Talk:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Images

Mozart is one of the most well known opera composers worldwide - next to Verdi and Puccini. Three of his master pieces are ranking constantly among the Top 10 (Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni, Figaro). Of course this three operas should be featured in the biography, also with pictures of real live performances. An opera only lives on stage, the atmosphere and the constellation of the characters can not be described by words only. The intention of the Wikipedia photographers is to get access to the best productions worldwide. They have traveled to Salzburg and Edinburgh, to Oslo, Lyon and Dresden, to Graz, St. Margarethen, Bregenz and Linz, they took photographs in all major Viennese theaters and opera houses, in order to create emblematic images for all important operas. Just for Wikipedia. Please, don't be disrespectful toward this endeavor.--Meister und Margarita (talk) 19:20, 16 September 2015 (UTC) Upcoming productions:

• Tosca, St. Margarethen, directed by Robert Dornhelm
• Les contes de Hofmann, Bregenz Festival, directed by Stefan Herheim
• Fidelio, Salzburg Festival, directed by Claus Guth
• Der Rosenkavalier, Salzburg Festival, directed by Harry Kupfer
• La traviata, Musiktheater Linz, directed by Robert Wilson
• The Tempest, Staatsoper Wien, directed by Robert Lepage (coproduction with Québec City Opera Festival and Metropolitan Opera New York)

Isn't this a list of top directors and top productions?--Meister und Margarita (talk) 19:28, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

I would hardly want to be disrespectful to this endeavor. But I do think images for Mozart operas should be chosen with care. Opera production nowadays is a hugely controversial area because of the widespread practice of hiring stage directors who run roughshod over the intentions of the composer and his librettists. Since the article is about Mozart himself, it would be sensible to pick images from productions that Mozart would likely have found recognizable or sensible, particularly with regard to costumes. These should not be hard to find. Opus33 (talk) 15:39, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

IMHO, da Ponte and Mozart would be very happy with this production as it was both playful and thoughtful. Unfortunately we can't ask them to decide the dispute. As it is practically impossible to convince photographers and theaters to donate pictures of previous productions to WikiCommons (trust me: I tried it for several years, unsuccessfully), we must live with what he have. The two Wikipedia opera photographers have had to fight for more than two years to obtain access to major opera houses. And what do they get? Criticism, cynical remarks, blame. It costs a lot of energy (and money) to (a) convince theaters to open their doors, (b) to travel to the venue, (c) to take the pictures, (d) to make the selection and find accordance with the director or the theatre, (e) to upload the pictures on WC. This is an enormous workload, given as a gift to Wikipedia. Then: You never know in advance if the production will be a masterpiece or not. But you have to plan in advance as the photo rehearsal takes place two to seven days prior to the opening night. Therefore the selection of the productions to be photographed is tricky. In this case there was the choice between Salzburg (directed by Bechtolf) and Dresden (directed by Erath). Read the critics, my guess is that the decision for Dresden was the better choice. By the way, Wikimedia is covering a part of the travel expenses of the two photographers. Somehow it seems a little absurd to me that the one hand is sponsoring the production and the other hand enWP is deleting the results. If you have a suggestion for photographing a specific production: Please send me your proposal. I will forward it immediately. Best regards--Meister und Margarita (talk) 23:40, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, you have to concede that WP editors naturally will judge the pictures solely on how they contribute to the article, not on how difficult they were to obtain! I don't think that's being cynical. To give an example, one of the pictures evidently shows Figaro and Susanna dressed up as the Commedia dell'Arte characters Harlequin and Columbine. This is clever and cute, but it using it as an illustration to show readers what the first scene of "The Marriage of Figaro" looks like is very misleading. There is certainly no evidence that Mozart or Da Ponte wanted their hero and heroine to be portrayed in this way, nor that other stage directors are likely ever to follow this lead.

If I could try to make a constructive suggestion, I think pictures of controversial "Regieoper" productions would work very well for the articles about the stage directors, who often are famous (or at least notorious :=) ). Also, such pictures would be fine in articles about the singers -- some of the pictures you've posted capture the singers in vivid poses and facial expressions, which is great.

What productions might fit better in illustrating the Mozart operas themselves? Well, I've seen a few that I think would work well. The Glyndebourne La finta giardiniera of a couple summers ago seemed a fairly serious effort to produce a composer-faithful performance, and I also saw a Don Giovanni in Prague last summer which was quite overtly an effort to look like what the 1787 premiere there might have looked like. Sometime ago John Eliot Gardiner, royally sick of what stage directors were doing to his opera performances, staged his own composer-faithful Cosi fan tutte in Paris, which I've seen on DVD. Surely there are many more.

I hope this is helpful. Opus33 (talk) 00:35, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

We have this discussion about ″Regietheater″ and ″faithful to the composer″ also in the German speaking countries - and the two parties are not always nice to each other. Frankly, I think there are good/great productions in both fields. In 2012, Salzburg showed two horrible Regieoper-productions (Věc Makropulos, directed by Marthaler, and Die Frau ohne Schatten, directed by Loy). In both cases you didn't understand the opera. In 2014 Hermanis' Il trovatore and in 2015 Guth's Fidelio made both sense although there were transposed into the world of today. From the point of view of an encyclopedia: We should reflect reality, i.e. both sides. It would be great to have pics from al least six Cosí fan tutte productions: Salzburg (Rennert), Salzburg (Ponelle), Paris (Gardiner), Aix-en-Provence (Chereau), again Salzburg (Guth) and Madrid (Haneke). The sad reality until now is, that we do not have even one picture of any of these milestone productions. (In this case I did not go back in history as there was no proper theatre photography before the 1960s). In case of Figaro, I think that Mozart would have had fun with the commedia-del-arte-quotation - and I'm pretty sure he would have loved the playfulness and the bright colors of the production. I chose this image as it reflects two main characteristics of Mozarts opera: Figaro is an ensemble opera with many main roles. There is lot of confusion and quarreling going on. Thirdly, the Count stands in the middle between to rivaling parties. Furthermore: You see very well that it is a comedy and not a tragic story of murder and death. Regards--Meister und Margarita (talk) 09:05, 18 September 2015 (UTC) By the way: Unfortunately all productions you mentioned cannot be photographed any longer. Access to prague opera was denied till now. Suggestions can only be translated into photographs if they arrive at least four weeks prior to opening night - as the press office has to admit the photographers and travel arrangement have to be made.

• I agree, along with the folks on Talk:The Marriage of Figaro, that the Semperopera images have no obvious place in this article or in The Marriage of Figaro. There seems to be a consensus of that view. I have removed the image as distracting (jarring, even), non-helpful, non-relevant. Softlavender (talk) 04:53, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Religious views of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Yes, its has it's place. That you brought up catholic is not the same thing as being a lifelong adherent. No ifs, ands, or buts. If you don't like his belief/views, but like his music, that your personal problem. Please do not try to create a Mozart that fits your own views or that of your own time. RudiLefkowitz (talk) 11:50, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Infobox?

What infobox would be appropriate for this article? It is need of one.

-- SpareKash (talk) 22:49, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

As Michael Bednarek said, just a few lines further up on this same page: See past discussions. I observe also that the "needs infobox" flag in hidden test in the Project Austria banner shell at the top of this talk page is marked "no".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:59, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Give this an infobox.

This seems to be missing an info box. As you may see above. Give this page an infobox before it is nominated to be deleted. MetallicaMan800 (talk) 15:58, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Lacking an infobox is not a reason to delete a page or nominate it for deletion - see WP:DEL-REASON. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:04, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mozart c. 1780, by Johann Nepomuk della Croce
Born	Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (1756-01-27)27 January 1756 Salzburg
Died	5 December 1791(1791-12-05) (aged 35) Vienna
Works	List of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Signature

It's missing an infobox because people disagree on this topic. A bit of history: the last one was in May [1] and promptly reverted, before was in 2011, in 2010, in 2009, again in 2009, in 2008, again in 2008, in 2007, again in 2007. An infobox was reverted in May 2007 which had been in the article for about a year. {{infobox writer}} (the 2015 choice) was not appropriate, but it could be {{infobox classical composer}} or {{infobox person}}. Following the models of Bach and Beethoven, it could be something like this. Note that persondata, which so far listed the data of birth and death together, is no longer supported, and no prominent link is in the lead that points at a neutral list of his compositions. This might be an acceptable compromise. Image and all parameters are of course open for discussion. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:08, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

While I favor an infobox along the lines proposed by Gerda, that sure was WP:POINT-y behavior on the part of a user who has only been on-wiki two months and was most recently blocked on Nov 9. I suspect that this user is WP:NOTHERE and is merely trying to stir up drama. To avert unnecessary drama, I suggest that we all apply WP:NODEADLINE here and revisit this question in another month or two. Montanabw^(talk) 18:17, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

It would be most regrettable to force an info-box on this article in defiance of the consensus on all three relevant music projects. Info-boxes are useful in the right place (sportspersons, politicians and others where life statistics can be summarised top right) but are not helpful to the reader for composers. An I-B that listed Mozart's major achievements would be absurdly long, and one that didn't would be an amateurish waste of time and space. This is why we have the consensus that they are to be avoided for composer biogs. Tim riley talk 18:39, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

The neutral list to his compositions works well for Beethoven. - I would not have suggested here, but there were two questions. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:48, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Making an error once is no justification for making it again. The box in the Beethoven article is pointless clutter and should never have been foisted on to the article. Tim riley talk 09:55, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps find a little more neutral wording (instead of "force", "pointless clutter" and "foister") for "implementing talk page consensus on infobox". You may have missed that arbitration requested (in 2013) to handle each article individually. You may like it or not (I don't like it), but that is the current ruling. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:38, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Gerda, your concern for my drafting is touching, but we can obey WP Diktats while at the same time using words to mean what the OED says they mean; we must not get Orwellian. I fear that the I-B absolutists will not rest until an I-B is added to every WP article, however silly that makes Wikipedia look to the innocent visitor, but heigh ho! Tim riley talk 14:48, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

The discussion of "consensus on all three relevant music projects" led to an ArbCom decision on LOCALCONSENSUS that infoboxes in articles are to be decided on a case-by-case basis, article by article. (And that we all need to be nice and civil about it) The endless rounds of ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT about infoboxes generally and infoboxes in the classical music areas specifically are a total waste of time. The only question s if users think this particular article needs one. My position is yes, and in part because I think all the major composers should have them as well. Biographies are appropriate places for userboxes containing basic biographic information and they are a benefit to the reader, particularly the casual reader. What the infobox contains, whether it is expanded or collapsed and any number of other questions surrounding parameters and syntax may be debated endlessly, but the infobox itself should not be something we are still debating about including, particularly now that they are also getting rid of persondata. Montanabw^(talk) 00:00, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

There are two obvious contradictions in your thoughts: 1) You contradict yourself by first deploring the ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT nature of discussions, but then you proceed to do exactly that, not offering any reason why WAM's article specifically needs an infobox. 2) You then assert that all biographies ought to have infoboxes; MOS:INFOBOX#Using infoboxes in articles says otherwise. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:31, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

That is because I am exhausted by these endless debates; arbcom's decision to discuss infoboxes on an article-by-article basis was perhaps the least worst decision, but it's tiring because everyone just uses the same arguments. SO HERE: For both purposes of layout producing standardized basic information at a glance (some of which is also in the lede, but some of which is not) and use of wikidata, infoboxes are helpful. Now other people can trot out the usual "I don't like infoboxes, I think they are ugly and contain unneeded information/duplicate the lede" argument. IF anyone actually has anything new to say, do enlighten us. Montanabw^(talk) 08:33, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

The reason I refrained intruding into your lovely duet sometime ago, was because I didn't want to add my zero to your zeroes. Now that you are stalled I'd like to express myself on the question on hand as well as on the more general topic about how a lack of agreement, in particular a persisting lack of agreement, should be considered and dealt with.

Usually, people, once a consensus is reached, consider it as the golden yardstick to which everybody may conform. Even more so if the process of consensus building is reiterated more than once with identical results: the “golden yardstick” becomes a “platinum stick”, almost untouchable and immovable. To me, that a certain choice is questioned time and again, is in itself a sign that the consensus building process has a fatal flaw. In these cases we ought to follow the path of inclusion, not that of censorship, as much as possible.

On the question on hand, if you consider Wikipedia to be a strongly multimedia encyclopedia, an audio-visual tool for the advancement of knowledge, where words play a role in union with many other actors, than you will agree that an infobox is almost indispensable, even when it repeats the lead: what is different is the format. Any means are welcomed to catch the attention of potential readers. Wikipedia isn't read in the calm rooms of a Bodleian Library or in any other library, it's read everywhere in the world but in libraries. So let try to build some robust multimedia pages, with infoboxes, quotation boxes, images and any other audio and visual helping device. Carlotm (talk) 05:51, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

a) There is no consensus to use an infobox on every article. b) I don't understand how an infobox adds multimediality. c) Your last suggestion might be seen as clutter. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:20, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

I certainly regard that last suggestion as clutter, and possibly the strongest argument that can be made against infoboxes.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:49, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

I knew I shouldn't have snicked in, because here, when people don't understand, it's not that they don't understand, it's that they don't want to understand, and I can do nothing about it. Carlotm (talk) 05:57, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Like Montanabw^(talk) 07:41, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I oppose an infobox here. As already noted, the use of infoboxes in WP articles is optional. The Manual of Style says: "Whether to include an infobox ... and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article." While sports and politician bios can benefit from infoboxes, most articles, as here, do not. Here are some reasons why I disagree with including an infobox in this article: (1) The box emphasizes unimportant factoids, and all the facts it presents are stripped of context and lacking nuance, whereas the WP:LEAD section emphasizes and contextualizes the most important facts. (2) The most important points about the article are discussed in the Lead, or adequately discussed in the body of the article, so the box is redundant. (3) It takes up valuable space at the top of the article and hampers the layout and impact of the Lead. (4) Frequent errors creep into infoboxes, as updates are made to the articles but not reflected in the redundant info in the box, and they tend to draw more vandalism and fancruft than other parts of articles. (5) The infobox template creates a lot of code near the top of the edit screen that discourages new editors from editing the article. (6) It discourages readers from reading the article. (7) It distracts editors from focusing on the content of the article. Instead of improving the article, they spend time working on this repetitive feature and its coding and formatting. See also WP:DISINFOBOX. -- Ssilvers (talk) 06:24, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Could you please point out which items in the above infobox you regard as unimportant factoids? Maybe infoboxes just get vandalised because they're always at the top of the page? Would you use the same argument to get rid on the opening sentence? Your comments don't really belong here, anyway. They have nothing to do with Mozart in particular or composers in general - you should move them to some general discussion on deleting infoboxes from the project wholesale (except that there isn't one?) 20.133.0.13 (talk) 11:01, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Missing infobox

My thoughts on this is the fact that people keep asking why there's no infobox, and that the page has to be locked to prevent them from adding it, is a good indication that the page actually needs an infobox. Consensus is a great thing on Wikipedia but in cases like this it just means users with strong opinions, who can carry on debating details like this for months, win because normal users just move on with their lives, even if they are a majority. Laurent (talk) 09:11, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

They carry on for years, not months, - no page needs to be locked ;) - we editors will not agree, but how about finally thinking about what helps our readers, at least some of them? (Those who don't like infoboxes could opt out to even see them.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:38, 3 December 2015 (UTC)