like Madamina, il catalogo è questo or Se vuol ballare. There exists other wikimedia projects whose goal is to include such entries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by WLior (talk • contribs) 15:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I entirely agree. We'd probably have to keep Ride of the Valkyries and William Tell Overture (to avoid cluttering up Die Walküre and Guillaume Tell, but that's about all. --GuillaumeTell 16:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree too, unless a particular aria or extract has taken on 'a life of its own' beyond the opera in which it occurs. I would include 'Nessun dorma' in that category (although for copyright reasons, the aria can be discussed and a few lines quoted but not reproduced in its entirety). However Madamina, il catalogo è questo is pretty silly. When I found it, it was a real mess, with the title listed as 'Il catalogue questo' [1]. I redirected it to a new page without the errors, but if had been up to me I would have deleted it. I think WikiSource would take extracts if an English translation were provided in each case:
"The English Wikisource only collects texts written in the English language. Texts in other languages should be placed in the appropriate language subdomain, or at the general multi-language website. However, English Wikisource does collect English translations of non-English texts, as well as bilingual editions in which the target language of the translation is English. For translations, the first priority at Wikisource is the contribution of previously published, public domain translations. However, in light of the fact that there are countless source texts published in other languages that might never be translated otherwise, plus the fact that new, complementary translations can improve on existing ones in many ways, Wikisource also allows user-created wiki translations."
But even if WikiSource won't have them, I don't think there's a case for letting these 'articles' proliferate. Best, Voceditenore 17:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the support :-) I am thinking of articles which consist just of the text of the excerpt (the catalogue aria for example), and therefore belong in a repository of texts. Of course we should keep articles which have a wider scope (such as Ride of the Valkyries). WLior 16:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the proposal but the last time I moved few arias + translation there, they rejected them. I had to bring them back here. If any of you like to move them, please do so. The admin in Wikisource responded, they welcome complete libretto or partial without English translation. It was about 6 months ago (May 2007). - Jay 18:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I think we need someone to take on the job of joining WikiSource to talk to them about this. -- Kleinzach 22:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I'll have a go, if no-one else wants to volunteer. --GuillaumeTell 23:12, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I talked to some people at Wikisource. What they said can be boiled down to this: we must make sure that both the text and its translation are out of copyright, and they would prefer a complete libretto to aria excerpts. However, what we can do is, in the case of Se vuol ballare, is create the page [The Marriage of Figaro] at Wikisource, put this aria in there, and then build up the rest over time. Moreschi Talk 20:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

In the case of The Marriage of Figaro (and probably other works) a full translated libretto exists on the net at the Aria Database. The translator (Hannah Kilpatrick) even provides her email address. Would it be worth trying to persuade the author (and others like her) to put the whole thing on WikiSource and just delete the text of Se vuol ballare. What do other people think? -- Kleinzach 11:39, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
A couple of weeks ago Jay tried emailing another translator there as well as the site's owner re permission to use an aria translation and both emails bounced. The site has been around since the late 90's and is very rarely updated. These are the libretti with translations that the Aria Database currently has: Carmen, Romeo et Juliette (Gounod), Faust (Gounod), Die Fledermaus, Die Lustige Witwe, Die Zauberflöte, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Werther
But I'm just wondering whether it's worth the effort trying to put all this stuff on Wikisource. The opera articles can contain external links to online libretti and translations where they're available. Perhaps that's enough. The reader still has to exit the article to access them whether they go to WikiSource or somewhere else. And the copyright status of the translations is tricky. Unless we are sure the translation was published before 1923 or the site on which it is found explicitly states that it is released under a GFDL license, it can't be used without first getting permission from the translator and even then many of them would not be happy to release it under GFDL terms. Voceditenore 14:09, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, from the copyright perspective it doesn't matter whether things are posted to Wikipedia or WikiSource -- if it was ok to post here, it's ok to move it there (caveat: they may be more stickly about actually verifying copyright status than we are). Starting a new article about the opera and posting just an excerpt seems to me to be the way to go. It's worth noting that the Italian wikisource has libretti for many operas. Also note that WikiSource does accept editor-created translations when "external references" are not available (not that it's obvious to me that the translation posted on John Doe Amateur's personal web page are better than the one made by Jane Roe Editor for wikipedia). WLior 18:54, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Partenope edit war

During the past couple of days there appears to have been an edit war over the article title (Partenope or Partenope (Opera)) of this Handel opera. It has involved a whole lot of usernames - some of them apparently sock puppets - that I've never seen before. It's been going on at The opera corpus as well. Does anyone here know what is happening? It seems the correct title for the article should be Partenope as this is apparently unique, but I hesitate to get involved in something that doesn't make any sense to me. -- Kleinzach 23:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Partenope seems to be the policy-designated name, I've sorted it out and move-protected, as well as full-protecting the redirect. Poke me if there's any other problems. By the wya, on the banner thing - I have flu, and just haven't gotten around to it. Vanished user talk 23:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Cantatas

Should cantatas all go into 'Compositions by XYZ' categories and under Classical Music Project banners on talk pages? I've noticed that Aci, Galatea e Polifemo and Clori, Tirsi e Fileno are listed under operas. -- Kleinzach 04:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

For Handel, there is definitely enough material for a separate cantata category - however, there are as yet few existing articles - cantatas are even mostly left out of the List_of_compositions_by_George_Frideric_Handel (Aci, Galatea e Polifemo is under "Odes and Masques" there in that article for some reason).
In general, I think these works will get more informed attention from writers on opera than general classical music editors, so I do think they ought to be associated with this project.
Dybryd 04:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
As I've noted on your page, we've tried to keep a clear distinction between the two projects (although many of us are actually on both) to make it easier to do bot runs. Fuzzy edges require time-consuming hand sorting before runs. -- Kleinzach 04:25, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I've now put the two anomalous cantatas above under the scope of the Classical Music project. -- Kleinzach 02:42, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Singer categories

I have quite a few tenor pages on my watchlist, not surprisingly, and noticed that yesterday an anonymous editor, 69.234.132.228, was changing the cats on those articles - removing the general Category:Tenors leaving only the tenors by nationality category or, if none was there before, adding it and removing the general one. I checked their contributions and yesterday he/she did this to over 100 tenor articles. Is this a good thing? Best, Voceditenore 15:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC).

Singer categories are a bit of a mess, but they are not going to be improved by large scale anonymous recategorization of one particular voice type. We looked into the categorization at the time of the last bot run (see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Opera/Archive_27#Opera_singer_classification) but the huge scale of the problem was a disincentive to doing anything about it. -- Kleinzach 16:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, fortunately, the edior didn't invent new tenor nationality categories, just monkeyed around with those who could fit into the main three that are already there - Italian, English and American, although the re-classification of Freddy Mercury as an English tenor was probably stretching it. ;-) Best, Voceditenore 17:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Sooner or later we will need a reform of the singer cats (for bot runs etc.) but an agreed plan will be required and a determination to actually carry it out - possibly as a group effort. I don't have my estimate of the number of singer articles to hand but it's well over a thousand with about 130 categories. Some areas - for example Americans and baritones - are much more heavily categorized than others. -- Kleinzach 02:33, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Notability or not of Grove

Hope this isn't going to develop into a problem, but a user called User:Doctorfluffy has queried the notability of Graham Vick because the Grove referenced article (quote) "is itself unsourced [not actually true] and doesn't establish notability " (end quote). Doctorfluffy's 'mission' explained on his user page is to expose the non-notability of large numbers of WP articles. -- Kleinzach 00:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, it's common procedure to notify a user when you are bringing up charges like this.
Now, please read my comments from my talk page carefully. I am pointing out that the article, New Grove Dictionary of Opera, which you linked to me was unsourced. (You just recently added a link, but the site is currently down.) Whether or not the Grove book is notable or well-sourced is irrelevant - its article on Wikipedia is unsourced and does nothing to prove notability. This is indisputable. I am simply asking you add sources, which is especially important if you use this book as a basis to judge other topics for notability. Please review WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:BK for information regarding sourcing, verifiability, and information for books specifically. I have nothing against you, your project, or opera in general, but these are some of the core policies of Wikipedia and I am plainly asking you to respect them. Thanks. Doctorfluffy 01:28, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
This has becone a little confused. (Your original point about Grove was ambiguous and I understood it in the opposite way you intended.) Anyway we were talking about the notability of Graham Vick and I did notify you that I had removed the tag. Is it your point that a reference has to be itself referenced? Regarding the New Grove Dictionary of Opera article, I added the online link because I saw it was missing. I was not attempting to self-reference the thing! -- Kleinzach 01:43, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I see you are also questioning the notability of the Birmingham Opera Company. Can you please tell us why? -- Kleinzach 01:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I can see that I am not making myself clear. My point is that almost all articles need to be referenced per WP:WHEN. The main reason I tagged Graham Vick was because its reference was itself unreferenced! Regarding, Birmingham Opera Company, it likely is notable per WP:ORG, but that cannot be verified since it currently has no reliable secondary sources (see the first line of the main section of WP:ORG). These are the exact kinds of reasons why the tags were invented, to point out potential problems in articles. It is not a slight against the authors/editors of those articles. Let's check out WP:WHEN with regards to the information contained in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera article. Of note:
  • A bold, opinionated statement requiring citation is made about its notability, "considered to be one of the best". That sentence also uses a borderline weasel word too - "considered" by whom to be one of the best sources?
  • There are numerous statistics requiring citation, but that may be covered in the official site link you added.
Perhaps the best way to show what I mean is by the example of another notable reference book. Check out the page for the Old Farmer's Almanac, specifically its references section. There are numerous references from both primary and secondary sources with footnotes for all facts likely to be challenged. Naturally, that article is about an immensely important work and nothing near that superb level of referencing is necessary for the New Grove Dictionary of Opera. I hope this helps explain my previous comments.
Again, my intention was not to rile your project up and this is already consuming a fair amount of time, so I'd really like to wrap this up. Since you've already mentioned my mission statement, I suppose I'll just reiterate it here again. I care almost exclusively about notability, and this is clearly not an issue of notability, but rather one of sourcing, which really doesn't concern me personally at all. That said, it's always best to have all articles properly sourced because it increases the credibility of Wikipedia on the whole. Doctorfluffy 02:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
You write "The main reason I tagged Graham Vick was because its reference was itself unreferenced!" . Hmm. Let's try to clear about this. Are you suggesting that if an article on, say chemistry, is referenced by a scientific journal, perhaps the Journal of American Chemistry, then the journal in turn must be referenced? That's news to me! Where exactly in all the alphabet soup does it say that? -- Kleinzach 05:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
To be fair, this is actually a rare situation, since references rarely have their own articles on Wikipedia. What happened was as follows. I came across the article on Graham Vick and was not convinced based on the article's content that he was notable. That is not uncommon and is not a slight against him or any editor who worked on the article. Sometimes, this is enough for me to add a tag of some sort. However, interestingly the reference (the Grove Dictionary) used for that article had an article of it's own. This is rather uncommon as sources are usually not qualified have their own article. I then checked out the Grove article and noticed it was also unsourced. Because the source itself didn't have proven notability that only further lead me to believe that Graham Vick had questionable notability, so I tagged him.
Back to your question though, and I'll try to answer without the alphabet soup. There are really two issues here.
  1. Grove as a source.
    No, a reference is not required to be referenced itself per se (articles can be based on published primary sources), but it must comply with rules regarding verifiability and reliability. In layman's terms, a source must have a certain level of credibility to be used on Wikipedia. I doubt there is a problem with the Grove Dictionary qualifying as a valid source for use in other articles. The Graham Vick article is probably adequated cited if experts in the field consider Grove to be a valid source.
  2. Grove as an article.
    However, the second issue is that there is actually an article on Grove on Wikipedia and that article is currently unreferenced. Just because an article is about a reference doesn't mean that article itself doesn't need to be referenced. Suppose I disagreed with the assessment that it is "one of the best general reference sources" for opera, and I changed the article to read "a mediocre reference". How could you prove I was wrong? How could you prove the original version was more accurate? Of course, you could revert, but then it just becomes an argument with both of us expressing our own personal opinions based on our own personal biases. That kind of situation is exactly why the core policies of Wikipedia exist and why all statements that could conceivably be challenged should have a source.
Anyway, in the time I was writing this it looks as though another member of your project found some sources for that article, so I suppose the whole issue is resolved. Doctorfluffy 06:51, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Comment The "another member of your project" was me. Wow, quite a tempest when I logged in this morning.;-) Anyhow, I happen to agree with Doctorfluffy re the necessity to provide supporting references for the articles on the two "Grove's". Many (most?) Wikipedia readers are not familiar with opera and relevant publications on the subject, and will have never heard of Grove. There was nothing in the initial versions of the articles about them to support the view (which we Opera Project members take as a given) that it is an authoritative and prestigious reference work. If it is to be used as the sole reference for an article, even one marked as a stub, I think it is important that the reader has an idea of its status as a reference work. I've now nipped in and referenced both New Grove Dictionary of Opera and Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. I also referenced the article about Graham Vick while I was at it. There are of course, zillions of sources for Graham Vick who is a very distinguished and prolific opera director, but the ones I've added should provide a start, and enable anyone who's interested, to expand the article. And a thank you to Doctorfluffy for the wake-up call. Best to all Voceditenore 07:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
(reducing indent)It's very easy to get lost in the numerous policies around here. Unfortunately, Wikipedia has really become a mess and it's beginning to detract from overall credibility. Less than 3% of articles have even moderate quality control, see here for a succinct explanation. Many of the other 97% have significant notability problems and likely would not survive a deletion discussion. It's quite random that I ended up on an opera related article, but I think it's good that this happened. Adding tags rarely attracts attention, especially this quickly, so I am glad someone noticed and immediately started asking questions. It shows that these are articles which people care about. In the hopes of resolving the entire matter on a friendly note, I sourced the Birmingham Opera Company article and removed the tags I added earlier. I wish you the best with your project. Doctorfluffy 08:33, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
OK. Now I understand your reasoning properly there is little or nothing to quarrel with. My concern was with the notability tags, not the unreferenced ones. We have a lot of articles that are inadequately referenced - no argument there. (We have about 4,500 to 5,000 opera pages so it's not a small job.) I was concerned we were going to see stubs put up for deletion, so I'm relieved this is not the case. Thanks for processing the Birmingham article. -- Kleinzach 10:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I think this raises the issue of assessment again, as referencing forms part of our marking scheme. It's a huge project for the number of people invoved. Currently I have personal health concerns which mean that I don't want to commit to anything other than the odd tinker. But I think that may be the best way to go about things anyway. Rather than saying, we'll assess all the opera articles beginning with "a" by the end of the year, it might be better if several of us agree to assess odd articles that catch our eyes. Also individuals can nominate ones for assessment. That way we'll gradually get some articles in a state where we know where they are. And the odds are that those will favour the most important works and singers as they are more likely to have people interested in assessing them. --Peter cohen 12:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)