Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 60

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Thomas Arne operas
I have just created an article on Thomas and Sally and have substantially added to Artaxerxes. I would appriciate some feedback and an assessment on the talk page. Thanks.Nrswanson (talk) 10:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I've done a few small edits and left a note on the talk page. A couple of general points: IMO it's always useful to check the premiere in Amadeus here. You can at least confirm the date and usually you get a lot more. Also I'd go easy on the red links. There's no point in putting them in unless the person is important and there's a good chance that someone will write an article. -- Klein zach  01:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback and the advice, and I wasn't aware of amadeusonline.Nrswanson (talk) 08:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Composers for the month of June
Since we have already completed the list for this month perhaps we could add a few more operas to the list?Nrswanson (talk) 14:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I've got a little more to add to Antigona and I'm probably going to revise the Le Sueur and Piccinni bios (the latter is particularly bad and any help there would be appreciated). But, sure, why not? Something from the Classical era? I'd add the two short Dalayrac operas myself. --Folantin (talk) 14:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. Or possibly some more works by the composers already listed.Nrswanson (talk) 14:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * "Or possibly some more works by the composers already listed". Traetta's definitely a good candidate here. At least one other work of his (Ippolito ed Aricia) has been recorded. --Folantin (talk) 14:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes that would be good and also his opera Le serve rivali has been recorded. Georg Benda's Ariadne auf Naxos (which is considered his masterpiece), Pygmalion, and Medea have also been recorded as well. Further recordings of Piccinni include Le donne vendicate and L'americano.Nrswanson (talk) 15:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * There are also tons of recordings of Cimarosa's operas including Le astuzie femminili, L'Armida immaginaria, Giannina e Bernardone, La Cleopatra, L'impresario in angustie, and Le donne rivali among many others.Nrswanson (talk) 15:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Some thoughts: CotM is a kind of advert. It's at the top of the page to attract new members and show we are active as well as providing a focus for our efforts. For that reason it's better if there is some kind of coherent idea behind the selection. In the case of the list the operas were chosen on the basis of (very roughly) comparable importance. It's a good selection that will help us work towards some kind of even coverage.

There's no point in putting every opera that you are interested in on the CotM list - much simpler to just go ahead and write it! If you have a recording of a rare work that should give you enough information to do a good article even if it isn't covered in Grove, Viking or Oxford - if you don't have all the historical information you can at least do a good synopsis. (Please add any article you do to the The opera corpus!) -- Klein zach  23:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Josephine Barstow
This page seems to be lacking detail of her career in Europe: we get detail about her start and then her later work with Opera North, but not much to explain how it came to pass that it was she partnering Domingo - and doing such a job of it - in the 1989/1990 Salzburg Festival Ballo.  almost - instinct 20:00, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Probably this discussion ought to be transferred to Talk:Josephine Barstow, but I'll answer here for now. I don't think that she had much of a career in continental Europe.  The Salzburg appearances, IIRC, were because Karajan suddenly decided that she was to be his next diva.  However, the priest and the doctor in their long coats were running over the fields, he died in 1989 and she went back to Britain. --GuillaumeTell 20:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That solves the question then!  almost - instinct 23:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Composer for the month of July
I would like to suggest Antonio Vivaldi as the composer for the month of July. We lack articles on 39 of his operas so I am not sure we could realistically tackle them all. However, it would be good to put a dent in that number. What do you all think?Nrswanson (talk) 02:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * We've covered ten of his operas already, which is a lot considering Grove only list five. (The opera corpus only has two red links.) I'd prefer to continue with the collections of 'major minors' we've been doing - it's been a success. -- Klein zach  03:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh ok. Well perhaps later down the road then. I only suggested it because there were a few of his operas I was interested in working on but I guess I could always do those anyway. Here is another thought. How about the opera's of Michael William Balfe as it is his 200th birthday this year. There are 19 red links on the opera corpus list.Nrswanson (talk) 03:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Balfe was suggested before, but his 'champion' left Wikipedia. The list on the Opera Corpus was rather inflated with minor works - some of which I've now removed. (The anniversary was actually last month.) Of course we are not limited to Grove or the Opera Corpus, but if the available information only amounts to a couple of sentences it would probably be better to put that in a list of works on the biography page. We don't need more articles decorated with 'expand' notices.-- Klein zach  06:52, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I am aware his birthday was last month but usually ensembles celebrate a composer's birthday for a whole year. I am sure that Balfe will have a small revival in his works globaly this season. Anyways, I don't seem to be having much luck garnering your interest. How about the works of Egidio Romualdo Duni who turned 300 this year? Or do you have any suggestions?Nrswanson (talk) 07:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Recently we've been picking operas for CotM from this list rather than focussing on a single composer. How about adding a few viable Duni works there for next month? Then maybe, instead of doing Vivaldi, we could have the Scarlatti opere serie on the list (as far as I'm aware not a single work of his has a Wikipedia article). --Folantin (talk) 08:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That sounds viable. The three Duni titles from the Opera Corpus are L'école de la jeunesse, La fée Urgèle, and Le peintre amoureux de son modèle. -- Klein  zach  08:56, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Could do RVW so that there is a possibility of linking one of the articles in his anniversary month.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are a couple of his operas missing. So we could do Duni, Scarlatti, RVW and another candidate (or two) from the list if anyone is up for it. I don't think it really matters that these composers aren't linked by any theme. What matters is that we have editors who want to fill these gaps in our coverage. --Folantin (talk) 10:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me but I think between those three composers we should have a fairly substantial list. We probably wouldn't need to add another composer.Nrswanson (talk) 10:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It certainly strikes me as rather a substantial amount already.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I've set it up. Remember, BTW, we're only doing a representative sample of Scarlatti's works rather than exhaustive coverage (which would be heroic and/or insane). --Folantin (talk) 11:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If Peter and Nathan are joining the team, I think we might be a little more ambitious. (I see we have basically finished this month's CotM already.) Let's add: Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1750): La Statira, Leonardo Vinci (c.1696-1730) Li zite 'ngalera, and Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783): Piramo e Tisbe. (They fall between Scarlatti and Duni.) I'll 'guarantee' them if nobody else works on them. -- Klein zach  13:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not actually guaranteeing to do anything. I was just suggesting RVW. I have a friend who went to St John in Love and I may be visiting him next month, in which case I'm happy to find out if he has a programme and if there's useful info in there. However, my energy levels are suffucuently unreliable that I've not been able to do more than vandal reverts and similar small contributions for several months. Also I'm having the place redecorated next month, so I don't know about how much work I'll be able to do.--Peter cohen (talk) 13:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's fine to do these things in your own time, by the way Michael Kennedy has a short piece in Grove on Sir John in Love - but maybe it would be better to take RVW off the CotM list this time and concentrate on the Scarlatti/Duni era? -- Klein zach  00:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The reason I wanted RVW now was so that there would be a strong article on one of his operas to use on the opera portal in his anniversary month.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * If you want to start Sir John in Love, I'd be happy to contribute, but we don't need it in CotM, do we? -- Klein zach  23:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll email my friend now to see whether he has the programme anyway. QUite likely to have come with a libretto too, in cich case a full synopsis is definitely feasible.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

5,000 articles: cause for celebration?
We now have 4,794 articles (see the total on the Category:WikiProject Opera articles page). By comparison the New Grove Dictionary of Opera apparently has 11,000 articles. (Interestingly they have a greater emphasis on composers than we do: 2900 articles devoted to them compared to 1800 on operas.) However our rate of production must be considerably higher than Grove ever achieved. We will soon have three times as many articles as two years ago. (The May 2006 figure was 1,835 pages.)

Should we celebrate when we reach 5,000 and if so how? I suppose one idea would be to put a notice in the Signpost (though that might attract more undesirable box warriors etc). Or a time-coordinated toast to our efforts to make Wikipedia (to paraphrase J Wales) "not suck"? Any thoughts. . . ideas. . .? -- Klein zach  02:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Those of us in or near the UK could have a get-together, perhaps? Or maybe there could be a virtual get-together of some sort for everybody, not just a toast. --GuillaumeTell 11:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm always up for meeting people. But, during the Proms sason my availability is low.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You could meet at the Proms! -- Klein zach  13:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I had intended that as part of the subtext of my message.--Peter cohen (talk) 15:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You could meet at the music festival I am organizing in Levoca, Slovakia (plug)...Smerus (talk) 18:05, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

If one of the project's GA-class articles were improved to FA-class, it could be put on the Main Page to commemorate the occasion. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * We can do several things - both inside and outside WP. Up to now there's been a little recognition of WP Opera on Opera-L, but scant interest otherwise. I think we are getting to the point where we may be able to demand a little grudging interest from the general public/mainstream media. Based on today's revised count (removing a lot of miscategorized articles) we have about 200 articles to go. That will take at least a couple of months to achieve. (We were doing about 50 articles a month, but it has speeded up.) -- Klein zach  09:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I've been keen to have some stronger srticles improved. And we can include sub-project articles as candidates. If someone is able to come up with a list of candidates, we sould have a discussion on what people are happy to work on.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You could look at the class B articles. I'm also interested in improving the ratio of stubs to developed articles, currently 1:1.96, however we'd need to discuss these things in a new topic. -- Klein zach  13:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Assessment for composers
I just noticed that we do not have assessment criteria for composers. Maybe we should create one.Nrswanson (talk) 21:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you mean a points scale? -- Klein zach  23:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Correct.Nrswanson (talk) 23:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That might be best done within the Composers Project. Have you joined it? There's lots of scope there. I've recently suggested uprating their banner. -- Klein zach  03:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not interested in another project frankly. This is enough to keep me busy for now. However, I do think it would be good to develop a points system for composers that is also adopted (or developed) by the composer project). If the composer project is not yet up for adding an evaluative system into their banner (which they may not be), than perhaps we can just invite them to help us create our point system for evaluating composers.Nrswanson (talk) 11:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The question is not whether you are interested in another project but whether you are interested in composers, There's a considerable amount of project interdependency. This is why most of us belong to more than one project. If, for example, Contemporary Music had guidelines contradicting ours it would create problems. -- Klein zach  13:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree but I still think that this project needs a points system for composers regardless of what the composer project chooses to do. If we are going to have our banner on composer pages we should have a method of evaluating those articles.Nrswanson (talk) 11:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I don't agree. Besides neither assessments or points scales have been agreed by the project yet. Rushing the project into work that no-one actually intends to do would be counter-productive. We need to proceed one step at a time. -- Klein  zach  14:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't follow your logic. If we have opera project banners with assesments on composer articles (which is a fact) doesn't that implye that the project has already decided to set up assessment on composer articles?Nrswanson (talk) 14:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

No. We only have nominal, automatic assessments based on the proposal made by GT on 14 March which is here. For an explanation of the trial assessment system (done by myself, GT and Peter Cohen) for the Wagner Project, see this report. To see an actual assessment check for example Die Meistersinger. Details of the Opera Project assessment system have not yet been discussed. There are large numbers involved and there are potential problems, not least of which is the question of who is going to do the work as opposed to the talk. -- Klein zach  03:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I understand what you are saying but don't you think setting up a point system for composers would be a part of the beginning process of deciding how to assess articles? We already have composer articles classified automatically like every other kind of opera article but it is the only kind of article with our banner that doesn't have a point system yet. It seems to me that now is the time to start talking about where we are going with this, not later. I'm not suggesting we actually jump into assessment but that we finish setting the groundwork. As for the work of assessment I am sure project members like myself will step up to the plate. It may take us a while but I think it will benefit the group as a whole.Nrswanson (talk) 04:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I would tend to agree with Nrswanson here. There's no harm in actually in setting up a point system for opera composers. After all, we seem to have one for opera directors. Surely composers are equally important if not more so, especially the 'giants' whose work was primarily in opera. Assessing an article like Giuseppe Verdi ought to be a lot higher on the project's 'priority list' than say assessing every obscure opera that Donizetti ever wrote. I also think it might be a good idea to add a note at the top of WikiProject Opera/Assessment to the effect that for now, almost all of the current ratings are 'automatic', i.e. "stub" if they have a stub tag or "start" if they don't pending formal assessment. Otherwise people will think we're nuts. They go to really good, well-referenced articles which other projects have rated as "B" and we're assessing them as "start". We know why, but no one outside the project will know. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 07:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Since I'm being pressed on this: I made some suggestions (one of which was identical to the one you have just made) to GuillaumeTell on 30 May, and I was hoping he'd lead off a full discussion. I don't want to do it myself because (1) to do it properly would be time consuming, and (2) I'm not a big enthusiast for assessments. If GuillaumeTell doesn't want to do it, I suggest we ask Peter Cohen who is keen on rating and worked on the Wagner ones. (Incidentally, during the five or six hours I spent cleaning up the problems after the bot run, I did move the obvious articles provisionally to B, precisely to avoid people thinking we were losing our marbles, as suggested.)

BTW composer assessments would be the worst way to start. Based on the Wagner experience - and common sense - it would be much easier to start with opera title articles, which have already been edited according to our detailed guidelines, rather than the composers articles which have been done outside the project. The opera articles follow a consistent structure which makes it easy to apply a points scale. There are 1,330 opera title pages so to do real assessments, rather than nominal ones, which would take a considerable time. IMO we would need a dedicated assessment team to take it on - of workers not talkers! -- Klein zach  08:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC) (P.S. Of course articles can be assessed individually at any time. In the case of Giuseppe Verdi all you have to do is start, or in this case add to, a page called Talk:Giuseppe Verdi/Comments.) -- Klein  zach  09:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It may or may not make sense to start one way or another depending on how the work is divided among an assessment team. I personally think an alphabetical breakdown of articles will be the easiest way to handle the load and make sure every article is covered. In which case, all different kinds of opera articles would be mixed together under such a structure. Perhaps we should begin forming a group of dedicated editors willing to be a part of an assessment team. Also, I am going to go ahead and structure a proposed point system for composers and get some feedback on it.Nrswanson (talk) 15:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Here is my proposal for an opera composer point system.Nrswanson (talk) 16:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposed point system for opera composers
Comment The problem is it's impossible to fulfill some of those criteria for many composers (especially the earlier ones) because the relevant information does not exist. User:Moreschi made this point when the biography project was on its assessment drive. He knew he had written short articles on singers that contained every known fact about them. It would be pointless to rate such pages "Start" because, even with the best will in the world, they aren't going to get any longer.

I've never been mad keen on the idea of an Opera Project assessment drive and I doubt if I'll be taking part, but I think using common sense is a better idea than any rigid points system. --Folantin (talk) 18:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with you. The same problem presents itself with certain operas as well. In many of these cases, historical data does exist somewhere but music historians have not yet brought to light such data. For example La Scala has a whole vault of old opera scores that nobody has poked through in centuries. Or there really isn't any more data available. In such cases an assessment team could evaluate an article differently. I don't think point scales should necessarily be used too rigidly. You should really bring this concern up down below in the assessment section where a policy regarding topics with little data available could be made. The whole point of assessment is to evaluate an articles strengths/weaknesses which is a good thing. Realize though, that a topic with little information available is never likely to achieve good article or feature article status. I think if all such material avaiable is presented an upgrade to B article in such cases should be allowed. Regardless, I believe this point scale would be helpful in evaluating most composers.Nrswanson (talk) 18:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * "I think if all such material avaiable is presented an upgrade to B article in such cases should be allowed." IIRC that was more or less Moreschi's point. A short but "finished" article should be a B. (Forget GA, by the way, the whole process is broken there. Many projects have "A" class articles instead).--Folantin (talk) 18:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Right. You should bring up your concern in the discussion below: "assessment proposal" as it is sort of off topic here.Nrswanson (talk) 18:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Opposed I am against adopting the points scale above. Working towards assessment for composers should be done within the Composers Project - to which most of us already belong. -- Klein zach  23:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh come on Kleinzach. The composer project has no assessment process in place and I see no reason why our assessment point system would conflict with that project. Articles with multiple project banners rarely compare assessment procedures and/or complain about differing assesments across projects. I see no reason why it would be different in this case. You are just trying to create an issue where one really doesn't exist and it strikes me as WP:OWN as well.Nrswanson (talk) 23:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Red links
I see the whole list of operas of Tommaso Traetta have all been red linked, together with all the names of the librettists. Is this a good idea? The WP article on the subject (Red link) says  "Do create red links to articles you intend to create, . . . or topics which should obviously have articles. . . .  Do not create red links to articles that will never be created" . There is also another problem. If the red linked names are incorrect (apparently the case for some names on the Traetta page) it's misleading and encourages the creation of duplicate articles. Best. -- Klein zach  05:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I took the list from this page which on the Traetta article. I agree the red links are a bit over the top. I really just did it to see what articles already existed.Nrswanson (talk) 11:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's good to have complete work lists. Grove does this and so should we. I've recently been converting some tables from the Dutch WP (e.g. Luigi_Cherubini) and checking them against Grove. They are convenient to use because they are already tabled. (You could find all the Traetta opera by doing a simple search. They should be in Category:Operas by Tommaso Traetta and The opera corpus.)-- Klein zach  13:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

When I'm working on an article, I often put linking brackets around everything that moves. Eventually, I click the "Show preview" button. This tells me which links are blue (and I check those via popups in case they link to the wrong article or to a disambiguation page, and alter as necessary) and which are red. It's then a matter of judgement which ones to leave red and which to remove the brackets from. I sometimes click promising-looking red links and then click "What links here" in case there are other articles (or a page in Music encyclopedia topics) where a red link already exists. After sorting all this out, I click Show Preview again to check, then Save page. Sounds cumbersome, but it works. Doesn't do much for my Edit Count, though. --GuillaumeTell 16:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Trial by Jury
The Gilbert and Sullivan opera, Trial by Jury, is nearing its featured article nomination. If anyone would like to review it, we would appreciate it. Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday (talk) 00:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)