Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera

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Category:Comic operas to English comic operas?

Now that Sacred operas and Satirical operas have been deleted, we only have one major subject category left: Comic operas. Comedies probably account for a quarter to a third of all the 1,600 works listed on The opera corpus, however most of these are in specific genre categories: Drammi giocosi, Farse, Intermezzi, Opera buffa, Opéras bouffes, Opéras comiques, Opéras féeries, Operettas, and Singspiele.

Category:Comic operas has 70 entries comprising 58 works in English (of which 54 are late 19th century English works, many of them Gilbert and Sullivan) plus 5 Czech, 3 Russian, and one each of French, Danish, German and Italian operas.

The English items, or almost all of them, are closely related in style. Should we rename the category English comic operas? (The others could be removed bearing in mind that operas don't need to belong to a specific (sub) category.) --Kleinzach 07:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

May I point out that a lot of Opéras comiques (Carmen and Médée spring to mind) are not comic operas. And, as ever, I'd prefer to use terms like "comic opera" only if these appear in the libretto/score (i.e. are so described at the start of the Viking Guide entries). So a cautious "yes". --GuillaumeTell 09:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes indeed, I believe all opéras comiques are now designated as opéras comiques, so no problem there. --Kleinzach 09:59, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. I have now gone ahead with asking for renaming.--Kleinzach 09:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Arias (Wikisource or Wikipedia?)

The admin in Wikisource send me a message saying that "Arias" are better suited in Wikipedia than Wikisource. Well, I kinda agree with him because we usually write the article with some explanation and the translation of the aria. One other reason is because arias are not the complete libretto. It is of course, OK for Wikisource if we uploaded the entire libretto - (Public Domain or available under a GNU free use license). So, what do you guys think? So far I have transferred Svegliatevi nel core, Libiamo ne' lieti calici, Recondita armonia, E lucevan le stelle, La donna è mobile (and deleted the articles from Wikipedia). Planned to do many more but now I think I better put it on hold for a moment. I need to know your opinion whether we should have them here or Wikisource. I may have to transfer them all back here. PS- We have had this discussion before in (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive15)- Jay 03:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that original texts belong in WikiSource, whereas commentary about arias goes in the opera articles. I don't know if the views of this admin are representative, but if WikiSource really don't want arias, only whole libretti, then I suppose they should be deleted. What do other people think? Is this admin being reasonable? --Kleinzach 14:11, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem with these aria articles is that they don't make for viable articles (let alone good or featured ones). I'm not familiar with Wikisource, but couldn't they cut the commentary there - which is not so useful anyway, maybe we could bring the more useful bits of commentary back into the articles on the operas over here, we've got plenty of room - but keep the arias? While I understand that they would prefer the complete libretto, is that so practical? To be honest, we really need a Wikisourcian over here to explain how the place works, because I don't know.

Incidentally, for Svegliatevi nel core, the Wikisource page doesn't distinguish between the first paragraph - which, as far as I can remember, is the introductory recitative - and the aria itself, whcih starts, as you might expect, on the words "Svegliatevi nel core". Just something someone might like to fix :) Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 14:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I believe arias should be in here along with the commentary because it is easier for readers to read the “fracture” of the libretto (the aria) along with the explanation given. And then, we can add a link or a “box” with remarks “Wikisource has the text source of "<<the opera title>>” in which it will be the complete libretto. It is a bit hassle for readers to read the commentary here and then have to hit the link to see the aria on the other page. The admin added in his comment “Wikisource is home to source material as it was originally published (sort of). Perhaps you could upload the entire Libretto, assuming that the translation were in the Public Domain or available under a GNU free use license”.

About "Svegliatevi nel core", I can remove the introductory recitative, that shouldnt be any problem but the issue is, shall I transfer them all back here? - Jay 14:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I wrote the intro recitative because out of 6 singers that I have listened singing “"Svegliatevi nel core", 3 of them include the intro in their recording album. (Domingo and 2 other singers I cant remember their names). Refer http://www.aria-database.com/libretti/cesare04_svegliatevi.txt, it also includes the recitative.

The text written is actually as simple as below:

Svegliatevi nel core

furie d'un alma offesa,

a far d'un traditor

aspra vendetta!

L'ombra del genitore

accorre a mia difesa,

e dice: a te il rigor,

Figlio si aspetta.”

I had to listen again and again to write them as per singing, and that is why it looks long. - Jay 15:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I posted the question in the main forum Wikisource:Scriptorium to get the admins to reply. I am not so sure whether the guy that messaged me is an admin or only a normal user. Hopefully the admins could reply whether they only accept the complete libretti while pieces of it such as arias should be someplace else. If they could accept arias without commentary, I’ll remove them. It is just that I don’t feel it looks “right” leaving the aria alone without any explanation. But if that is what as required, I’ll do as what they said. - Jay 16:12, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I think there may even by a policy problem with having these aria articles here: most of them, in my estimation, possibly fail Wikipedia:Notability. It's the "non-trivial" coverage that perturbs me when it comes to these arias: there aren't a huge amount of books written about just one aria, though there are probably a few exceptions. We do have to bear policy in mind: if these aria articles fail WP:N, they just can't remain here, whether they work at wikisource or no. Moreschi ^Talk 12:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

It's worth noting that no (print) opera reference books have articles on arias (or characters/roles), basically for the reason that Moreschi has just given. -- Kleinzach 14:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, a moderately informed classical music fan might be able to come with the following arias descibed as follows: Handel's largo, Nessun dorma, La donna e mobile, the Queen of the Night aria and the one from Barber of Seville where he goes "Figaro, Figaro". ;-) Naming Largo al Factotum is a bit much to expect. Referring to, say, celeste Aida or visi d'arte by name shows someone is already in the know. And in that case would they want to use wiki? --Peter cohen 15:10, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

---

Being an encyclopedia, in my opinion, it is good to have and to provide articles about opera arias for readers references. Bear in mind that not all readers out there know what is “opera” and what opera is all about.

By providing them with the details of the opera with synopsis, roles, aria lists and the “aria texts” would help them to understand the whole picture of the “opera”. I said this because I live in a country where 70% of populations do not know what opera is all about. By providing details to those who do not know or with only a bit knowledge about opera, would help them to understand more. I don’t know about you guys and people around you but based on own experience explaining to people who don’t know what opera is all about, the best way to educate them is by providing them with details in encyclopedia format – pictures and all (what I wish WP would be in a very near future)

Don’t talk about opera fans. I don’t think die-heart opera fans would bother to read our articles about opera especially arias, simply because those who love opera would rather buy opera/libretto books/DVDs or spend their money to watch the opera live. People who don’t know opera will not bother to spend even a single cent or time like me and you guys to source/buy for books or read the libretto (even though I do not understand single words of Italian).

WP is a good place for people who want to learn without having them to pay. I sometimes feel tired explaining to people around me about the “songs” I played in my car/apartment/at work – to some of people , opera singers are bunch of crazy old men/women with weird crazy voices singing in a language they don’t understand. By providing them with the arias, commentary and the English translation, it would help them to understand the meaning of the arias and why the singer must cry or laugh while singing it. With this, I hope you guys would understand why I believe it is important for us to make WP as a complete encyclopedia. We do not need to post the complete libretto, let it be in WS but I wish if we could keep the arias here with all the links to the related opera titles, composers, singers etc.

The latest by this Sunday, I may have to transfer those 5 arias back to here (1 written by me but other 4 have been here for quite some time). I leave it up to you guys to think what to do with them and the rest of the arias in here. Please consider what I just said – why I think we should keep them or perhaps grow them or improve the format to the standard applicable to WP policy.. but don’t delete them. Besides, if it is true from what I heard /some of you also did mentioned about this ; the copyright of music compositions where the creator has been dead more than 100 years are free.. that would definitely narrow our licensing problem. I am not so sure about licensing, I can’t say much about it. PS- Sorry the the WS-WP trouble. To be frank, I regret moving them to WS in the first place. - Jay 18:31, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe bringing thee pages back to WP is the answer. Original texts don't belong here. (Commentary on arias should be integrated with opera title articles of course.) If WikiSource editors are against having this kind of partial, incomplete material then IMO they should delete it. What do other people think? --Kleinzach 03:40, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I leave it up to you guys. Other than that 5 arias, there are 25 more (refer Category:Arias). I have brought back all those 5. I better use my time to write articles than doing the useless efforts to transfer them back and forth or to think of what’s best. I have no problem where they should be placed, I just don’t feel it is wise to remove arias from WP or WS.- Jay 03:47, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I intended to get involved in the discussion at WikiSource but just didn't have time with all the disruptions here. I don't think they understand multi-language material, or opera come to that. Sorry you had so much trouble. --Kleinzach 03:35, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Page too long?

As a passerby who has looked at a number of different WikiProjects, can I make the observation that I think your main page is a bit too long? I'd suggest subpages. In particular, I'd suggest an Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Article Content page that has all the information about the content of articles (including titles), but not eg. the list of requested articles. This would include the following sections:

• Article titles
• Guidelines
• Templates
• Categories

And possibly also:

• Infoboxes
• Navigation box templates

This would make the main article significantly shorter and easier to deal with, and would probably make it easier to focus on what to do next.

-- TimNelson 09:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your observations. This is something we are aware of. We having been using sub-pages and will continue to do so. Some of the sections are frequently referred to (e.g. categories) so those ones will probably remain on the main page. Our editing is fairly complicated as it involves foreign languages for which we need guidelines. Obviously we don't want to put important information on sub-pages where it will not be noticed.--Kleinzach 13:54, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

I think that TimNelson makes a good point. The Project page is very long and complicated and would benefit from reorganisation and an increased number of subpages. I'll make a proposal along those lines tomorrow. --GuillaumeTell 00:23, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

That's fine by me, however sub-pages are rarely accessed and almost never edited, so while they are good for parking or storing information, they are not so well suited to ideas being developed IMO. --Kleinzach 00:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I overestimated the time I might have available today, so haven't actually done anything except checking what these fabled sub-pages actually might be. As it turns out, there aren't very many:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Categories Supposedly talk about categories, but actually a parking-place for a categories infobox. Category talk - of which there's been quite a bit recently - actually happens at the Project's Talk page.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/User and project boxes Boxes for users, and banners for talk-pages. Many of these, especially the banners, seem to be used.
• A list of translated English names Self-explanatory
• Opera Work List This now seems a waste of space. It has a little more information than the opera corpus, but not everyone who adds items to, or amends, the corpus, knows (or remembers) to do the same here.
• Article ranking Obviously, there are good intentions behind this, but it's too generalised, the criteria seem rather difficult to interpret, and, IMO, it doesn't really work for dealing with all of, on the one hand, people, on another hand, operas, and on yet another hand, things like genres and terminology. Plus we're still trying to get the actual articles up to scratch (Mozart! Verdi!!) and ranking is still a lower priority.

These, of course, aren't all of the sub-pages that might be needed if the main page is slimmed-down, and most of them are somewhat off-centre anyway, but I'm curious - how do you know that the above sub-pages are rarely accessed? Is there some tool that I ought to know about but don't? --GuillaumeTell 00:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

To take your last question first, I don't have a tool however I'm certain there's been little development of any sub-page (except the work list) after information has been parked there. Regarding the Opera Work List I'd be happy to to see this phased out now that The opera corpus is well-developed. (Article ranking IMO is a problem (perhaps the major problem) for us, which we need to discuss separately.)

What new subpages do you think we should create? I hope we keep the categories on the main page (perhaps compacted in the way I have been doing already). I suppose we could put some of the 'Guidelines' on a sub-page, though sections like the one on Trivia are important. 'Templates' is not so important. . . . The problem is that the guidelines etc. are all unimportant until someone tries to change the style of the pages, and we have to clean everything up. Having a long project page may be a lesser evil. -- Kleinzach 10:14, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Infobox

I know this has been discussed before, but the main reason for previous opposition to the use of infoboxes seems to be aesthetically-based. If a new infobox template which was a little easier on the eyes was created, would people want to use it? I would personally be in favor of its use; infoboxes make it much easier to find basic info like composer, librettist, genre, premier, etc.. They seem to be a convention of popular music articles more than art music articles (WP:MUSICAL uses them, but not WP:CM), but I think that's one area where we could take a hint from our popular music compatriots. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 06:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

No, the main reason they were deleted is they were encouraging users to add factually inaccurate information to this encyclopaedia (see the long debate at Project Composers for numerous examples). They were also redundant. --Folantin 07:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

There are various issues with infoboxes. If we think about print encyclopedias and how they work, it's clear that boxes can be effective to highlight special information but only when they are used sparingly. I don't know of any enclyclopedia where every article (or every biography) has a box. (Of course there are other problems . . .) --Kleinzach 09:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The statement of current consensus regarding infoboxes at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Composers#Lead_section is somewhat more straightforward and unambiguous than the one we have at WP:WPO#Infoboxes. Would anyone object to syncing them (mutatis mutandis)? Fireplace 22:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. It should read "...they should not be added or removed without first obtaining consensus...". Andy Mabbett 22:57, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Why should it read that way? That's clearly not the consensus on the talk page. I agree that if there are editors who have worked on a composer article in the past who wish to retain an infobox, a discussion should be had on the talk page. If, however, there is a single person engaging in edit warring simply to prove a point, that person should probably be ignored. Mak (talk) 15:13, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Please don't raise red herrings. Andy Mabbett 19:59, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

To clarify (as Kleinzach request on my talk page), I guess I'm proposing "Current consensus among project participants holds that the use of infoboxes is often counterproductive on opera-related articles. They should not be used without first obtaining consensus on the article's talk page." I just see this as a change in form, not substance. Fireplace 03:55, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Going back to Cielomobile's original point, which, though not stated in so many words, was about articles on operas and not about composers. The reason that infoboxes are inappropriate for articles on operas is that all the information that would be contained in the box ("basic info like composer, librettist, genre, premier, etc.") is normally contained in the first paragraph of the article. See, for example, Der Vampyr. An infobox alongside that para is a waste of space. An infobox instead of that para is going to make the article look rather odd. --GuillaumeTell 00:26, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

A definition of opera

Most of the definitions of opera I see on WP seem to have been written from a non-opera, 'theatre' point of view. I wonder whether we should have an 'Opera Project' definition to roll out when necessary? Ideally one that doesn't represent opera as the ugly step-child of (normal, straight etc,) music and drama.

I have just put the following definition up on the (rather obscure?) List of basic opera topics. It was hastily written and perhaps other people can improve it or develop it?

Opera is one of the performing arts (alongside music, dance and drama), and its special character as an art form derives from combining elements of the others, combined with visual effects. Opera is invariably live and given in a specially-equipped opera house or theatre. It is normally (electronically) unamplified to order to feature the beauty of the natural voice. While the scale can be greater or smaller - there are many different genres of opera - performance typically involves different types of artists (singers, instrumentalists and often dancers and actors) and technical staff. Usually an orchestra led by a conductor accompanies the singers. In contrast to spoken theatre, the opera world is international. German, French, Italian and English works are performed world-wide in their original languages, and artists travel from country to country performing.

Edits? Comments? -- Kleinzach 00:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Category:Operas by year

My watchlist tells me that User:BrownHairedGirl has created 300+ new categories entitled Category:1700s operas, Category:1704 operas, Category:1707 operas and so on, and is moving operas into these using AWB. Did anyone request this? If not, do we think that this is a good idea? --GuillaumeTell 16:24, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• Well, I certainly didn't and I'm not so sure how much of a good idea it is. I'm not absolutely opposed but I do think we've reached saturation point as far as categories are concerned and I'd really like a moratorium on them for the foreseeable future (unless someone creates one that is obviously necessary). --Folantin 16:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
• Hang on sec. What does this mean? Does the category refer to operas performed in that year? Or operas composed in that year? I'm slightly confused as to what is meant here. Apart from that, the category is telling you something about the years involved. That's hopefully redundant to the first sentence. I'm not quite sure what this is meant to achieve. Moreschi ^Talk 16:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
• I've left a note on her talk page asking about this. My first impression is that operas-by-year is too fine grained (operas by decade might be more educationally useful -- but perhaps not moreso than a list?), assuming an answer to Moreschi's performed/composed/??? question. There are enough variables here that this should be discussed first... Fireplace 18:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• Hi folks (and thanks Fireplace for the msg). While doing a CfD recategorisation I noticed that many operas were not categorised by year, but some were categorised under Category:Works by year. It seemed to me to be a good idea to categorise them by year, to tie with the other artistic creations of that year (some do not have year of composition, so in those cases I have used year of first performance). It also seemed to me that if they were being categorised, they might as well go in an operas-by-year category as in the general works-by-year category. There appear to be about 900 articles on operas, so assuming that most are 1700 onwards, that'll be an average of just under 3 per year. Since these things tend to cluster, the actual average will be higher than that (many years will have no operas), which is just about the lowest level of usefulness for by-year categories, but if they went in the operas-by-decade categories (i.e. without an operas-by-year category) they should really be categorised in both Category:Works by year and in the operas-by-decade category. That just seems to me to creating category clutter and impeding navigation, so by-year seemed the better choice, especially since there were already some (inadequately parented operas-by-year categories).
  I'll hold off pending further discussion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• In reply to Moreschi, about usefulness: many (most?) of the articles categorised so far don't mention a date in the first sentence, although presumably they will soon be fixed to include that. But the point of a category is not to directly tell the reader anything about the articles in question (that's tagging, which WP doesn't do), but rather to facilitate navigation between related articles. Different readers will be interested in different aspects of an article, but those interested in the historical context will find it useful to be able to navigate directly to other works of the same period. Similarly, anyone starting by looking at the year or decade will find that the categories allow them to easily find operas from that year or period. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• A few comments (I have no real opinions yet)... I hadn't seen Category:Works by year before. I wonder how valuable that scheme is, given that when a reader is at, say, Az ember tragédiája and opens the associated category Category:1861 plays, in order to figure out what other "works" were created that year, you need to first click on the parent cat Category:1861 works and then navigate into one of the subcats like Category:1861 books. A more general worry might be: assuming that the goal of Category:Works by year is to allow readers to figure out what else was going on in a particular year, isn't that purpose better served by the year articles like 1861? Alternatively, another user on BHG's talk page points to this kind of scheme: List of years in poetry. Again, just thoughts, not advocating a position yet. Fireplace 18:57, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• Lists are fine too (a year article like 1861 is just a list). But there isn't an either/or choice between lists and categories: the two can coexist and complement each other. Categories are easier and quicker to create, and can relate to each other in multiple ways; lists can be more detailed, and can be referenced. Ideally, there should be both, but categories are a good way of starting to build the lists.
  A further problem with the year articles like 1861 is that they cover all sorts of events, and the more recent ones are getting big and need pruning, so that they hold only the most significant events. It's unlikely that they could be used to list all operas, though they are useful for listing a few of the more notable ones.
  You're right that it's not a single step between categories (though with popups it's not far off it), but it's the best route available. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

One other thing that I've noticed that's happened during this process is that in some cases (e.g. La battaglia di Legnano) the Category:Operas has been replaced by (in this case) Category:1849 operas, but in others (e.g. Il pastor fido), Category:Operas is still there, along with the new Category:1712 operas. If operas are to be categorised by year (and there's no consensus on that here yet), do we wish to retain the Operas category or not? --GuillaumeTell 20:42, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• Probably not? Looking around WP, this seems standard (e.g., Fear and Trembling gets Category:1843 books, Category:Books by Søren Kierkegaard, and Category:Philosophy books, but not Category:Books.) Fireplace 20:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• Per WP:CAT, "Articles should not usually be in both a category and its subcategory". I have generally been replacing the Category:Operas where articles are already in a sub-category. I may have missed a few. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The Category:Operas list has been useful. It was built up over the past three years. Operas are sub-categorized in a number of different ways: by country, by composer, by genre etc. For that reason it isn't possible simply to go to one set of subcategories to re-assemble the whole series of works. (The other lists we have, such as The opera corpus, have been compiled by hand and don't show coverage as accurately, or in the same way.) This may be unorthodox, but it is explained on the project page item 14.1 here, and it's never been challenged. I think we should keep to this system. I don't see any reason to change it.

What exactly is the situation now? How many operas have been recategorized? (I can see at least 70 or 80.) Is it reversable? I'm a bit surprised you (BrownHairedGirl) launched into this without talking to us. After all, we have had discussions before ([1]), and you know we are here. IMO this demonstrates again just how vulnerable editing is to automated processes (AWB, bot etc.).

Having said all that, I am not opposed to some kind of categorization by date, or period, but as Moreschi sensibly explains above we need to have a viable system that has been discussed and defined, not an automated ('combined-harvester') process randomly extracting dates, sometimes of composition, sometimes of performance, sometimes of revision etc. There are lots of anomalies, especially with early works, and we would need a systematic approach to deal with them. -- Kleinzach 00:10, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

BTW, Category:Operas by year is miscategorized under Y under Category:Operas. -- Kleinzach 04:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Umm, no, it's correctly indexed under Y ... but as below, correct indexing doesn't work when the parent category is overpopulated :( Thanks for the pointer, now kludged to appear on the first page. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Kleinzach, per WP:CAT, "Articles should not usually be in both a category and its subcategory", so the articles should not have been in Category:Operas. (And indeed, they were not all there; the few categories by composer which I checked included articles which quite correctly did not include both Category:Operas and a subcategory). I intended no offence, but it never occurred to me that there would be any need to seek consensus for implementing a well-established guideline, and I am a little bit surprised to find that that this breach of it was a project objective rather than (as I had assumed) an oversight or the work of one or two individuals — and in any case, I wasn't actually aware of the project, having missed that link in the CfD discussion you linked to (sorry, I probably should have spotted it, but it was a v small link).

Anyway, I have now re-read the discussions in the archives, and this issue seems to have been last discussed in 2005, around the time when the category operas-by-title was deleted. That was before my time on wikipedia, but I am not aware of any other situation where a parent category is intended to directly contain all the articles in its sub-categories.

About 200 articles have been recategorised so far, and while it would of course be reasonably easy to replace the articles in Category:Operas, that would be contrary to guidelines. I don't think that the put-everything-in Category:Operas practice is sustainable in the face of the well-established guidelines. (For example, Category:Musicals doesn't do duplicate categorisation; why is it argued that this is needed for operas, but not for anything else?) There is also a useability downside to lumping everything into the parent category, in that correctly-indexed sub-cats are unlikely to be on the first page of the category: e.g. Category:Polish operas was one of two or three subcats appearing on page 2 or later until I kludged the indexing by adding a space to force them onto the first page (will do the same for the by-year category which you noticed; it was indexed correctly, but correct indexing doesn't work when the parent category is overpopulated). Anyway, if removing the articles from duplicate categorisation in Category:Operas is controversial, I suggest taking the issue to WT:CAT for wider input.

I am surprised that there should be any controversy about the principle of categorising articles by year: it has been done for many other category trees, and parallels in the arts include Category:Films by year, Category:Books by year, and Category:Songs by year.

The dates have not been somehow extracted by an automated process, nor have they been done at random. WP:AWB simply provides a means of editing in turn a list of articles, with optional automated replacements, which were not used in this case (except where an article was already categorised under Category:Works by year). Nor were the dates "randomly extracted", as you suggest; as explained briefly above, I have used the date of first performance in most cases because in most cases that's the only date available, and in most others it coincides with the year that the opera was composed. In the very few instances where there has been a lack of clarity about which date to use (such as an opera not performed until after the composer's death, or where there has been a major revision), I have either added more than one date or used the decade category; and a number of early operas which are unclear have been skipped altogether.

The reason I followed that path was to mirror the principle used for books and songs: to categorise by date of first publication or release, (or, in the case of unreleased songs, the year in which they were composed or finished). Any other suggestions on how to select the date(s)?

If it helps for maintenance purposes, it would not be a big job to use AWB's list-making function to generate a list of all articles under Category:Operas; would that help? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your long response. Perhaps we can all work this out together? Without going into a huge amount of detail, I'd agree that the category system here is full of anomalies. We've been working on this for the last few years. It's much better than it was, but it certainly isn't perfect. (As with WP generally, there is a lot of cross-linking so it isn't always clear what is a category and what is a subcategory.) Newly created categories like the Category:Polish operas - which is actually one day old! - will sometimes be added in the wrong place. All we can do is to try pragmatically to make the scheme as clear as possible.

As I explained above, I am not myself opposed to Category:Operas by year and I am reassured that you are using first performance dates. (As you will have seen we have been trying to put these in the opening paragraphs.) However, personally, I would like to see Category:Operas restored to its pre-AWB condition, given that its subcategorization is partial and complex. What do other people think? -- Kleinzach 06:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your nice reply :) I'm sure we'll all work our way towards a consensus.

I will doodle a few notes below on how to implement categorisation by year, and see what y'all think: it sounds like we're on a similar track, and I think that once it's nearer to completion it will be very useful (still underpopulated, but see Category:19th century operas for an illustration of how easy it is to navigate).

I take your point about the subcategorisation being incomplete, but I really do think for lots of reasons that it's a very bad idea to put everything in Category:Operas, and that we should take it to WP:CAT to see whether this really is a case to breach the guidelines. Alternatively, why not just start with a list and get to work finishing the subcats? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:31, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks but hasn't the categorization re-started? I thought we were "holding off pending further discussion"! Wouldn't it be better to wait until GuillaumeTell, Folantin, Moreschi, and Fireplace have had a chance to read what you have written and reply if they want to? Or is your AWB doing its own thing? -- Kleinzach 09:37, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I didn't say the subcategorisation was incomplete! That's wasn't my point! -- Kleinzach 10:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd give deference to WP:CAT on this one. Consistency is valuable and I don't see a relevant difference between opera articles and books, musicals, etc. As best I can tell, Kleinzach's primary objection is that Category:Operas auto-generated a list that was helpful for project-wide editing jobs. But, BHG correctly points out that AWB has a list function that accomplishes the same purpose (not a perfect substitute, but not insurmountably inconvenient either).

Regarding Category:Works by year, per my comments above and Moreschi's comments below, I don't see the value of this scheme and I'd probably scrap the whole thing. But, (unlike infoboxes), it's not particularly harmful either. Fireplace 13:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Replying to Kleinzach, I have not been removing any more articles from Category:Operas, but have been adding by-year categories, since we seemed to have reached agreement on which year to use. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:21, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I am unhappy you didn't hold off as promised to allow the others to make comments. (I was only expressing my own personal view that Category:Operas by year based rigorously on first performance date would probably pose no problems not making any agreement on behalf of the others). Will you now replace Category:Operas for the first series where it was removed? I think that would show good faith and we could then work out how to reform the system, perhaps asking your advice as you obviously have the technical expertise I lack. -- Kleinzach 22:45, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm still just a little confused as to what this is intended to achieve, though in all fairness I don't see the point of Category:Works by year either. The point of categorization is to help the reader, no? In which case, I don't see the point of this any more than I see the point of Category:Works that contain the word "festinate". The point of the comparison is that both are, in my view, pointless categorisations based on coincidence. Just because one work was written in the same year as another does not mean that there's any thematic link between the two: in many cases, quite the contrary! This is not just true for operas but also for everything else artistic, as far as I can see. Now, there's a thematic link between Verdi's operas because they're all composed by one man, Verdi - but the same is not true of, say, an opera by J.C Bach and one by Gluck, though they probably wrote operas in the same year! This may be a wiki-wide problem, not just an opera one. Bemused in London, Moreschi ^Talk 10:41, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Comparing things by year (or other time period) is one line of analysis, and it may or may not produce interesting results for the reader; that depends what they are interested in. But the same applies to many other categories: the Category:English-language operas includes a variety of stuff which may have little thematic link, such as The Pirates of Penzance and The Rape of Lucretia.

However, one of the questions a historian asks is "what else was going on at the same time", and the by-year categories are a route towards answering that. Maybe you don't often take a historical perspective on art? That's fine, but others do. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:21, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not particularly opposed to your scheme, however IMO you misunderstand the nature of opera -something that came out in your argument against renaming the Comic opera category. Opera is international/cross-cultural. It developed in different places at different times. It's not particularly useful to group operas performed in the same year, because of the cultural time lag factor. (There's a huge difference between, say, Naples, London and Moscow in 1750, so grouping them together is not really meaningful.)

However it would be very useful to group together different kinds of performance (including spoken theatre, dance etc.) that took place in the same time and place. (For example it would be interesting to correlate Beaumarchais and Goldoni drama performances with operas they influenced.) Grouping together unrelated events (what happened in China and England in 1217 or whatever) may seem like fun, especially if you have a techy toy like AWB to wizz through hundreds of pages with, but if it is just GIGO it detracts from WP. Speaking as a historian (former) myself, these things have to be thought out properly. The end is more important than the (techy) means. -- Kleinzach 23:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Even by decade that categorisation is too broad to be useful for analysis, because of what Kleinzach has aptly phrased as the "cultural time lag factor" - and that factor is very big and very important to the history of opera. But I'm not so bothered, I guess there are worse evils to slay. We can always come back to this later. Moreschi ^Talk 11:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Umm, I understand what you are all saying, but it seems to me that those are arguments about how to use or interpret year categories rather than arguments against the classification itself. I hope that no-one would argue that opera is the only field of human endeavour in which things may develop at different times in different places: similar time lags can be observed in literature, in sculpture, in politics, in warfare, and many other fields, all of which are categorised by year, because the date when something was created is a defining characteristic.

Of course it's not the only defining characteristic, but it is one of several defining characteristics. Taking Kleinzach's comment about 1750 and the cultural time-lag factor, categorisation by date allows the reader to easily see what different approaches were being followed at that time in Naples, London and Moscow ... and also, of course, to see what happened at the same time within the same cultural circles. Date does not define things in the same way in different places, but it is always a relevant factor.

I'm surprised at your rather patronising assumption that I am not aware that opera is international/cross-cultural. Of course it is, but so are many other areas the of arts. Why do you presume that classification by date somehow denies that? On the contrary, it can assist in illustrating that point. (And on the comic opera, I have no problem with a category restricted to English comic opera; my objection was to having no grouping for comic opera in different languages or cultures. Comedy may be expressed in many different ways, and in different cultures it can be very different; but across cultural and linguistic boundaries there remains a distinction between a tragedy and a comedy).

It's also unhelpful to make sneering remarks about "techy toys" etc. You are right about the end being more important than the means, and the end in this case is very simple: to add a basic category, which the reader can use as they see fit. It does not cause category clutter, and if it is garbage in, that would be only because the dates in the articles are themselves garbage, which I doubt is the case.

Your suggestion of grouping together different kinds of performance (including spoken theatre, dance etc.) that took place in the same time and place is an interesting, and if you choose to do it, I'd say that's a great idea. In doing so you'll find it helpful to refer to categories such as operas by year, plays by year.

I think, though, that many of you are missing an important point here. Wikipedia already has Category:Works by year and Category:Years in music; if Category:operas by year is removed, the result would not be to remove the date category entirely, but for operas to be categorised instead in one of those category trees, as some articles already were. How would that be an improvement? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

FYI, for some perspective from someone who has been engaged in a similar project: we have developed lists by year for literature (e.g., List of years in literature and List of years in poetry), and they are immensely useful for historical articles. They make it much easier to compare across countries and cultures, to develop timelines for key developments and to do comparative work (e.g., did the English ballad really coexist as a major form with iambic pentameter? When and where did rhyme get introduced into the Romance and Germanic languages from the Celtic and Arabic languages? How does the number of women writers in Medieval Japan and Medieval Europe compare?). Work has also been done on similar projects in Art, Architecture, and Film. Whether in a list or category, it really is useful, and broadening the scope of these projects into other artistic and cultural areas could make WP a great and more unique reference for this kind of work. A Musing 18:56, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, disclaimer, I'm commiting the cardinal sin of commenting without reading the whole discussion. I would first like to remind everyone of the halo of the Jimbo and the beauty of WikiLove, let us all come round the fire and bask in its loving glow. Ok, that's over. There have been many long and fruitless discussions about categories and sub-categories. I don't think we'll be able to come up with a solution here. But my views are 1) both lists and categories serve different but both useful functions, even if there is some redundancy. It would be nice if categories were navigable, but the fact of the matter is, they're not. Try to navigate any category scheme in Wikipedia using Logic, and you will come out mystified and disappointed. This is because, despite years of Western thinking and the attempts of encyclopedists and others, knowledge isn't simply hierarchical - the connections are far too complex to put into a hierarchy. The best idea I've heard about categories lately is that they should be conceived as tags, rather than hierarchical schemes, and "super" categories should always be used - operas should always have an "opera" tag, baroque operas should have "baroque" "music" and "opera" tags, etc. etc. Then, rather than being navigated by confused humans, they will be happily collated (or have their intersections parsed) by computer programs. I think there are legitimate uses for the intersections of "1872 works" and "opera". Right now I think the best way to move toward this is to maintain keeping all operas in Category:Operas while also adding Category:1985 operas. I have seen a number of researchers on the mailing lists pleading for categories to be used this way, and I still remember my initial frustration with the uselessness of categories for any sort of navigation when I was new to Wikipedia. I think we need to give over that idea, and create something actually useful. Also, don't get me started on hierarchies of knowledge. You might regret it. Mak (talk) 23:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Good. Mak said all that better than I could have done. Is it gong to be possible to replace all the Category:Operas items we have lost? Is it easy to do with AWB? (I can't use AWB myself as I don't have a Windows machine.) -- Kleinzach 04:31, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Mak, please read WP:CAT; categories are not solely hierarchical. Nor are they un-navigable - - that depends on how they are implemented. Computer-generated category intersection is an idea that has been on the table for ages, and the code has been written, but it is not used on wikipedia because of the server load it can cause. It would be great, but don't expect it any time soon :(

It would, however, be useful to create a little schematic map of the opera categories, a simpler version of what has has been done for with {{Christian denomination tree}} for Category:Christian denominations -- that would make category navigation even easier.

As to placing all the articles in the Category:Operas, the guidelines have for ages recommended that this should not be done, for a variety of good reasons which I won't repeat here. I don't see anyone making a case for why the opera categories should be treated differently to books or sportspeople or Christian denominations or ships or any of the many other categories where articles are correctly dispersed to the subcategories. As I have said before, if people think that opera is an exceptional case, why not take the question to WT:CAT and see what the categorisation specialists have to say? --05:32, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with BHG and precedent, but there is also this duplication exception at WP:CAT (although, if it applies here, it would also apply to books or Christian denominations). Fireplace 05:43, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I have no strong objections to this category as such but could I just ask people not to apply it where there is a great deal of ambiguity over the performance or composition history? For example, categorising Les Boréades as a "1770 opera" gives an extremely simplified and distorted impression of its tangled history. Thanks. --Folantin 07:31, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Good point, Folantin, but I'm sure that there is a solution in those cases other than simply removing any year category. Les Boréades was first performed in 1770, so that doesn't seem to me to be an unreasonable categorisation. However, like some other operas, (such as Der Kaiser von Atlantis), you are right to point out that there are other significant dates. In cases where there has a long delay between composition and first performance (roughly a decade or more) I have categorise under both composition date and first performance; in the case of Les Boréades it seems to me that the best thing to do would be to put in either a) Category:1760s operas or b) Category:1763 operas and Category:1770 operas. How does that sound? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:33, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Potential copyright violations on a series of 20-odd Verdi operas

As noticed by GuillaumeTell, User:Nrswanson has been adding text to a series of some 20-odd Verdi operas. I have checked Re Lear (an article about an opera never written). Falstaff and Aida and find that the text there has all been copied and pasted from Giuseppe Verdi, the official site [2]. In the case of Re Lear it comes from [3]. Given the scale of this activity (involving background sections, synopses and role lists) what is the best way of handling it? Is some kind of admin action needed? -- Kleinzach 01:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Just revert it and leave a friendly notice for the user ({{uw-copyright}} may work). We mustn't violate copyrights; however, the user may not be aware this is a problem, so we should assume good faith. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 01:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed... the copyright rules here are not obvious, especially to newcomers. Make sure not to bite potential participants! Fireplace 01:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Many people also have the notion the internet is all public domain. Anyway, I warned the user. If this continues, I'd head for ANI and get an admin's attention. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 02:10, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, I do agree - no-one wants to fry a new contributor - however the scale of the work is the problem. There are so many articles involved. It would take a considerable amount of time to go through all of them. Ideally the user should remove the material him/herself. Thanks to Heimstern Läufer for posting the formal warning on the user's Talk page. -- Kleinzach 02:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I have to say that all synopsizes, backgrounds etc added by Nrswanson are copy/paste from articles from www.giuseppeverdi.it/. I do not want to delete them but I think this is too much. They are exact “match” words by words. I ran through 8 articles.. and decided not to continue for the rest. What do you guys think? To me, it is OK to see "red" links or stubs, but it is so bad to see these kind of copy/paste that made up 60% (some 80%) of the article. To Nrswanson, no offense but you cant copy other people's works. -Jay 13:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Well done checking 8 articles! I only did 3. (I don't know how this user got so much material up in such a short time.) It does have to be removed. Can anyone suggest a way of dealing with it? I don't have time to go through all the pages reverting everything myself. (The user hasn't responded to any messages.) -- Kleinzach 13:47, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I have deleted /edited Aroldo, Les vêpres siciliennes, Stiffelio, Luisa Miller, Oberto (opera) .. more when i have the time. - Jay 13:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I've just left a message on the user's page that I hope he or she will take to kindly. The standard warning templates get the point across, but they're not always exactly friendly, and I wanted to be sure that the user didn't feel picked on. --Kyoko 14:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I've worked my way through the Verdi operas template from Un giorno di regno to Jérusalem. I masnadieri was the only one that didn't need attention. I retained the lists of roles, altering them to our usual style. I was about to start on Il corsaro, but I see that the creators of the roles are also listed (near the bottom): I don't think those names really violate copyright, so they should be put into a table with the roles in our usual style, and I feel like a break just now! --GuillaumeTell 14:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the "Background" sections from Otello, La forza del destino, and Simon Boccanegra, which were all taken directly from the http://www.giuseppeverdi.it website mentioned earlier. --Kyoko 17:31, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Il corsaro now done - only 5 or 6 more to go, if that. --GuillaumeTell 21:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I've now dealt with all the other operas that weren't dealt with by Jay or Kyoko. For the record, User:Nrswanson seems also not to have got round to Rigoletto or Un ballo in maschera and only added a "Background" heading in Don Carlos. --GuillaumeTell 00:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Roles format

I changed the format for roles (and changed “characters” to “roles”) for Verdi’s operas. There were in various formats before, so I chose one that I think looks good. You guys could change it to any format you like, but let’s standardize to one. The format I changed (below):-

• Aida, an Ethiopian princess (soprano)

I leave the format in I masnadieri and Il corsaro because they are in frame formats. All Puccini’s opera roles are using “frame format”, I think it looks better. - Jay 02:56, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes I prefer 'roles'. (The word 'characters' is not widely used in the opera world AFAIK.)

Regarding typography, how about:

• Aida, an Ethiopian princess (soprano)

-- Kleinzach 03:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, per WP:WPO#Articles on specific operas, the standard format is the framesetting exemplified here. Frames are preferred because it allows for a tidy presentation of premiere casts. In practice, the formatting varies somewhat article to article (consistently is ridiculously difficult to achieve on wikipedia). Fireplace 03:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. Then it should be:

• Aida, an Ethiopian princess (soprano) - in frames!

-- Kleinzach 03:35, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Great, I like the frames too! They are more organized - Jay 05:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

We should also note that the point of frames is to include the role creators. -- Kleinzach 05:35, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Voice article proliferation/sopranomania

There is an article on Vocal range explaining the (basically Anglo-American) classification of voices in contrast to Fach explaining the German system, which originates from the German Wikipedia. (I have had Fach on my watchlist because every month or two sometimes tries to translate all the terms into English and then transform it into a second Vocal range.) A new editor User:Operalala has now developed a third article called Voice type (formerly Vocal weight), pretty much covering the same area as Vocal range (but referring to Fach rather than Italian voice types).

There is even more proliferation on individual voice types. For example we have Soprano, and also Soubrette, Lyric soprano, Lyric coloratura soprano, Dramatic coloratura soprano, Spinto soprano, Dramatic soprano, and Wagnerian soprano, largely using material from the main soprano article, also a List of famous sopranos and a List of notable sopranos (another User:Operalala creation). (I haven't even dared look at the tenor articles . . .)

It all needs merging and cleaning up. Does this subject interest anyone? We probably need two or three interested editors to sort it all out. -- Kleinzach 04:59, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

List of years in opera

Along the lines of these and in light of the comments here (A Musing) and here (Mak), I think a substantial List of years in opera article, with 401 associated articles (being now in the 400th anniversary of L'Orfeo), would be a valuable educational and navigation tool. Unless there are objections, I'll get started. Obviously such a project will never be complete, but given the excellent list articles we already have, it shouldn't be too hard to populate the pages. Fireplace 00:48, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: I see that List of years in music includes some opera information. My sense is that, just as there is enough content to merit List of years in poetry separate from List of years in literature, there's enough material out there for an opera chronology. Fireplace 01:13, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, we already have the List of important operas which is a list of years in opera and a very good one (featured article). -- Kleinzach 03:31, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Re Lear up for deletion

I have put the (newly created) page on Verdi's Re Lear up for deletion. This may be of interest so I'm noting it here. Thanks. -- Kleinzach 10:22, 18 May 2007 (UTC)