Talk:Martha (opera)

Almost Pure Opinion
The section "Musical Content" is almost nothing but the writer's opinion. Example sentences I present as evidence that this is completely unacceptable for an encyclopedic entry are the following: "With this overture Flotow has his ten minutes of genius. It stands head and shoulders over the opera itself and the rest of his production." "Seen on the background of the overture the happy ending seems misplaced." "In fact much of the music in Martha, especially Lyonel's rejection of the remorseful Lady Harriet in act four, belongs to a more tragic opera. It would have been more effectful if the loving couple wasn't united at the end." "might not be of their calibre" My recommendation is that this be deleted entirely, or leave the one or two sentences that might be in there that aren't sheer personal taste. Smyslov 15:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it can be toned down. It doesn't have to be deleted. -- Kleinzach 09:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Not wishing to conflict, but I think it should be either referenced or deleted, not because every unreferenced statement has to go, but because it really is a very subjective statement. There is some matter of interest in there, but a lot of it is a sort of wishful rhapsody - 'If only Flotow had been a decent German composer' - rather than a hard statement of who he was: and this does no favours either to the opera or the composer. And telling us which key it is in doesn't help unless one explains how the tonal colouring affects the dramatic handling. I have added something tangible I found in Kobbé, and set up a reference system Eebahgum 19:47, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I have attempted to express this writing in a more encyclopedic style. Eebahgum 16:16, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Popular Culture
In 1937 Connee Boswell recorded a jazzy version of "Martha" using a translation of M’apparì tutt’amor. It was one of the first instances of "swinging the Classics" that enjoyed some popularity. Jack Kapp of Decca Records at first refused to allow the release of the single, citing Opera fans would be outraged. Only when Connee agreed to take full responsibility if offense occurred did he relent. Fortunately, favorable reception meant she did not have to make good on the guarantee. Scmckinney1 (talk) 03:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you; that would be a great addition to an article about M’apparì. We used to have such an article, but the aria was deemed not notable and changed into a redirect. However, the popular recorded version Mostly Martha (song), was deemed notable enough to keep its own article. See discussion at User_talk:Michael_Bednarek/Archive_2. &mdash; Sebastian 15:27, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The aria M'appari appeared in the movie Breaking Away. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.119.103.138 (talk) 16:30, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Section Recordings
Instead of pruning this section, it would be better to delete it as a whole, since it is completely unreferenced/unsourced and thus seems to consist entirely of "original research". Regards. 81.83.130.8 (talk) 18:05, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Martha (opera). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080509063008/http://www.operasouth.co.uk/pa_shows.html to http://www.operasouth.co.uk/pa_shows.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080425214003/http://www.cotswoldwireless.co.uk/englang/martha.htm to http://www.cotswoldwireless.co.uk/englang/martha.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 04:25, 19 January 2018 (UTC)