Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 69

Archives Table of Contents

Maria Angelova (singer)
I've put this up for deletion here. -- Klein zach  02:24, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Opera for month of September 2008
Any suggestion? - Jay (talk) 19:00, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Selected article: Madama Butterfly - (Number 1 on Opera America's for more than a year..)
 * Composer : Francesca Caccini - (one of female opera composers)
 * Singer: José Carreras
 * Selected picture : Image:Palacio de Bellas Artes.jpg (couldnt find any other beautiful photos)


 * How about a sound instead of a picture? Image:Richard_Wagner_-_Tristan_und_Isolde_-_Vorspiel.ogg is pretty huge in the development of music. Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday (talk) 02:27, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I prefer to stick to the same format. To listen to the sound, readers can go to Tristan und Isolde article - Jay (talk) 02:55, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually the Tristan recording has a huge amount of coughing! I'm not against recordings as such, but I think we'd need notable ones - perhaps historic recordings that are out of copyright? -- Klein zach  03:20, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * If we want to have audio, perhaps the best way is to add "audio section" but the problem is, can we get notable "audio" every month (especially free from copyright?). That is the tricky part because I want our Portal to be updated every month - Jay (talk) 03:33, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe it's best to put it off for now, but reconsider if we make progress in getting some good audio up? -- Klein zach  10:30, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Tell you what, here's 12 months to start you off, taken solely from what we already have uploaded and on commons, and which I could find witha cursory search:
 * Prelude to Tristan und Isolde
 * Purcell - Dido and Aeneas: "Stay, Prince, and hear"
 * Caruso singing La donna e mobile
 * Overture to Der Freischutz
 * Caruso - Vesti la giubba from Pagalacci
 * Overture to The Magic Flute
 * The Toccata from Monteverdi's Orfeo
 * Overture to Don Giovanni
 * Caruso - No Pagliaccio non son from Pagalacci
 * A somewhat scratchy 1908 recording of The Marriage of Figaro Overture - should be fine with a little cleanup.
 * The only surviving song from Monteverdi's L'Arianna
 * March of the Priests from The Magic Flute

A little heavy on the Caruso and Mozart perhaps, but an entire years' worth should be enough to get you started. Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday (talk) 11:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm opposed to using non-notable recordings - and let's be candid some of these recordings are about as non notable as you can get (though the Tristan-accompanying Coughers of the city of Fulda are rather impressive). The Caruso are fine of course - but we could only use one of them. I think you will need to put some serious work into this if we are going to feature recordings. -- Klein zach  12:46, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Opera - News
Any new opera news to be added? If you have any, please add on. I want to archive 2007 news but will only do it if we have more news for 2008. PS- I changed "Singer of the month of September" to José Carreras. - Jay (talk) 10:35, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Mexico's National Opera and Palacio de Bellas Artes - Are they the same?
Can someone confirm that Mexico's National Opera and Palacio de Bellas Artes are the same? I couldn’t find any article about Mexico's National Opera on the internet, all the references at the end pointing to Palacio de Bellas Artes. If they are the same, I have been thinking to redirect “Mexico's National Opera” to Palacio de Bellas Artes. I posted this question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mexico too. Thanks. - Jay (talk) 08:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I have very little Spanish but I think they are the same and the opera company is called 'Compañía Nacional de Ópera', see here. -- Klein zach  09:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think they are the same too because Palacio de Bellas Artes is the home of Mexico's National Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; and National Dance Company. Usually in one country, we do not have too many “NATIONAL” unless it refers to the same place or company (and also usually belongs to the government or semi-government). It is a bit impossible for Mexico to have Mexico National Opera while the “National Orchestra & Chorus” belongs to other company. - Jay (talk) 09:21, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Isn't this our perennial problem of distinguishing opera houses and opera companies? Ideally there should be one article on the house and one or more on the company or companies whose home it is.  It often gets quite complicated - see what you get when you click Royal Danish Opera (the sorting out of which is on my to-do list). --GuillaumeTell 10:40, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree with you, but there is nothing much to write about Mexico National Opera as the resources are very limited. I have redirected it to Palacio de Bellas Artes (for a time being), until someone could find some info to write about it. - Jay (talk) 03:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The Recruiting Serjeant
Do you want this in the project? Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday (talk) 02:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The Recruiting Serjeant is more like musical theatre than opera, correct me if I'm wong - Jay (talk) 02:51, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * To: Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday: I see you have done the research for this - and it's a fine article - the question is whether this is a ballad opera (a bit like a primitive Singspiel) or a play with incidental music. Judging by the text it looks like a ballad opera - which comes within our scope. Charles Dibdin has an article in the Oxford Dictionary of Opera but he obviously was part of the drama/theatre world as well. -- Klein zach  03:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm... the audio clip sounds more like a musical theater piece to my ears but maybe that is not a reflection on the entire score.Nrswanson (talk) 03:23, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It's all written in poetry, so it's probably fully sung through. (I haven't found a vocal score so I can't be certain of that, of course). I'll do more research, of course. I remember reading that Maritana and The Bohemian Girl were part of a tradition of English operas that had ready-to-extract parlour ballads contained within them, and I suppose that could be true of that extract as well. Anyway! I asked your opinion because I think it's your call to make. I'll provide any further information I turn up as I do. Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday (talk) 05:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Very unlikely to have had continuous music. Ballad opera, like Singspiel, had dialogue between the musical numbers. (Maritana and The Bohemian Girl are a different period.) The audio clip (a god-awful bit of singing if ever I heard one!) is with a piano so that doesn't help us much. It may be a very pale reflection of what the music really sounded like. Does an orchestral score still exist? -- Klein zach  05:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I've actually heard a couple of Dibdin operas on the radio. Hyperion recorded three of them in the early nineties (sadly, no longer available). They're very "Singspiel"-like. I've just looked up one of these (The Ephesian Matron) in Viking and it says it survives "complete with recitatives", noting "spoken dialogue was not allowed outside the main London theatres". Now, given The Ephesian Matron premiered at Ranelagh Gardens in 1769 and The Recruiting Serjeant (or Sergeant?) debuted at the same venue the following year, my guess is that both works follow the same kind of format. --Folantin (talk) 07:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I have a few sources calling it a burletta. That seems about right, actually, and more accurate than ballad opera, which really does imply a lot more plot. Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday (talk) 09:37, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That would make sense, given the date. -- Klein zach  01:52, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Grove describes it as an all-sung afterpiece, presumably about 45 minutes long (the length of The Ephesian Maiden, another afterpiece). --GuillaumeTell 10:48, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

OK. Shall we provisionally assume this is just about an opera and banner it? Any objections? -- Klein zach  10:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it's more than "just about" an opera. And Opera Grove has a lengthy article about Dibdin and specifically refers to The Recruiting Serjeant. --GuillaumeTell 11:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Category:Lists of operas by composer
For the past few months, I've been compiling lists of complete operas by composer, particularly prolific composers. I've made these into sections within the biographies, but in a number of cases the lists have been longer than the rest of the articles. So I've split them off into new pages (as per MOS), which I've now grouped in the Category:Lists of operas by composer. The formatting of these articles is not 100% consistent, and more work could be done on them. I tried to save myself as much typing as possible by using existing lists in foreign wikis (particularly the Dutch), before comparing them with the lists in Grove (and editing to/adding to the information where necessary).

Obviously, most of the operas listed will never have dedicated articles, but that's not the point of the lists. I'm hoping that the information will form a kind of bottom layer in our 'opera database' against which the accuracy of other articles can be checked. Grove and other encyclopedias have these lists, but in our case we can link them to other articles (composers, librettists, operas, genres, singers, theatres etc), so WP can make greater use of them. -- Klein zach  07:29, 29 August 2008 (UTC) (P.S. And the next time some so-called expert says that Don Giovanni is the last notable dramma giocoso, we'll be able to list all the examples written in the 19th century!)

One-line articles on Vivaldi operas
Selket has just written nine one-line articles on Vivaldi operas. None of them have entries in Grove. They are:

(Notes from the Grove Vivaldi article)
 * Armida al campo d'Egitto
 * Arsilda, regina di Ponto: apparently a score does exist
 * Artabano, re de'Parti
 * La costanza trionfante degl'amori e de gl'odii:
 * L'incoronazione di Dario
 * Nerone fatto Cesare: pasticchio arranged by Vivaldi containing 12 arias by him
 * Scanderbeg: 4 arias and 2 recit. still remain
 * Tieteberga: apparently with 9 arias by other composers
 * Il vinto trionfante del vincitore: a pasticchio apparently with some music by Vivaldi

I've asked Selket to tell us what he intends to do with these articles, bearing in mind that Vivaldi wrote over 50 operas and the titles above don't appear to be particularly notable ones. Any comments? Has anyone got any information on any of these works? Have any of them been recorded? -- Klein zach  01:46, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and added information to six of the nine operas. I could find nothing on Il vinto trionfante del vincitore, Armida al campo d'Egitto, and Artabano, re de'Parti. In any case, all of the articles are still stubs. Nrswanson (talk) 03:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * This is a good source if you speak French . Artabano, re de' Parti is simply a reworking of La constanza trionfante. Il vinto trionfante del vincitore is indeed a pasticcio based on an opera by Albinoni - the score has been lost. --Folantin (talk) 08:00, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I've made Artabano, re de' Parti into a redirect. -- Klein zach  04:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Il vinto trionfante del vincitore is referred to as 'dubious' by at least one source I found. Any objection to my making it a redirect to Vivaldi? -- Klein zach  09:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've now made this into a redirect as well. -- Klein zach  05:00, 2 September 2008 (UTC) P.S. It wasn't in the French list - though it was in Grove's - so I added it. Hope that's OK. -- Klein  zach  05:06, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * We probably need to import the table of Vivaldi operas from the French Wikipedia. Update I've started working on this in my userspace . If anybody else wants to help out (and check or expand the facts there) they are more than welcome to edit the page. Once it's ready we can move it into mainspace and maybe redirect the lost operas there. --Folantin (talk) 08:12, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy to help, but I always do the opera lists in a word processor using global find/replace. If you can give me the time tomorrow morning (Japan time) I'll do all the cities and theatres, but I don't want to work out of sync with you otherwise we'll have two distinct versions. Re the columns, the years are usually on the left (e.g. List of operas by Pacini) - I don't know if it's appropriate here? (If the operas are all 'dramma per musica' (or pasticchios) we probably don't need a genre column.) There is a more elaborate list in the Italian Wiki here. P.S. This article should probably be called 'List of operas by Vivaldi' to match the Category:Lists of operas by composer series? -- Klein zach  10:30, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You're probably best to do your own version in line with the other list pages on your word processor. I'll stop working on mine then maybe I can help by adding some extra details to your version. There's no hurry. --Folantin (talk) 10:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The List of operas by Vivaldi is now up. I'm sure there is a lot of information that can be added so please go ahead and make improvements. I also wonder whether we need to clarify which operas are lost, partly or completely, in the individual opera articles? -- Klein zach  05:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Two questions about the 1718 operas: Is Scanderbeg (opera) completely lost as the list suggests or not per the article? Perhaps the libretto survives? Should we make Armida al campo d'Egitto into a redirect if there is no more information? -- Klein zach  00:52, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Italianopera.org says there is a copy of Scanderbeg at the Biblioteca estense universitaria, Modena. There is also that youtube clip in the external links that is supposedly music from the opera. Whether it is a full score or partial score I don't know.Nrswanson (talk) 01:03, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Re. Scanderbeg, I see Grove (1992) says there are ' 4 arias and 2 recits' in Turin. This is really specialized stuff. No doubt the scholarship is changing all the time, but unless anyone objects I'll mark the opera as a (partial) survivor. -- Klein zach  01:39, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. We should probably stick with what is in Grove. Italianopera.org is useful but not as authoratative of a source. If there is a score in Modena, hopefully a better source will come along verifying that in the future.Nrswanson (talk) 01:46, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Singer of the Month for September
Following the discussion last month, I've used Kleinzach's suggestion for "great sopranos who've slipped through the Wikipedia net". (See the box above) Best, Voceditenore (talk) 13:07, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Opera - News
I like the news section to be updated frequently. If you have any, please add on. I want to archive year 2007 news but will only do it if we have more news for year 2008. I do not want to "spam" the section with Domingo's news because he is the only "news" I know :) - (smile if you want). For that, I need your help. Thanks - Jay (talk) 04:43, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Audio:Hunters' Chorus from The Lily of Killarney
Would anyone like to give an opinion about this audio clip? It's a 'Featured Sound' candidate which I guess is equivalent to a 'Featured article':

There is a discussion here. Mid 19th century English opera is not really my subject, so maybe someone else can add productively to the discussion? Thanks. Best. -- Klein zach  07:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The text should read "Brass band arrangement of the Hunter's Chorus...." but it's otherwise about right. This is how operas were popularised in the 19th century: By appearing on every bandstand. Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday (talk) 06:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * OK. Would anyone object if we take the clip off the The Lily of Killarney opera page? -- Klein zach  23:21, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've now removed it. -- Klein zach  02:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Púrpura de la Rosa/I "discovered" an important opera
I just came across a composer and an opera of interest to opera history. Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco who wrote the first known opera written in America, La Púrpura de la Rosa (1701). The opera doesn't have an article and the composer had no music banner of any kind so I added the opera banner. Anyway, the article is unreferenced so I thought maybe we could spruce it up a bit and possibly add this opera to the list of important operas. What do you all think?Nrswanson (talk) 20:33, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The opera needs to be split off from the biography. P.S. The opera should almost certainly be capitalized as La púrpura de la rosa. -- Klein zach  23:15, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's how it's capitalised in Opera Grove. And if it's to be added to the List of important operas, it'll have to be down at the bottom in the "Significant firsts in opera history" section. --GuillaumeTell 00:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Article 5,000 looming up
Article 4,994 is now up and published. We've had a rush of new articles on Vivaldi and Michael Nyman operas etc. (Can we identify number 5,000, if possible?)

In June we discussed celebration plans, see 5,000 articles: cause for celebration? GuillaumeTell and Peter cohen were suggesting a gathering at the London Proms. I think we could do press releases for the US/Britain. (I'm less enthusiastic about doing anything within Wikipedia.) Any ideas, thoughts? -- Klein zach  03:06, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps La púrpura de la rosa could be our 5,000 article?Nrswanson (talk) 03:08, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Good idea. Can you make sure it is number 5,000? See Category:WikiProject Opera articles. The count is now up one at 4,995. -- Klein zach  03:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * shd be 4996 now (Jephtas Gelübde) - --Smerus (talk) 18:18, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe some kind of virtual celebration? We're probably well-dispersed in the world. Although I wouldn't mind some kind of New York City event. :) -- kosboot (talk) 18:23, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Any ideas? BTW I don't think we have any other NY members. The only place where we may have more than one person is probably London. -- Klein zach  02:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * now 4,997 (Die keusche Susanne) - -- Klein zach  02:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 4998 - Verbum nobile--Smerus (talk) 11:26, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 4993 - found some errors, redirects and a Pope! (Sorry about that!) -- Klein zach  13:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Just out of interest: how do you count them? Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:05, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * We count through this Category:WikiProject Opera articles. If you look at the page it will tell you how many articles are in the category.Nrswanson (talk) 16:15, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * well 4996 now (acc to the page)(er, this is where I came in...) - Mikael Tariverdiev and Graf Cagliostro. --Smerus (talk) 17:08, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * 4997 now (phew!) - Golem (Bretan opera) --Smerus (talk) 17:56, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Image:Pavarotti_as_Rodolfo.jpg
I'd rather discuss this here than cause drama by just.. you know, orcing ahead.

I'm not convinced by the fair use rationale of this. Pavarotti is, of course, a notable tenor, but there's surely something free use for La Boheme? It's not even a very useful photo, as it's not like La boheme has particularly distinctive costumes. Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday (talk) 15:57, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Also a rather poor image . . .-- Klein zach  02:25, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually the fair use of the image is for the article on Pavarotti. That was why that picture was uploaded in the first place. Better to just simply remove the photo from the La Boheme but leave the photo for the article on Pavarotti article where it also appears.Nrswanson (talk) 16:36, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There's at least one scene from the opera that you could use in the Commons, and a vintage scene that must be out of copyright here.--<b style="color:forestgreen;">Guillaume</b><i style="color:blue;">Tell</i> 17:56, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer to avoid using that distracting modernist nightmare of a set that's up on Commons. =) Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday (talk) 20:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)


 * GT's vintage picture would be excellent. -- Klein zach  02:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed, though it'd be nice to have a few more details. And in ITaly, photographs go into the public domain 70 years after they're taken - so, it almost surely should be fine =) Shoemaker&#39;s Holiday (talk) 09:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)