Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera

Opera Composer and Singer of the Month Proposals A simple script will automatically replace the text on the front page with the appropriate month when the time comes. Here are the next three months: [edit] Composer of the Month for December 2024 Click Here to set up December's Composer of the Month! [edit] Opera of the Month for December 2024 Click Here to set up December's Opera of the Month! Click here to show the January and February Opera and Composer of the Month preparation areas [edit] Composer of the Month for January 2025 Click Here to set up January's Composer of the Month! [edit] Opera of the Month for January 2025 Click Here to set up January's Opera of the Month! [edit] Composer of the Month for February 2025 Click Here to set up February's Composer of the Month! [edit] Opera of the Month for February 2025 Click Here to set up February's Opera of the Month!

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Origins of Opera: merge to Opera?

The anomalous Origins of Opera has been around since 2006 - without being much developed. Most of it is redundant/covered elsewhere so I've suggested a merge with the main Opera article. I've added headings to facilitate this.--Kleinzach (talk) 01:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree, merge it with opera - Jay (talk) 05:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but I withdrew the merger tag on 8 April after other editors thought it would be better rewritten. Not much has happened since then except that some of text has been shifted around. The article originated when an editor removed existing text from elsewhere to create a parallel text, for example the opening paragraph was copied from here. I don't know if someone else would like to have a look at it? --Kleinzach (talk) 00:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

“Origin of opera” is the same with “History of opera”, for that in my opinion “Origin of opera” content should be transferred into “Opera” unless if someone could add more beneficial content into it. At the moment it serves no purpose at all, better delete than keeping it - Jay (talk) 02:05, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Its frustrating. No significant work has been done on the article. It hasn't been touched for the last 10 days. I'd support deletion rather than leave it in its present state. --Kleinzach (talk) 00:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

A fair amount was added before. Relatively little is exactly the same. All the arguments from the other discussion when your first proposal was rejected still apply. We need an overall article surveying the various music drama forms. We could rename it I suppose, although I don't see any reason to other than your irrational dislike of it. Would you be happier if it was renamed to something and moved out of your personal space? Johnbod (talk) 02:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

For the record, the "origins" section in Opera is 1,107 chars, Origins of opera 8,133, and the whole opera article text, after the lead, is 36,316 (all visible character counts - as Folatin pointed out last time, "Opera" is a near-maximum 52K in total). Either opera is unbalanced, or stuff is lost, as is the survey aspect. Johnbod (talk) 03:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

We don't have two distinct, separate texts. Much, if not all of it, is identical. For example the whole 154-word paragraph (1.1) in Opera from ""The word "opera" means "work" in Italian . . . (to) . . . "A later work by Peri, Euridice, dating from 1600, is the first opera score to have survived to the present day." has been just copied into the Origins of opera article. It seems the person who started the article copied material from other articles, intending to rewrite it into a proper article, but never got round to it.--Kleinzach (talk) 01:24, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually that is not correct - look at them again! Most of the first para is different. The second para is I think the longest duplicate passage. I don't see duplication on this scale as an issue. Johnbod (talk) 01:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This is the text from Opera:

The word opera means "work" in Italian (from Latin opus meaning "work" or "labour") suggesting that it combines the arts of solo and choral singing, declamation, acting and dancing in a staged spectacle. Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the "Camerata de' Bardi". Significantly, Dafne was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama, part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance. The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. Dafne is unfortunately lost. A later work by Peri, Euridice, dating from 1600, is the first opera score to have survived to the present day.

and here is the text from Origins of opera marking all the identical text in pink:

The word "opera" means "work" in Italian (from the plural of Latin opus meaning "work" or "labour") suggesting that it combines the arts of solo and choral singing, declamation, acting and dancing in a staged spectacle. The form arose in Italy from a background of various forms of courtly entertainment, and though the first operas were modestly staged compared to other contemporary forms of sung drama, opera outlasted these, and was to make the transition from the court to the public theatre, having taken on the spectacular stagings typical of the intermedio.

"Dafne" by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the "Camerata". Significantly, Dafne was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama, part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance. The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. "Dafne" is unfortunately lost. A later work by Peri, Euridice, dating from 1600, is the first opera score to have survived to the present day.

Traditions of staged sung music and drama go back to both secular and religious forms from the Middle Ages, and at the time opera first appears the Italian intermedio had courtly equivalents in various countries.

I'm sorry I don't have time to do this for the rest of the text. --Kleinzach (talk) 01:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Exactly! I have added the extra text you carefully omitted. What do you mean "I'm sorry I don't have time to do this for the rest of the text"? As far as I can see NONE of the rest of the article duplicates Opera at all! You really have a most slippery way of conducting a discussion! Johnbod (talk) 10:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Slippery? After taking the trouble to provide the exact text duplicated? That's WP:UNCIVIL. The rest of the article consisted of unrelated, unconnected, unchronological paragraphs. It's clear they were taken from other sources. As another editor said here "The basic problem here is the Origins of opera is a mess. It starts with the Renaissance and ends with the Middle Ages!" --Kleinzach (talk) 23:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I thought we would get round to "UNCIVIL" before long. You took the trouble (not a huge one) to copy the duplicated text (which from my remarks above I was clearly already better aware of than you), whilst going the extra mile to cut out most of the unduplicated text, adding a completely incorrect claim that there was further duplication! Folatin's suggestion was to expand it, which is certainly to be desired. Yours to delete it, for reasons that remain obscure. At the moment the article works backward chronologically, largely because there is very little stuff on the earlier period, and clearly it has a remoter connection with opera itself. "It's clear they were taken from other sources" ! Johnbod (talk) 02:09, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I thought we agreed to keep this article and expand it? "Overlap" is inevitable, as was the case with our sub-articles on Italian, German, French opera etc. There is plenty of material out there with which to bulk out the "Origins" page - try the first 50 or so pages of Grout's A Short History of Opera, for example. --Folantin (talk) 08:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately more than a month has past and no-one has come forward to expand it and remove the duplicate text. --Kleinzach (talk) 13:15, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no time limit on these things. I've been waiting for over a year for somebody to expand and fix the 19th and 20th century sections of Italian opera but nobody's been interested enough, in spite of my asking on several occasions. --Folantin (talk) 13:41, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, nor is there any need to "remove" a duplicated passage of about 150 words. Johnbod (talk) 14:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

'No Free Image' placeholder graphic

The current campaign to put a 'No Free Image' graphic (left) on all biographical pages (for living people?) has so far only affected two or three 7 or 8 opera pages, however if anyone is interested in the discussion/proposal it is here. Best. --Kleinzach (talk) 12:52, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

However see Barbara Bonney for the insistent use of this on an opera page. --Kleinzach (talk) 00:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually there are probably more than that as I have removed tags from several pages. But regardless, this is a problem not just involving this project but wikipedia as a whole. I regularly edit articles in other areas and I don't like them on those articles either.Nrswanson (talk) 04:18, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Also these image placeholders are an integral part of the biographical infoboxes.--Kleinzach (talk) 06:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Kleinzach for all the work you have put into this.Nrswanson (talk) 07:20, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Not at all - light relief after the singer cats. There is now a centralized discussion at: Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders. --Kleinzach (talk) 08:06, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

For anyone deterred by the idea of reading 140+k on this subject, there are now some simple proposals here. --Kleinzach (talk) 02:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

This debate will close at midday GMT/UTC on 23 April. --Kleinzach (talk) 01:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. The discussion has now been restarted by a small group of editors refusing to accept the closing date, previous discussions, or the proposal, agreed by more than two editors to one, to stop using image placeholders. --Kleinzach (talk) 15:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Dates of premieres and musical timelines

I've always been a bit confused about linking dates. For example the sentence: "The opera was first performed in Prague on 31 March 1928" . How should it be wikified?

Recently I've noticed some people are using a system based on the Timeline of musical events. The link looks like this: [[1928 in music#Opera|1928]]. Following this system, the sentence above would be "The opera was first performed in Prague on 31 March 1928." Clicking on the 1928 brings up the 1928 in music#Opera page.

What do other people think? Is linking to a list of other musical works a good idea? Should we adopt this form? --Kleinzach (talk) 06:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Formatting dates according to Mos:date#Autoformatting_and_linking achieves compliance in the date's representation with the user's settings. I consider this to be useful. I have no opinion on the usefulness of links to "yyyy in music".
Autoformatting, besides its useful formatting feature, has of course the disadvantage of creating unnecessary links. For dates between 1970 and 2038 the template Template:Date can be used instead. Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, but is it useful to link to, for example, 31 March? --Kleinzach (talk) 10:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Not in my opinion, and I think the MOS also discourages it. Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

References to premieres should be linked to 'Year in music' pages, for example "The opera was first performed in Prague on 31 March 1928" - coded as "The opera was first performed in [[Prague]] on 31 March [[1928 in music#Opera|1928]]." --Kleinzach (talk) 03:41, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not against this, but it will presumably also mean that we will need to add the opera to the list in 1928 in music - where I see that various different formulations are in use. Lots of scope for errors and omissions there. (Maybe we could get a bot to put everything in Category:Operas into the appropriate year? Or maybe not.) GuillaumeTell 13:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, writing up the list in 1928 in music etc. could be done gradually later. I'm not sure about bots. Maybe it would be useful if one or us - it would have to be a Windows user - learned how to use AWB. --Kleinzach (talk) 13:54, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Article format

Despite having standard formats, many new and IP authors wrote articles their own ways. I have standardized formats (Title headers, frame for roles including the date format, Selected recordings and Synopsis) for composers below:- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gaetano Donizetti, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Georges Bizet, Gioachino Rossini, Claudio Monteverdi, Antonio Vivaldi, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Jacques Offenbach, André Ernest Modeste Grétry, Joseph Haydn, Richard Wagner, George Frideric Handel, Antonín Dvořák, Fromental Halévy

Other problem we should look at is the reference section. There are many "title headers" that we can see now in opera articles for this section such as below:-

• References
• Sources
• Source
• External links
• E-book
• Source notes
• Notes
• See also
• Bibliography
• Historical sources
• References and further reading

and many more... I believe we should have standard title for this section too. What do you guys think? - Jay (talk) 18:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, here are my ideas on this:

The following are OK:

• See also (for other WP pages)
• Bibliography
• References
• Sources
• External links

The following should be removed:

• Source . . . should be Sources
• E-book . . . should be under Bibliography
• Source notes . . . should be References
• Notes . . . should be References
• Historical sources . . . should be Sources
• References and further reading . . . should be divided into References and Bibliography

--Kleinzach (talk) 03:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Composers bio-infobox template up for deletion

The recently-made bio-infobox for composers is up for deletion, see the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page.--Kleinzach (talk) 14:07, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Opera for May 2008

6 more days to go, we need to decide on:-

• Selected article
• Composer
• Singer
• Selected picture

Any suggestion? - Jay (talk) 16:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it's worth looking at birthdays, anniversaries of first performances etc. I've not got immediate suggestions for this month, but RVW and Puccini have important anniversaries (50 years from death, 150 from birth) in August and December respectively. Stockhausen would have been 80 in August too. Maybe we can have one as the composer of the month and an opera by the other as an article that month. If someone has the energy to look through what happened in years 58, 08 etc., then we may be able to fill in several months ahead. I've still got to buy my Proms programme which has composer dates in it.--Peter cohen (talk) 13:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Here are the ones I could find:

• 28 May, 1608: premiere of Monteverdi's L'Arianna at the Ducal palace, Mantua
• 15 May, 1808: birth of Michael Balfe
• 15 May, 1858: opening of the present Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
• 5 May, 1908: Birth of bass Kurt Böhme
• 17 May, 1908: birth of bass David Franklin
• 19 May, 1908: premiere (by Diaghilev's company) in Paris of Rimsky-Korsakov's final revised and reorchestrated version of Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, with Fyodor Shalyapin in the title-role
• 25 May, 1908: opening of the present Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires

GuillaumeTell 18:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I like the anniversaries ideas. You might the (birth/death)lists here quite helpful:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~benhdj/Music/index.html

These are the composers with May birthdays:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~benhdj/Music/Composers/Birth/May.html

If you can read Italian, Amadeus has a really detailed searchable Classical Music/Opera Alamanc. For example, here are the search results for:

May 1808

May 1858

May 1908

You can also leave all fields blank except the month if you're not fussed about 100th, 150th etc. anniversaries. (I'll also add these sites to the Online research guide for future reference.)

Best, Voceditenore (talk) 23:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I actually used Amadeus for the list that I produced up above. It's also very useful for finding the names of role-creators and conductors, though one has to be careful to distinguish premières from revivals, and many cast-lists aren't complete. The amount of Italian required isn't large, and maybe a few important translations (e.g. "dirige = conductor") could be included. --GuillaumeTell 00:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and I have created archived pages for the articles (Selected article, Composer, Singer, Selected picture). Will change the contents on 29th or 30th - Jay (talk) 16:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

La reine de Saba

Need help - look at the voice range in the box below and also at http://www.charles-gounod.com/vi/oeuvres/operas/saba.htm . I am guessing "dugazon" is mezzo-soprano while "chanteuse falcon" is soprano based on some readings (correct me if I am wrong). But what is "duègne"?

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, February 28, 1862 (Conductor: - )
Balkis, the queen	chanteuse falcon	Gueymard
Benoni	dugazon	Hamackers
Sarahil	duègne	Tarby

- Jay (talk) 01:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it's the French version of 'duenna' (a female chaperon). I guess the person who put all the French stuff in this article didn't know either! Operissimo say the role is a mezzo-soprano. By the way I think it's fine to put falcon and dugazon in parentheses, e.g. soprano (falcon) etc. --Kleinzach (talk) 03:52, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Composer of the Month for June?

Are we going to have another 10 from the major minors list? Any preferences?--Kleinzach (talk) 10:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Make it international and pick some composers from the Classical period. --Folantin (talk) 10:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Fine by me. Go ahead and make a recommendation. --Kleinzach (talk) 10:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd take Traetta, Piccinni and Jean-François Le Sueur for starters. Others can have their pick. --Folantin (talk) 08:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

My suggestions are Benda, Gazzaniga, Cimarosa and Storace. --GuillaumeTell 10:10, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

One thing to consider the future is what anniversaries are coming up. That way we can have better quality articles linked from the portal.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

La Bohème/Dispute tag on Project Page (8)

La bohème not La boheme.

I'm sure we should not use the French title of an Italian opera as an example for anything; I doubt we should use the unEnglish La bohème at all. We should use what the general reader will recognize: La Bohème. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree, although the Italian and Dutch articles use "b", but it is "B" in German and Spanish. Can anyone produce an Anglo sleeve or programme using "b"? Johnbod (talk) 19:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

This is covered in the project guidelines (Section 8). We use La bohème following them. It's been discussed in detail in the past (see here etc). Please note that we have well over a thousand articles on opera here - all entitled following the same basic guidelines. Moreover these guidelines follow the practice of the main opera encyclopedias, Grove, Oxford, Viking etc. --Kleinzach (talk) 23:29, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I see someone has put a 'Disputed' tag on the guideline (Section 8) on the project page. Can this be removed please? --Kleinzach (talk) 00:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

OK here we go..

1. Re the general reader "recognizing" the title La bohème - We do multiple re-direct pages with these, so there's no problem for them to find it or in other articles linking to the page, e.g. La Boheme, La Bohème, La boheme, Boheme all redirect to La bohème. Likewise, Google disregards both capitalization and accent marks. Hence in a search on "La Boheme", the Wikepedia article La bohème still comes up first. See: [1]

2. Re the use of a "French" word for an Italian opera - the accent mark is used in the title in the original Italian score. See also the original poster for it [2]. As a prime example of the usage in Italian, see these pages [3], [4] from the the web site of the Teatro Regio di Torino, where La bohème had its world premiere in 1896.

3. Re "Can anyone produce an Anglo sleeve or programme using "b"?" - Well, here's a small selection: The Royal Opera House (London), Florida Grand Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Australia... Note that you will find just about every combination of capitalization and use of è/e in English (and non-English) sources (and sometimes even within the same source) - with the reasons varying from differing in-house or publishers' style requirements, to typographical demands, to faulty proof-reading, to ignorance, etc.

4. For consistency over the thousands of opera articles in Wikipedia, and after lengthy discussions over the years (please read the latest one), we have chosen the capitalization conventions used in the four primary English language reference books, New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The Oxford Dictionary of Opera and The Viking Opera Guide.

There is clear and long-standing consensus in the Opera Project for this practice and I am thus going to remove the tag. Please do not replace it unless you can fully address these four points. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 07:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

• Changed my mind. I suggest we leave it for (at most) four days days to see if there are any more responses here. Unless the discussion produces any cogent reasons for further discussing a long-standing and clear consensus (yet again!), we remove it. Really folks, there are far more useful and interesting things for the Opera Project members to do on Wikipedia than flogging a dead horse. Voceditenore (talk) 07:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
• Update: since La bohème is already used as an example further down the original language titles section, I've now used Mosè in Egitto as the example for use of original diacritics and added a further example from the French opera Les fêtes de Ramire. I continue to emphasise, however, that the Italian name of the Italian opera La bohème is... er... La bohème.;-). Voceditenore (talk) 07:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

What Voceditenore said. We already have an established system based on reliable sources. "Really folks, there are far more useful and interesting things for the Opera Project members to do on Wikipedia than flogging a dead horse". Well put. This project has always been more about content creation rather than pointless pedantry. Sorry, but I've got better things to do with my life than engage in endless discussions about the colour of the bikeshed. --Folantin (talk) 07:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC) There are two objections here:

• That it is a bad example, because there are so few instances of an opera which has a libretto in a foreign language, and a title in a second foreign language, so it doesn't help. I see we use The Queen of Spades, not Pique Dame; what other instances are there?
  • I would therefore suggest Così fan tutte, which is unquestionably also usage.
• Thar the capitalization is a bad idea, whatever Groves does. We are not intended for their audience. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

What exactly are you trying to say? That all titles of operas should be 'anglicized' according to subjective (local?) notions of 'usual' practice in anglophone countries? Is that it? I see you have also made this an RFC. What is the point you are trying to make here? Do you object to foreign language style rules being used on WP? Sorry to point this out - especially if you are not a native speaker - but it's difficult to make out what you are trying to say. How about trying again? --Kleinzach (talk) 14:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

This "RfC" is a complete waste of time, based on one user's subjective preferences. The attempt to ignore practice in reliable sources is particularly feeble. "We are not intended for their audience". Says who? Their audience is for people who want to know about classical music and opera, as (I would hope) is ours. In any case, I don't want to get into a pointless debate about hypothetical "general readers" who always seem to agree with the viewpoint of the arguer. --Folantin (talk) 14:48, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

• Just as well, since Folantin's resort to personal attacks suggests he has nothing to say that would justify this denial of WP:UE for the sake of his personal preferences. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Pmanderson: Folantin did not make a personal attack on you. He is also not putting forward his personal preferences but the practice of this project as agreed by all its participants.--Kleinzach (talk) 15:31, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

complete waste of time, based on one user's subjective preferences seems fairly personal to me, especially since I have not appealed to any subjective preferences, but to observations of the language I speak. As for the "agreement of all its participants": the purpose of an RfC is to see whether the agreement of the three of you is indeed supported by the wider consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:44, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

They're not my personal preferences, they're the preferences of the editors of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, The Oxford Dictionary of Opera and The Viking Opera Guide. --Folantin (talk) 15:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)\

That's how many by the same publisher?

But the real question is, do they show light on English usage? The answer is: they do not; they do not follow our policy: as the New Grove's puts it, they follow the original style wherever possible, for example in titles. We do not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

(to Kleinzach): You have leapt to a false conclusion; I am a native speaker of English, defending the usage of my native language against pedantry, as the policy WP:NAME requires ("general readers" is quote from there). We should anglicize when English usually does so. We should not follow Groves against general usage, any more than we should follow, say, Pauly-Wissowa. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The first sentence of WP:UE is: "Use the most commonly used English version of the name of the subject as the title of the article, as you would find it in verifiable reliable sources (for example other encyclopedias and reference works)". This is what we have done. --Folantin (talk) 15:16, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

No, it is what you have failed to do. We should add that when an encyclopedia pays no regard to English usage, it should be set aside until English has chosen to follow it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

We copied the titles as we found them in verifiable reliable sources (for example other encyclopedias and reference works). Grove etc. are the top ones in this field. We follow the usage of experts from reliable sources rather than the whims of "some guy off the Internet". --Folantin (talk) 15:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Another straw man. Nobody suggested "some guy off the internet"; the Schwann catalogue would be an excellent source; so would JSTOR. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:51, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Pmanderson: I suggest you either explain what system of opera title names you think we should have, or if you can't do this then remove the dispute tag and the RFC. It's unreasonable to challenge something you don't understand, when you have nothing to offer as a substitute. --Kleinzach (talk) 15:43, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I do understand; I simply disagree. We should, as a matter of practice, use whatever title is most common in English, when that can be determined beyond a reasonable doubt. (When it cannot, we can default to original usage.) To do this, we should consider actual usage, and should consult those reliable sources which consider English usage when deciding what to call something. This is what the rest of Wikipedia does. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:48, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

*Sigh* "[we] should consult those reliable sources which consider English usage when deciding what to call something". That's what we've done. Grove? Oxford? Viking? Now is this going anywhere? --Folantin (talk) 15:56, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Grove's says it does not consider English usage. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:01, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

This isn't a serious discussion so I have removed the RFC. --Kleinzach (talk) 16:04, 3 May 2008 (UTC)