User talk:Smerus/Archive Aug 2007

Berlin Singakademie
Hi Smerus! Long time since we talked! Hope all is going well? I worked some more on the Singakademie article and I was wondering about the mentioning of the Academy of Ancient Music being the model for the Berlin Singakademie. Do you happen to have a reference for this? If you've got time you could also check my English for the edits I made... :-) Many thanks! Matthias Matthias Röder 23:33, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Links on User:Smerus not working
The links from your user page give
 * My online articles and music reviews for the Social Affairs Unit
 * On myself and other David Conways with a brief comment about Wikipedia

Forbidden You don't have permission to access /blog/authors.php on this server. You don't have permission to access /blog/archives/000711.php on this server. Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request. Apache/1.3.33 Server at www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk Port 80 Michael Bednarek 23:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Seem to be working OK to me - they are public web-sites!! Thanks for your note, anyway.Smerus 09:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Strange - I've now tried both from home and they work indeed. I'll have to investigate why I failed to see those sites from work. All the best, Michael Bednarek 10:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Ballad Opera
Your reworking of this article, in the opinion of this old pedant (whose first degree, incidentally, was in musical history) widens the definition of "Ballad Opera" to near meaninglessness, and throws out a fair bit of baby with the bathwater. Still, this wide and highly vague definition of a very specific genre does exist in otherwise generally accurate and very highly reputable references, and is far from being just your creation, so I suppose we might as well live with it.

Might I humbly suggest, on the other hand, that you might like to perform yet another drastic rewrite, distinguishing a little more clearly between the original genre (as in the article as I originally left it - and its much more gentle contemporary, with (mostly) specially composed music, non-satiric themes, and pastoral rather than criminal characters. (I.E. different in practically every respect except chronology!!).

Perhaps even a opening line something like "the term Ballad Opera is used to refer to a form of highly satirical 18th century stage presentation, and also to a form of eighteenth and nineteenth century light opera with music, often also called a "pastoral". Come to think of it - the Beggar's opera was at one stage described an a "Newgate Pastoral" by its author!!

have fun.

Soundofmusicals 02:38, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I think you are being a bit pedantic, (as, no doubt, am I). I put in the references to the pastoral side ('Love in a Village', etc.) because the article as I found it gave the impression that all ballad operas were about low-life and that they were generally attacked and suppressed, which was I think extremely misleading (to say the least). Whether you (or I) like it or not, the term 'ballad opera' is used by those around us to cover both of these types. We can't be Humpty-Dumpty in WP ('When I use a word, it means what I want it to mean'). The essence of both types was that their music consisted of strophic settings of simple tunes in English, interspersed with spoken episodes, on stories of everyday folk. Whether such tunes were 'written' or 'borrowed', was in those days, as you will know, often a debatable point, and perhaps not really relevant - the point was (for their largely bourgeois audiences) that they were definitely not Italian arias.


 * You rightly point out that 'this wide and highly vague definition of a very specific genre does exist in otherwise generally accurate and very highly reputable references' - and the point of WP is not to redefine consensus - indeed 'original research', including attempts at redefining the consensus, is specifically excluded from WP's remit (seeOriginal research). If therefore you can cite a source that argues that the the term 'ballad opera' should be restricted in the way you suggest, by all means edit the article to cite it. But don't let it override the wider, accepted, definition. In the meantime I am posting this exchange on Talk:Ballad opera so that others can express an opinion on it should they wish.--Smerus 07:46, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * O.K. I have done it myself!!


 * I have tried my very best to keep well away from the spirit of the mindless reversion - while getting the original article largely reinstated! You additional information is nicely worked in, I hope.


 * Anyway - let me know how you feel about all this


 * Soundofmusicals 07:20, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Categories
Hi. Boring, I know, but, apart from the category Operas (and a genre category where appropriate), you need to categorise newly-created opera articles in the categories Category:Operas by composer and Category:Operas by language. Thus, I've added to the Le juif errant (opera) article the categories "Operas by Fromental Halévy" and "French-language operas".

The other thing is that if an opera title (like that one) starts with an article, you need to put a DEFAULTSORT tag before the categories, in the case above so that it appears in the category listing under J rather than L. Incidentally, although we're following French capitalisation rules for titles, the DEFAULTSORT tag title needs to begin with a capital letter if the title doesn't (as Wikipedia is rather case-sensitive), AND, if the title proper starts with an accented letter (e.g. "éclair"), the DEFAULTSORT title should omit the accent as well as being capitalised (i.e. "Eclair"), as WP files letters with accents after Z.  If you pretend to edit "Le juif errant" and "L'éclair", you'll see what I've done. Re-edit them if you like and check the effect in the category listings.

Let me know if you can't understand any (or all!) of the above. Best. --GuillaumeTell 21:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Le juif errant (opera)
I'm away from my books at the moment, but shouldn't this be: Le Juif errant? Best -- Kleinzach 02:53, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * But it's La Juive. . . . Which Grove did you look at? It seems the online is less reliable than the print. BTW Juif is a proper name/noun. -- Kleinzach 06:25, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I see you have changed the other title (La Juive to La juive) as well. The names of nationalities/races/peoples are proper names. As to these specific titles I'll check later and get back to you if there's a problem. -- Kleinzach 09:34, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I am now back at my desk and I have the New Grove Dictionary of Opera (Sadie 1992) in my hands - and the titles are indeed La Juive and Le Juif errant with capital Js. I have checked the articles on Halévy and on La Juive by Hugh MacDonald. I note also an article on L:e Juif polonais by Erlanger. The capital J is used consistently throughout all the articles. This leaves me puzzled by your claim that the same book has different capitalization. Perhaps you can check again and confirm that you were mistaken? (The Oxford Dictionary of Opera also gives La Juive.) In the circumstances I think La Juive should be moved back to the original title. IMO it's important we keep to our system. -- Kleinzach 15:53, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * As you don't "personally don't care which option etc." I will change the two articles back. Please note that of course I don't think French adjectives, such as 'anglais/e', should be capitalized - proper nouns are different. Regards. -- Kleinzach 10:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * We will have to agree to differ on this. I can only assume that the editors of the print Opera Grove also (like me) regarded Juive/Juif as a proper noun - particular not general. See for example . Regards. -- Kleinzach 15:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)