User:Viva-Verdi

Update on current projects as of January 2015
1. The Giuseppe Verdi article has been underway since September 2014 !!!

It is still under construction, but has has got as far as being ready for the La forza del destino section for the years 1861-61.

2. Articles on Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini'

Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini articles are now completely re-written.(Sept '14) After Verdi, Rossini will follow in 2015.......

3. The operas of Giuseppe Verdi

Since I have a personal ambition to see a performance of every opera which Verdi wrote, I intend to make sure that all of the articles have a proper intro paragraph, performance history, roles tables (completed), a synopsis, synopsis format (done), noted arias integrated into the synopsis, recordings tables, significant refs and support notes, properly formatted refs, etc.

So far the only outstanding opera which I have yet to see is Aroldo (no known upcoming performances....). I'm not sure that I'll count having to see Gustavo III, although I'd certainly make the effort if it were to be presented again.

4. Prepare/expand articles on rarely-produced operas which have been announced for performances

When there are performances (or concert performances) coming up in the near future and where it is clear that there may be potential readership, I am actively working on expanding the Wiki article for those operas.

Example: In January 2013, the Metropolitan Opera presented Donizetti's Maria Stuarda; it was broadcast to cinemas throughout the world. Wikimedia Tool Labs has created a search engine for "hits" on opera articles on Wikipedia. By entering an opera title and date range, a graph of the number of pageviews can be produced.

That counter can be found here for Maria Stuarda: https://tools.wmflabs.org/popularpages/graph.php?title=Maria+Stuarda&start=Oct12&end=Dec14&stats=show As is clear, January 2013 saw about 30,000 page views.

5. The operas of Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti

Focusing on the bel canto era of 1800 to 1850 or so, one example has been Donizetti's Belisario which was considerably expanded because it as given in London in October 2012. His L'assedio di Calais was given in the UK between March and May in 10 venues; I saw it on 27 April 2013. I completed a big update of Rossini's La donna del lago prior to London and Santa Fe performances in Spring/Summer 2013; I've worked on the Tancredi article prior to a May performance in Paris. Donizetti's Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo was expanded prior to the October 2013 performances in Bergamo and the planned Spring 2015 presentations by English Touring Opera in England.

In 2014, my projects have included expansion of Donizetti's Poliuto (to be seen at Glyndebourne in May-July 2015) and now there is a separate article on the French version of that opera, Les martyrs, given in November 2014 at the Royal Festival Hall.

Another 2014 project, now complete, was updates and expansion on all the operas of Bellini, plus added info boxes.

6. List of opera houses:

I've contributed to this significantly over the last few years, since I have an ambition to see opera performances in the majority of the great European houses. I started by attended performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London in 1958, and have been fortunate enough to have lived in (or close enough to) several great opera houses, including those in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. Presently, I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico where there is a great summer opera festival - in a a spectacular semi-outdoor setting.

I intend to get back to the Italian houses list and flesh it out more.

7. Reformat as many opera articles as can be found needing work using the most recent WikiProject Opera article guidelines.