Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera

Opera Composer 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. - Adam Cuerden talk [edit] Composer of the Month for September 2024 Click Here to set up September's Composer of the Month! [edit] Opera of the Month for September 2024 Click Here to set up September's Opera of the Month! Click here to show the October and November Opera and Composer of the Month preparation areas [edit] Composer of the Month for October 2024 Click Here to set up October's Composer of the Month! [edit] Opera of the Month for October 2024 Click Here to set up October's Opera of the Month! [edit] Composer of the Month for November 2024 Click Here to set up November's Composer of the Month! [edit] Opera of the Month for November 2024 Click Here to set up November's Opera of the Month!

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Opera singer classification

As per discussions higher up, I think we need to agree a preferred classification for opera singers.

The two schemes I can think of are either:

a) Opera singers should be in category:Opera singers or a national subcategory such as Category:American opera singers; at the same time they should be in a voice category such as category:Tenors or a subcategory such as category:American tenors or category:Heldentenors.

b)Alternatively we should classify opera singers in the way that has been started with category:Operatic baritones and its national sub-categories. These will all be direct or indirect sub-cateogries of Category:Opera singers and the basic voice categories should cease to be its sub-categories.

The key thing that I am rejecting is the idea that we have any ownership over the basic voice categories. Other projects have the right to insert non-operatic singers into these categories. If we want Wikipedia to clearly list operatic singers in some sort of category system, then we need the words opera or operatic to appear in their categorisation. --Peter cohen 10:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. However, I have been working for over a year on musical theatre articles on Wikipedia, and I have quite a bit of experience with the scores of musicals. It is much more difficult to classify voices in contemporary musical theatre than in opera. Composers of musicals, especially after, say, Rogers, are far less specific about writing roles for particular voice types, and many roles "cross over" from one voice type to another, or require, e.g., some falsetto singing. Also, productions often change keys for particular performers. So, while some non-opera roles can clearly be listed in the lists as "tenor" roles or "soprano" roles, etc., it is often not so clear as in opera. Therefore, I think it is generally OK to cut down the number of references to non-opera roles to the ones where a clear voice category can be shown. Best regards, -- Ssilvers 14:30, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

It isn't so much the roles, but the performers that I'm talking about. --Peter cohen 15:27, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Cleaning up the singer cats would be a huge job - also laborious because of the inflexibility of the WikiMedia software. I have made a page listing the 122 categories that have been identified. The page is here. I have made a summary for this discussion:

• Category:Opera singers 104 articles (Problem: category little used)
• Category:Opera singer stubs 425
• 10 basic voice range categories (Category:Tenors etc.) with a total of 878 articles. Almost all of these are opera singers. (Problem: confusion between altos and contraltos cats.).
• 5 additional more specific voice cats (Category:Soubrettes etc.): Divas, Sopranistas, Soubrettes, Heldentenors, Lyric sopranos with 138 articles (Problem: random, incomplete series.)
• 51 opera singers by nationality categories (Category:Albanian opera singers etc.) with 894 articles (Problem: confusion between British and English, Scottish etc.)
• 22 operatic baritones by nationality (Category:Australian operatic baritones etc.) (Problem: unmatched by other vocal ranges)
• 22 baritones by nationality (Category:British baritones etc.) (Problem: many of these categories are empty)
• 2 sopranos by nationality (Category:Italian sopranos etc.)
• 6 American other vocal ranges cats (Category:American soubrettes etc.) (Problem: not matched by any other nationalities).

IMO opinion the first task is to clear up Category:Altos and Category:Contraltos, then to get all the superfluous baritone categories deleted. I understand that Peter would like to move all the tenors, sopranos into 'operatic tenors', 'operatic sopranos' etc. I am not against this, but I doubt if it is worth the colossal effort. If it ain't broke. . . . -- Kleinzach 03:00, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

If opera singers + opera singers by nationality roughly equals voice categories including more specific voice categories, and the American voice ranges are meant to contain a lot of non-operatic people, then I don't think we are missing too many opera singers by avoiding the voice categories in the mid-term. I gave two options, one of which does not include the extra categories. What I'm not happy with is the automatic tagging of generic voice categories. I get the impression that some categories are purely operatic because you went through moving anyone who isn't an opera singer, but this won't remain the case once people start re-populating them. If you feel they should be purely oepratic, there is always the possibility of proposing that they be renamed so that the name makes it clear that they should be operatic. --Peter cohen 08:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I haven't done any kind of check so I don't know how closely the opera singers by nationality items approximate to the voice categories ones. I would guess that they are not so close due to the casual way they've been compiled, so the similarity in numbers may not be significant. (We could check by collating the lists and seeing how many unique names we obtained.)

The American voice ranges weren't intended for non-operatic people AFAIK but for some reason ended up that way. I made few deletions from the basic voice categories - most of them because they were non-notable as singers, not because they were non-opera. (Many of the pages were non-notable per se.) In the case of two or three genuine, but non-opera, baritones (Sinatra, Crosby etc.) I moved them into the American category, consistent with general practice. (Sopranos and tenors were left with interlopers in situ.)

Of course, the basic voice categories should not be exclusively operatic, but I do think they should be for singers who sing within ranges! These categories will attract miscellaneous entries in the future but why is this a particular problem? We are only going to be doing these bot runs very occasionally.

Once again I am not against a general reform of singer categories but please consider the complex problems before you start. One final point: category:Operatic sopranos, category:Operatic mezzo-sopranos etc, will be straightforward but national subcategories will present more difficulties - that's always the case on WP! -- Kleinzach 09:53, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

About (Category:Tenors - Sébastien Izambard is definitely not an opera singer, he is just a "tenor" by his vocal range and that is it. He doesn’t even sound anything like opera or choir singer. He is a pop singer, so happen to be with Il Divo. If we split pop and opera tenor, how do we decide on "Pop opera" singers? Are they in the pop "tenor" category or operatic? - Jay 09:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is one of the problems. -- Kleinzach 10:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Hm I notice the article Operatic pop which might be the basis of a classification. Although that contains people like Andrea Bocelli who has recorded full operas, even if he does not get to perform many on stage and Sarah Brightman who hasn't and who, I have just removed from Category:British opera singers.

I agree that people should be classified correctly if they are placed within a voice range. But I notice that you purged Emma Bunton from the Soubrettes as she was non-operatic.--Peter cohen 16:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

'Soubrette' is a specific opera category different from the vocal range cats like Soprano etc. On the category page it reads "The term normally applies to operatic sopranos who sing the comic roles, often of young girls." -- Kleinzach 17:11, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Something else I've noticed - someone recently added Paul Hillier to the Category:English operatic baritones. I took it out, but now I'm not so sure. He's been in some operas, but I definitely don't think of him as an "opera singer". Same with Emma Kirkby (although she's probably been in more operas than Paul). What do we think? Opera cats or not? Mak (talk) 13:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

There always will be anomalies in any classification system. Having been through all (or almost all) the basic vocal range cats in the last week or so, I found very few (apparently) non-opera classical singers - Alice Swanson Esty, Wilfred Brown, and Gervase Cary Elwes.

As noted before there is a huge series of baritone categories unmatched by other voice types. I'm not in favour of using them, especially as using Category:English operatic baritones implies creating Category:English oratorio baritones etc. not to mention all the tedious problems of deciding who is Austrian, Bosnian, Pontevedran or whatever. P.S. Kirkby has done quite a lot of (early) opera with Hogwood etc. -- Kleinzach 01:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

It may be possible to piggyback on the work undertaken by WP:MUSCAT which gives a full category structure, conceived I think originally for pop music but applicable to opera singers. At the heart of this is the ranking: 1. nationality 2. Genre 3. Instrument. For opera singers, the 'genre' would be 'operatic' which could be left as understood if we use traditional names for the voices, the 'instrument' would be voice (in the plural). Thus "Fooian sopranos" which would itself be a subcategory of "Fooian female singers" (except for castrati :-) ), and also of "Sopranos". Caveat: [[User:Kleinzach|Kleinzach] I know, and perhaps some others, are nervous about nationality. I don't see why this should be so, as virtually all other categories I am aware of discriminate by nationality. They do, as noted, involve tedious edit-work, but 'fiat justitia, ruat coelem', and all that............Smerus 13:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The nationality problem is a major one for us because our work spans so much time and so many territories. We have the general problem of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (previous edit wars about Liszt, Gluck etc.), the large number of East European singers who ended up in Vienna, and the equally large number of European singers who went to America during the 1930s and 1940s (acquiring US passports on the way). That's why I am not in favour of the system that prioritizes nationality in the ranking. Fine for pop, just a headache for us. On the other hand simply creating new Category:Operatic sopranos, Category:Operatic basses is relatively simple although the transfer numbers involved are large. -- Kleinzach 13:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Comments on some points above - to keep the pot boiling. Transfer numbers: if there are enough of us around, we could divide up the task. Once it's done, it's there for ever(ish) and makes the future easier. Also stops people being 'lost' in 'Male/Female singers' categories. On 'nationality', it's possible to use 'from or based in' for the country in the category head text. 'British' - shouldn't actually exist except as a head category for 'English', 'Irish', Welsh', 'Scottish'. (I was trying to clean this out when caught in the act by Kleinzach but have desisted until some consensus is reached).--Smerus 20:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we could make nationality optional? You are interested in using it for British artists which is fine and uncomplicated given hstory etc. (I don't think 'from or based in' is practical for historic singers, or contemporary ones for that matter. Nor do I think aggressive nationality edit warrers will accept it. ) I agree about 'British' as a head category for 'English', 'Irish', Welsh', 'Scottish' - I've always done it that way for the opera singers. I was just concerned about avoiding changes while the bot run was in process. (Yes to dividing up the work.) -- Kleinzach 07:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Project logo?

Our current symbol is the Sydney Opera House. This appears on the project banner. (Userboxes have the same image, or the fat lady graphic, or the Leipzig operahouse picture.) One problem with the Sydney Opera House is that the shape of the image doesn't fit the banner well - it needs to be squarer - see Template:Opera. The fat lady graphic (above) on the other hand is too fine and doesn't reduce well to a small size, see Template:Opera1. (now deleted, see other topic)

File:MetroMad Ópera.png

I've been looking though WikiCommons for alternatives and found the image on the right. It's a logo for the Opera station of the Madrid subway. It was designed by Javitomad see [1] who has (apparently) designed at least one logo for a WP project (and is a user here under the same name).

I am wondering whether we might ask Javitomad to design either a version of the above, or a new one, for our logo. Is this a good idea? What do other people think? (Incidentally this would not hold up the bot run as the re-design could be done after that). -- Kleinzach 02:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

If he's willing. But the sign isn't as iconic as Sydney. --Peter cohen 21:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Any ideas for an iconic image are welcome. It doesn't have to be based on this image here. -- Kleinzach 23:46, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Iconic-ness aside, that sure is an unattractive graphic, while the Sydney graphic is graceful and elegant. -- Ssilvers 14:59, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Opera banners now ready for bot run

SatyrTN has now prepared the banners for the bot run. They are here. The code is in bold above the boxes.

The first example is the plain banner, the second is the banner with auto (i.e. bot) stub assessment, and the third is the banner with hand stub assessment. (The code also allows us to add other assessments later - see the fourth banner - although, as agreed, we are not implementing this now.)

Any comments/problems? Can we go ahead with the run tomorrow? Thanks. -- Kleinzach 02:08, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see the run happen asap. --Peter cohen 09:25, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

So is User:Peter cohen/opera categories the list to use (minus the "NOT to be tagged by robot")? If so, I can set it up to run tonight and over the next several nights. Since you have ~750 categories, I think I'll start with 100 cats - this may take a few days :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 13:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

No, there is a new list at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Opera/Catlist. It's just one list - no exemptions - for simplicity. Can we hold off for another 12 hours to allow the others to see this? If there are no more comments here by then I suggest we start. There is no hurry, and we all want this to be a success. Thanks. -- Kleinzach 14:02, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

BTW, Kleinzach made a list of singers in the voice categories who are not opera people. The voices are the last 15 or so categories in the list. So, if you are able to synchronise with him on when they are processed so that he is able to remove the unwanted tags fairly quickly, that would avoid annoying too many people.

Also remember that the robot should ignore WP:G&S tagged articles. Thanks --Peter cohen 14:06, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Gotcha - it'll ignore G&S-tagged pages. The bot starts running at 5amUTC (that's midnight Eastern US). I'll check back here before then to see if there are any objections to starting. Note that if the possibly "offending" categories are at the end of the list, we wont get to them until Thursday or Friday. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 18:08, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I look forward to finding out how many articles we have to rate. --Peter cohen 18:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I've set up the bot's instruction page with tonight's categories. If one or more people from the project are willing, please watchlist the bot's comment page, as the edit summary for each article that is tagged points there. If a random passerby wants to question the banner, they usually do it there. Thanks! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I'm watching it. Tast night's list doesn't look as if it ought to generate any complaints. But let's see. --Peter cohen 08:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I've been offline for a while. Two small problems I can see - if I'm looking in the right place! - first the main text is centred instead of ranged left, and second the stub box symbol that goes in the bottom left corner seems to be missing. Any ideas? I can correct the text alignment in the template if you like. -- Kleinzach 10:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing those problems (above). Unfortunately it seems the bot is missing at least some of the stubs. Here are two examples: La rencontre imprévue, Orlando finto pazzo. -- Kleinzach 15:00, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Yep. Due to a bug in the code <shudder>, the bot was detecting stubs, but not marking them. I'm running it through last night's articles and tagging the stubs now. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 15:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The Bot is not working properly. It added the automatic STUB assessment today to Ein Walzertraum and Les brigands, but these are not stubs and have no stub tag. If it did this to these articles, it must be incorrectly tagging other articles. Thanks! -- Ssilvers 15:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a stub assessment on either of those? The bot added {{Opera | auto=yes}} to both of them, with no assessment. If you see any that are incorrectly assessed, let me know? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 15:42, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

These have been fixed now. Whatever you (or someone) did worked. -- Ssilvers 15:47, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the template was incorrectly coded to have everything in Category:Stub-Class Opera articles - that got fixed when I updated the template. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 15:51, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

This is probably a minor point but I see that {{Opera | auto=yes | class=Stub}} creates [[Category: Stub-Class Opera articles]] (in red). Should we bring this out of limbo and create it? -- Kleinzach 03:07, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I think in the mid-term we'll need not just this but categories for each of the rating levels. --Peter cohen 10:01, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Someone made the category. What is the situation now? Is the bot run continuing? -- Kleinzach 23:17, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes - the bot's running. I neglected to set up for last night's run, but I'll set it up for tonight. You can see progress on the project list, which includes links to log pages. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment on multiple project banners and assessments

If you all believe that your assessments might run roughly equivalent to those of other projects, you might want to run User:PockBot to see what if any existing assessments have been done, and maybe save some time that way. I wish I knew exactly where the project's banner was, but alternately, if you believe that your project might have different criteria than other projects, you might want to copy the banners at Template:WPMILHIST and Template:WPGR and substitute in any parameters that you think might be unusual or unique to your project. If you wanted any help doing either of these, I would be more than willing to lend what help I could. Just let me know. John Carter 14:56, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

It will be useful to see the other assessments anyway. There's scepticism about the assessment process of a certain project in particular. So we may want to vet other people's assessments instead of accepting them automatically. --Peter cohen 15:18, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Understood. If you wish to run the PockBot, go to the User:PockBot page and enter the name of the category whose assessments you want to see displayed. And, remember, if you do disagree with anyone else's assessments, there is always the option to request that they do a reassessment. I would, however, note that other projects may well have at least slightly different bases for their assessments, and possibly different criteria, so there may be quite a bit of variation between the assessments you make and they make, based on those different criteria. And, depending which project you are referring to, there is often, particularly with Biography and some of the other really large projects, like Military history, potentially a lot of people doing assessments, and some of them might be much less than really good at it. I know I have recently had to upgrade a few of my own assessments of Saints articles based on my now having more defined internal "parameters" for the various grades, and think that the same thing happens to probably every project and person involved in assessments. So I can understand not necessarily accepting anyone else's assessments on face value. Actually, I would even encourage that, as the assessment may well have been done before several subsequent revisions to the article. But they can often serve as at least of what others have earlier seen as being an article's strengths or weaknesses. Not wanting to scare anyone here, but there are hopes that articles be assessed regularly, to reflect changes which may have been made since the last assessment. So, at least potentially, the project might want to ask someone to maybe once or twice a year go through a given subcat to see if the content of the article has changed recently. That is a bit down the line, but something I thought you might want to know in advance anyway. John Carter 15:27, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, John Carter! Would it be possible te remove the Biography Project (auto) assessments from opera articles as our project develops? The banners clutter up the Talk pages and since they are all automatic assessments (of whether or not there is a stub tag) they don't add anything. (AFAIK there aren't any human assessments by the Biography Project here.) -- Kleinzach 10:51, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

If you agree with the auto assessments, then just remove the "|auto=yes" from the banner tag. Regarding whether you want to remove the banners in general, that tends to be a rather more sticky issue. Lots of people have argued on both sides whether banners should be removed. The primary subject of the page Wikipedia:WikiProject reform is substantively that subject. In general, I guess I would say, that generally, most operas will be eligible for the opera banner and probably at least the banner of the country of origin of the opera. Whether these articles actually have been so tagged is another matter. Most of the articles relating to biographies have probably also been tagged with the bio banner, I imagine. It is generally considered bad form, as per the WikiProject reform page above, to try to remove banners of projects which are clearly and specifically relevant at least potentially to an article. However, if a banner has clearly been placed there in error (if, for instance Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs tagged The Magic Flute), then the banner can generally be removed without difficulty, although you might consider dropping a note to the project about removing the banner, as it might actually be relevant for less than immediately obvious reasons. The alternate approach, which actually has been at least more or less provisionally agreed to, is to place the banners of all projects which are at best peripherally related to an article within the template{{WikiProjectBannerShell}}. Regarding specifically the Biography project, it is clearly harder to argue from generalities, like the above, to specifics. In general, I can say that I don't think Biography would object their banner being placed in the shell, with the provision of keeping the {{blp}} visible in cases of articles clearly relating to living people, and, maybe, keeping the banner individually visible if it has the "core" biography tab activated, like on Johann Sebastian Bach and Giuseppe Verdi. There is a specific (if currently more or less dormant) work group specifically designed to work on those 200 or so articles, and with luck it will reactive shortly, hopefully to improve the articles. In those specific cases, it might be a good idea to keep it visible separately. Sorry for being so verbose, but I think this way would probably be the best way to avoid any possible conflicts with either Biography or any of the other projects which might tag such articles. John Carter 16:55, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Default sort tagging help needed!

Looking at Category:Operas under letter I or L, there are a lot of operas mis-sorted under definite/indefinite articles. These need default sort tags e.g. {{DEFAULTSORT:Clemenza di Tito, La}} which puts the opera under C instead of L. Does anyone have time to help do this?

BTW We now have 779 operas restored in Category:Operas. There are probably about 200 more to be found. I don't know if anyone would be willing to undertake, say, Rachmaninoff to Richard Strauss operas? -- Kleinzach 13:00, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I can make a start on the Is and Ls. --GuillaumeTell 16:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I've now defaultsort-tagged all the Category:Opera titles still indexed under I, Il, L', La, Le, Les, The, Die and El. The T section may still look as if some titles (The Tempest, The Telephone, The Threepenny Opera) are indexed under The, but in fact they are correctly filed under Tem, Tel and Thr. --GuillaumeTell 21:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I have just finished all the As. Not many needed restoring, but now nine out of the eleven compositions by composer categories under the As are now created by me. --Peter cohen 20:37, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all the help. I have now checked S to Z on The opera corpus and we are now up to 803 titles in Category:Operas. In many sections half of all the operas had been removed so I may be underestimating the number we still haven't found. (I haven't been able to work out the way the operas were selected so there is no easy way to identify them). -- Kleinzach 10:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Attribution/Permission question

I want to add this external link in my sandbox to the Spinto page, but I first want to doublecheck if it's properly attributed, or if I need any kind of special permission to add this paragraph to Wikipedia. Operalala 20:25, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

A possible qualm is that what you are doing appears to be original synthesis? Please correct me if not. Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 20:29, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, It's actually a illustration of spinto and lyric voices, which happened to be juxtaposed in this soundclip so that listeners can hear the differences between them, rather than advancing any kind of position. Am I understanding this right? Operalala 20:51, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'm being a little silly. I'd cut the bit in brackets, though, just looks a little strange. Moreschi ^Talk 20:55, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

You mean take the highlighting part out? I guess I was trying to be as true to the source as possible, but I think you're right, it doesn't really belong on this site. Operalala 21:04, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

September Composer of the Month

Here are some ideas for the September composer(s) of the month:

• Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884) and Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
• Hungarian operetta: Jenő Huszka (1875-1960), Emmerich Kálmán (1882-1953), Victor Jacobi (1883-1921)
• Gaspare Spontini (1774-1851) and Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842),
• Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
• Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)

Any other suggestions as always welcome! -- Kleinzach 02:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The Czechs would suit me. I have several of their operas in my to-do list on my user page. If I know they're going to happen, I can focus on other articles before then. --Peter cohen 10:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Rossini still needs some concentrated attention; Kurt Weill, too. I'd also be happy with the Czechs, but could we add Janacek - the operas are all there, but some (e.g. From the House of the Dead) need expanding. --GuillaumeTell 11:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Silbersee is on my list too, so I wouldn't mind Weill. Three major Czech operatic composers might be abit of a handful. --Peter cohen 11:13, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The three Czechs would only need 7 completely new articles, compared with over 20 for the three 18th century Italians above, so I think they would be practicable. They would also make a good contrast with the other composers we have been doing recently. (I had a feeling no one would go for the Hungarians!) -- Kleinzach 11:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The Czechs sound like good fun. They're a nice contrast with what we're doing currently and also my suggestion for October (I think this was Folantin's idea originally), which is Cavalli. Moreschi ^Talk 14:07, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd second that. Czechs in September, then Cavalli. --Folantin 19:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I have set up the Czechs. Incidentally is there any reason not to move Počátek Románu to the English title Beginning of a Romance? -- Kleinzach 00:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

No reason, but it should be "The Beginning of a Romance" (see Grove, s.v. Janacek). --GuillaumeTell 00:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Glad I asked! I've made the change now. -- Kleinzach 02:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Photos of contemporary opera singers

Wikipedia is currently on a drive to delete non-free publicity images as well as album covers that are used simply to portray an artist. (See Talk here and this Resolution.) While an editor could write to the artist's agent to ask for permission, this is not only laborious, but unlikely to be fruitful since according to the new policy, they have to agree to the following:

I hereby assert that I am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of WORK [ insert link ].

I agree to publish that work under the free license LICENSE [choose at least one from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_tags ].

I acknowledge that I grant anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product, and to modify it according to their needs.

I am aware that I always retain copyright of my work, and retain the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be attributed to me.

I am aware that the free license only concerns copyright, and I reserve the option to take action against anyone who uses this work in a libelous way, or in violation of personality rights, trademark restrictions, etc.

I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the image may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project.

DATE, NAME OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER

Trying for 'fan photos' of decent quality is probably equally laborious and only marginally more likely to succeed. Nevertheless, most readers of these articles want to see what the singer actually looks like. I've tried this solution on a couple of pages - adding an external link in the opening paragraph to a portrait either on the web site of the artist's agent/recording company or the web site of the actual photographer. Here are two examples: Rockwell Blake and Juan Diego Flórez. Before I do any more like this, what does the Opera Project think? Voceditenore 15:24, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

There is a strong feeling among many long-time participants that we should not externally link to material which we should really have ourselves, such as portraits of the subject. I think it makes sense to link to a singer's website, which will probably have a picture of them, but I think deep-linking to a portrait on another site is a bad idea. You might be surprised what agents/artists are willing to license, since Wikipedia is a top-ten site and tends to turn up as a first or second link on Google for many singers. The artist themself might also be contacted, since they might have rejected press photos which they could then license. They don't necessarily have to be licensing the person's main press photo, they could send a second-tier photo instead. I think we should try it, instead of assuming it won't work. Mak (talk) 18:06, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, Mak. I've now changed the links on those pages, plus the one for José Carreras, to their official web sites instead of the 'deep links'. However, I'm inclined to leave those official site links in the opening paragraph since opera singers don't have info-boxes (Thank goodness!) At the moment, I haven't got the time to chase up alternative photos, but I'm wondering if it might be useful to add a section to the main Opera Project page requesting "free use" photos of contemporary opera singers and listing some of the ones we need (as well as putting a notice on the talk pages for the singer articles). It might get us some offers.

The main main Opera Project page doesn't have a section on images. Perhaps you would like to draft and propose one (in a new topic)? -- Kleinzach 00:27, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

By the way, in my peregrinations around the articles for living opera singers, I found a lot which currently use non-free publicity photos or crops from album covers, all with extremely dubious or non-existent rationales. I'm going to let those sleeping dogs lie, however. I imagine the Betacommand Bot will get them eventually. An awful lot of the living opera singers' pages also read like fan pages, and lack both NPOV and references. As I find them, I tag them, e.g. Sylvia Sass. Many others, even those of quite prominent singers, in addition to sometimes reading like fan pages, did/do not carry the Opera Project banner, e.g. Angela Gheorghiu, likewise deceased 20th century singers, e.g. Beniamino Gigli, Renata Tebaldi, etc.. When I stumble across them, I add it to their talk pages. Best, Voceditenore 11:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, up to now few members of this project have worked on singer articles and the quality can be low. I don't like the use of CD covers which look tacky quite apart from the copyright issue. The bot run hasn't got to the singers yet AFAIK, but they will have the banner when it does. With contemporary singers there is also a problem getting good sources which we need to discuss at some point. -- Kleinzach 00:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I quite like writing singer articles, although I much prefer writing about 19th century singers and normally avoid working on articles on contemporary singers. Mainly because they usually require a lot of maintenance and I'd rather spend my time elsewhere. They tend to be invaded by POV edits from both fans and detractors, trivia and unreferenced gossip, and they can cause time-wasting disputes about nationality. (There was a real go-around with the José Carreras page.) I have done a lot of work on the Juan Diego Flórez and José Carreras pages because I found that previous editors had virtually cut and pasted stuff from my web site without listing the source, and then others added various disorganized bits - largely unreferenced factual errors - until the articles became quite messy. In fact, that's how I became involved with Wikipedia. Re some suggested sources for material on contemporary singers, see below. Best, Voceditenore 11:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

We've been meaning to look at our coverage of pre-recording era singers - which means some kind of list - but it hasn't been done so far. (The Caruso to Callas era is well covered by The Record of Singing). If you have a good source for a list we might have a go at that later. -- Kleinzach 13:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Harolyn Blackwell

If no one has any objections I would like to add Harolyn Blackwell to the list of contemporary opera singers and I would be interested in writing an article about her. I had the privledge of seeing her in two productions with Tulsa Opera and have been a fan ever sense. She has three different CDs out now that I love and has started to appear on several recent opera recordings. She is also one of the few opera singers who has had a sucsessful Broadway Carear as well. Interesting fact-She had the destinction of making her Met debut in the La Fille du Regiment by replacing Kathleen Battle when she was kicked out of the Met.

Someone who's sung at the Met and has several recordings sounds highly suitable for inclusion. --Peter cohen 20:17, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There are already three red letter links to her, so your contribution will clean those up. One of these includes a middle initial, so decide how to handle that. --Peter cohen 21:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC) (signature added latter.}

I would personally just make the article about Harolyn Blackwell, and then make Harolyn M. Blackwell a redirect towards the article. I don't know if other people agree with me. I enjoyed hearing her in Candide (operetta), where I think she was credited without the middle initial. --Kyoko 20:44, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I saw her in Porgy and Bess in 1987, and she didn't use the middle initial then. What's more, Google gives 27,000 hits on HB and 4 on HMB, and most of those look strangely like the WP redlink with the M! --GuillaumeTell 21:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks like an argument to change the article with the reference to M. --Peter cohen 21:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there should be no M. Both progams I have do not use the M in her billing and her own website does not use the M either. besides how many other Harolyn Blackwells do you know? lol　Nrswanson 22:41, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. Welcome to Nathan (Nrswanson). I've met Harolyn Blackwell. She's very likeable and deserves a good article. -- Kleinzach 23:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Well I have started the page. It still needs some work but please feal free to take a look at it and let me know what you think or make changes of your own. Harolyn Blackwell Nrswanson 05:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It's good start. I nipped in and tidied up the formatting, links, refs, etc. for you. (See also Talk:Harolyn_Blackwell.) Re the discography, it would be a good idea to give the record labels too, and any other relevant info, e.g. conductor. One suggestion, on the whole when using adjectives like 'acclaimed', 'lauded', 'excelled', etc. it's prudent to footnote with a source independent of the artist's web site and/or official bio. All the best, Voceditenore 09:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your help and suggestions. I will try and find some recital reviews for that section to use as resources instead. Nrswanson 14:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I've added some categories (based on the guidelines on our Project page and the article on Elizabeth Futral) and a DEFAULTSORT. I see that the Category:American sopranos contains some opera singers... And see also the article's talk page - I'm not sure that linking to the Met database is a good idea, because (AFAICS) one can't point to the exact page. --GuillaumeTell 21:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It's not a good idea as an external (supplementary link), because it's too generic. But, in my view, it is highly desirable in the actual references. If the article asserts that X sang 47 times at the Met or Y made their Met Debut in 2003 in Z opera, or Z opera has received 600 performances at the Met and that information came from the Met Database, it needs to be cited. Linking to the database, allows others to verify that information quite quickly. I don't find the Met Database hard to use at at all. It's been invaluable in some of the articles I've written. Just click on Key Word Search and type a singer's name in the Key Word box (you don't need to fill in any other fields), and it will give you every performance they've done at the Met including cast lists for each performance, any available photos, articles in Opera News etc. In the case of some of the very early performances, it even has reviews from the press at the time, some of which are real eye-openers. Ditto using an opera title in the Key Word search. Best, Voceditenore 06:52, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, of course it's an invaluable resource. However, as I think I said on the Blackwell talk page, put yourself in the position of someone who's never used it before. There's a lot to read if you click the "Guide" link, for instance, which is what first-time users would probably do. --GuillaumeTell 10:16, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I've made sure that all the opera singers in Category:American sopranos will be caught by the bot. After the run we can discuss reforming the cats if you are still a supporter of this idea! -- Kleinzach 06:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

On deleting Messages

Nrswanson, we don't delete messages here! That is never done! I have had to revert to an earlier version. Please add whatever you like but do not delete other people's messages. That's really important! -- Kleinzach 14:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll respect that policy for now on but I think it is a foolish rule. I did summarize what was said and did not delete any parts of the conversation that were still in issue. You are going to heve to delete things eventually or your talk page will become over burdened with irrelevent old dialogues and it will become difficult for new members to jump in on what's going on.Nrswanson 15:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Everything is archived. See above - we have 27 archive files. By all means summarize a discussion but leave all the messages where they are! Thank you. -- Kleinzach 15:16, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Will do! And thanks for letting me know about the massive archive. I'm not even going to bother with it though unless I run out of things to do. lol It would take a long time to sift through it. Nrswanson 15:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Articles on young singers

We are seeing more and more articles on marginally notable young singers. Here are two examples that have just been created: Paul Potts "a 36 year old resident of South Wales and a mobile phone salesman . . . has an apprenticeship with Gilbert and Sullivan in Bristol . . . has appeared on national and local television and radio", and David Lara "an emerging baritone . . . recently one of the 11 talented singers chosen to train with the Seattle Opera Young Artists Company". Should these pages be put up for deletion and if so what criteria should we use? (It's worth noting that these pages are increasingly sophisticated in the way they are presented.) -- Kleinzach 01:47, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Possibly a slightly more friendly first step would be to add the {{notability}} tag to the article and wait a few days before proposing for deletion. While these articles are probably self promotion, they are probably sufficiently sophisticated not to warrant speedy deletion. Best, Voceditenore 10:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes indeed, though I was really wondering what criteria we should use for judging these pages. Notability is not the clearest of WP policies. (It was recently used to justify a page about an opera which didn't exist.) It's also not easy to apply in the (contrasting) cases of Paul Potts and David Lara. Anyway there is now an Afd discussion about David Lara. -- Kleinzach 11:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

As for Potts, this diff indicates that he or his fans are causing some disruption. And though his teacher (Ian Comboy) is or was a respectable singer, I don't think that appearing on a Michael Barrymore show or in amateur opera productions (or on YouTube!) are particularly notable. The notability criteria for Music (section entitled "Others") might be helpful here. --GuillaumeTell 17:25, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, if there's one thing that really annoys me it's BrightYoungThing spam. Composers, performers, conductors, doesn't matter, they just assume they're notable, because, well, they're Bright Young Things, aren't they, dude?

Reminds me, one day we should take a crack at sorting out WP:MUSIC, which is ridiculously biased towards pop music, and does not cover classical music properly at all - the "Others" section is just not specific enough. It's not dreadful, but it should be better.

You can use the proposed deletion process - basically just add {{subst:prod|put reason here}} and an informative edit summary - for uncontroversial cases, or use AfD if the PROD tag is removed or for more tricky cases. Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 18:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Sources for articles on contemporary singers

With the caveat that journalists can also be sloppy about checking facts, on the whole, I find the best independent sources for contemporary singers tend to be mainstream press or journal articles. The Guardian (UK), The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The International Herald Tribune, and Time Magazine all have extensive archives that are largely free (except for certain NYT articles). To access their contents quickly, go to Google and type the following in the search box:

• site:observer.guardian.co.uk "Singer's name"
• site:query.nytimes.com "Singer's Name"
• site:www.sfgate.com "Singer's Name"
• site:www.iht.com "Singer's Name"
• site:www.time.com "Singer's Name"

FindArticles.com is also useful, although some of their content is premium. (You can adjust the search to look for free content only) And another caveat - this time on the online version of Grove. A friend of mine who has a subscription found numerous factual errors in the entry for Juan Diego Flórez. Via googling, we found that they came from an older version of the Wikipedia article on Flórez! Best, Voceditenore 11:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. That's useful. -- Kleinzach 13:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Image Section on Opera Project page?

Here's a rough draft of a posible section:

Under current Wikipedia policy we cannot use non-free publicity images to illustrate articles about contemporary opera singers, composers, and librettists. Nor can we use images from album or book covers which depict them (except in very restricted cases). We therefore very much welcome contributions of good quality photographs which the photographers/copyright holders are willing to release under a free license. This means that although you retain the copyright and authorship of your work, you grant permission for others to use, copy, and share the photograph freely, and even potentially use it commercially, so long as they do not try to claim the copyright themselves. A free license only concerns copyright, and does not restrict the option to take action against anyone who uses the photograph in a libelous way, or in violation of personality rights, trademark restrictions, etc. If you grant a free license, we will credit you for your work, and if applicable, and provide a link back to your website. If you would like to contribute a photograph under free license, please leave a note on the Opera Project Talk Page

There could also be an addition such as:

We are particularly looking for photographs to illustrate the following articles: Article Name; Article Name; Article Name...

Best, Voceditenore 15:42, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I know it's complicated but dare I suggest cutting the text roughly in half? That way people are much more likely to read it. The 'We are particularly looking . . . ." could go in the Can you help? (8) section. -- Kleinzach 06:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

OK. How about this one...

We cannot use publicity images to illustrate articles about contemporary opera singers, composers, and librettists unless they have been released under a free license. To improve the quality of those articles, we very much welcome contributions of good quality photographs which the photographers/copyright holders are willing to release under such a license. You would retain the copyright of your work but grant permission for others to use and publish the photograph freely. We will credit you for your work, and if applicable, provide a link back to your website. If you can contribute a photograph under free license, please leave a note on the Opera Project Talk Page.

Best, Voceditenore 07:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea. We definitely need something like this. Something else that might be worth mentioning is the need to be avoid fair use "galleries", both of images and of audio clips. Maria Callas, until recently, had a fair use image gallery that was not permissible, and on plenty of pop music articles I've had to delete entire fair use sound galleries of maybe twenty clips, for which there is no justification. I haven't seen this happen yet with opera articles, but we should try to prevent it before it does. Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 12:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Frames for roles (Mozart’s opera)

I am putting up frames for Mozart’s opera (7 so far, will finish all when I have free time). But it looks empty because there are many missing column including date of premiere / conductor/ original singers. I hope those who have Mozart’s details could add on the empty column. I do not have any of Mozart’s opera DVD or books.- Jay 13:05, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to Apollo et Hyacinthus? I'll add something to the talk page there. Voceditenore 13:48, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Not only that, almost all do not have original singers; while 2 so far dont have premiere dates... and of course all dont have the conductors - Jay 13:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

OperaGlass, which is usually pretty reliable has performance histories for the following: Apollo et Hyacinthus (I've already added that info + more to the A et H talk page); Bastien und Bastienne; La finta semplice; Mitridate, Rè di Ponto; L'Oca del Cairo; Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots Best, Voceditenore 14:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Rosalind Plowright - Mezzo Soprano

The above has turned up on the new article bot's list. It was contributed by User:Rplowright and has already acquired an automated query (on the talk page) about the image. The content is pretty much verbatim from the Biography page of her website. If she wrote this herself, it violates WP:AUTO. What to do?

• Ask on the talk page, or the contributor's talk page, or via the contact page on her website whether (s)he is RP and holds the copyright? If she says yes to both, then what?
• Put it down for Speedy deletion and put up a copyvio notice on the page?
• Do nothing except rename, rewrite and wikify the article (it needs all of those!), which I could do quite easily (she's in Grove and elsewhere).

All suggestions gratefully received. --GuillaumeTell 15:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Given that she is notable - and the user has adopted her name! - I might communicate on her talk page. If she is who she might well be, then it would be a good idea to explain how WP works and offer to rewrite it based on Grove etc. The photo could be a pain, but that's why I think we need someone to specialize in clearing image copyrights. -- Kleinzach 23:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

On my first look at the article I don't think there's anything that screams delete to me. The description of "one of Britain's leading opera stars" is the closest to a judgement as opposed to a fact in it but I wouldn't argue with that assessment anyway. It's certainly a lot less of a hagiography than Gwyneth Jones (opera singer) was. What are needed to improve the article are some references and rather fewer lists.

If she is RP or a relative with the same initials, she at least ought to know or be able to find out the picture copyright status and might be able to assign use of it to us. --Peter cohen 18:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

She is a soprano --Al Pereira(talk) 19:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

She has been a soprano, but she now sings mezzi roles such as Fricka and Amneris. --Peter cohen 19:28, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok but her main carreer was as soprano, right? BTW, I remember indeed her difficulties with high notes. --Al Pereira(talk) 20:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting delete as such, but if the person who created the article isn't Plowright herself, it's a flagrant copyright violation - check the link to the Plowright website that I posted up at the top and compare. Even if it is Plowright, it needs a fair bit of work to turn it into a decent WP article. --GuillaumeTell 21:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Bot on Singer categories

Are the following categories okay for the bot to run through tonight?

• Category:Heldentenors
• Category:Altos
• Category:Bass-baritones
• Category:Basses
• Category:Baritones
• Category:Italian baritones
• Category:Castrati
• Category:Contraltos
• Category:Countertenors
• Category:Mezzo-sopranos
• Category:Sopranos
• Category:Italian sopranos
• Category:Lyric sopranos
• Category:Soubrettes
• Category:Tenors
• Category:Sopranistas

Please let me know on my talk page? Thanks!! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 17:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. All ready. Confirmed on your talk page. --Kleinzach 23:46, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Heldentenor etc.

Need some help.. ‘Heldentenor’ is commonly used to describe the singers of leading roles in Wagner’s operas, also implies to a tenor voice of great weight, particularly strong in the middle and bottom of the voice. My question is, how do we “categorized” it? I would say Domingo is a Tenor drammatico and can also be categorized as Heldentenor too. What do you guys think? Does that mean we can add both "tenor" and "heldentenor" to his article? Ps- I am a bit confuse when come to Tenor Drammatico and Heldentenor. Can someone explain to me? Thanks - Jay 05:28, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

IMO Domingo is a spinto, or in Fach-terms a Jugendlicher Heldentenor, not a Heldentenor. In role terms it's the difference between Siegmund and Siegfried (a role that Domingo will never sing). ('Tenor Drammatico' is a term I've never heard!). -- Kleinzach 07:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd say Domingo is basically a spinto too, but 'tenore drammatico' (not 'tenor drammatico') is used all the time in Italian writing on voice or role descriptions, often interchangeably with 'tenore robusto' or 'tenore di forza'. Typical uses are to describe the title role in (Verdi's) Otello and singers like Mario del Monaco. Even Time Magazine used the word. Best, Voceditenore 13:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Hehe.. I meant “tenore drammatico” (dramatic tenor).. missed the “e” twice, sorry! Uhm.. but most of (not all) Domingo’s fans (including me, of course) would say he is a drammatico. You can google on the net. Well probably, it is because of the definition of “tenore drammatico” itself - as a powerful, rich, heroic tenor. Refer Voice type, it also categorizes Domingo as “tenore drammatico” (dramatic tenor). Ok… never mind about what he is, anyway thanks for answering. I am still confuse tho`. Still can’t figure out the differences. Domingo has been acting in Tristan und Isolde; and Parsifal, roles for Heldentenor.. how could he been offered the roles if he is not? Hm…. I am not from classical music background, probably someday I would be able to tell the differences. Anyway, are there any “book for dummy” for this kind of thing? - Jay 14:13, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Parsifal is a bit lighter than the other Heldentenor roles. Has Domingo done Tristan in the theatre? Actually there have been few thorough-going, genuine Heldentenors. (To hear the real thing listen to Melchior). -- Kleinzach 14:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

In general, Jay, getting really detailed about a singers 'voice type', is a bit of problem. Many roles can be sung by more than one type of tenor, e.g The Duke in Rigoletto (lyric and light lyric tenors), Don José in Carmen (spinto and dramatic tenors - even some essentially lyric tenors have sung it successfully). Conversely, many tenors have regularly sung more than one role type, especially as they age. José Carreras sang both lyric and spinto roles, as did Domingo, who has also sung some dramatic tenor roles. I suppose one way of approaching it is to look at what the singer's 'signature roles' were, or what type of roles were in the majority throughout their career. But often in articles it's not necessary to get so detailed. I tend just to stick with 'tenor' and let readers follow the links. ;-) Best, Voceditenore 15:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Opera House--How can I help?

I got a bot-notification on one of the pages I regularly contribute to: Brown Grand Theatre -- an early 1900's opera house that is best described as an "old west opera house attempting to bring civilization to north central Kansas" ... in its own right, it truly is a magestic opera house and has been completely restored--but it's quite a ways off Broadway...

Anyway... How can the Brown Grand Theatre page support your project? Do you have a "standard layout" for physical buildings you'd like to see followed? Let me know! --Paul McDonald 06:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

WP has a List of opera houses. There's a big section under United States. I'd suggest picking one which is similar to Brown Grand Theatre and use it as a model, for example maybe Barre Opera House. Good luck! -- Kleinzach 07:40, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Bot Done

The bot has finished running through the category list and adding your project banner. By my count, there are 3,565 articles.

The next step, of course, is maintenance. One of the benefits of having all your articles tagged is that the bot can make periodic reviews of the articles and let you know where there are ones in need of improvement. The bot currently does this for three or four projects. It produces two lists - for an example, let's look at WP:CM. The two pages it produces are a long list of all articles needing cleanup, wikification, sources, whatever - see Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/To-do list; and a short list, which is a random subset of the long list suitable for including in a "To-Do" template - see Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Small to-do list and to see how we use the short list in a "to do" template, see WT:LGBT. Pages that may be up for deletion will show up on both.

Another part of maintenance is to review the categories for new articles that have been added to the cats, but don't yet have banners. The LGBT WikiProject does a periodic run and produces a report - see WP:LGBT/NP. WP:Chicago does the run and automatically adds the banner. The bot is set up to run either way.

Let me know if you'd like either of these options set up, or if the bot has made any serious errors in it's tagging. Thanks much!! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 15:21, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd have thought that both of the above options would be useful. Something else that I've noticed (if we're going to dip a toe into the assessment water at some point) is a nice table of stubs, FAs, unassessed, etc. - see the assessment page at the Yorkshire project for an example from another project that hasn't started assessment but has been putting up banners. --GuillaumeTell 17:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Those statistics are gathered by a different, very useful, bot. I haven't done it for a project, but instructions for using that bot are at: Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 19:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks to SatyrTN for a terrific job. (Great to have a techy, sorry technocrat, on our side for once!) I agree with GuillaumeTell that both maintenance options will be probably be worthwhile. (We will need to discuss the implications of all this.) Kleinzach 12:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

3,530 articles on opera!

I have now removed the banner from 35 non-opera singers who were in the basic voice categories, which gives us a revised grand total of 3530 opera articles. In May 2006 I could only identify 1,835 articles. That count was almost certainly an underestimate, but there is no doubt that the Opera Projct is developing rapidly. -- Kleinzach 12:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

So if it it takes one editor one week to review one article, how long does it take 25 editors to review 3530 articles? I suppose the stubs, at least, will already be rated. --Peter cohen 12:50, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the banner from 2 Il Divo’s singers - Carlos Marín and David Miller. Kleinzach has removed the banner from the other 2 (Sébastien Izambard and Urs Bühler‎) earlier. - Jay 12:55, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if the wiki article and sources like [2] are correct, three of them are opera singers and could be tagged. --Peter cohen 13:07, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, they mostly aren't very specific about the calibre of the companies they worked with. And I doubt that any of them will be going back to opera any time soon! (Why aren't they called "I Divi"? Oh well, never mind.) --GuillaumeTell 13:19, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

No you cant because Il Divo or 3 of them have make an announcement that they will NOT sing opera arias. And so far, only David and Carlos have been acting (quite sometimes ago). They don’t involve in opera anymore today. As for Urs.. he is not, have you heard him singing? - Jay 13:20, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I think Kleinzach probably made the right decisions in the first place. The tagging was driven by the voice classes and whether he thought it was appropriate for people to remain labelled.

Looking at David Miller [3] [4], he's played major roles in quite big productions

I can 't find details of where Carlos Marin has sung the major roles dmentioned in his bio, but I notice he appears on at least one full opera recording: Martín y Soler - La capricciosa corretta

Marguerite Krull (Ciprigna); Rafaella Milanesi (Cilia); Katia Velletaz (Isabella); Yves Saelens (Lelio); Emiliano Gonzalez-Toro (Valerio); Josep Miquel Ramon (Fiuta); Enrique Baquerizo (Bonario); Carlos Marin (Gon Giglio) Les Talens Lyriques Christophe Rousset, condcutor Naïve E 8887 (2 cds; texts and translations in English and French) which the cast appear to have performed live in Lausanne in December 2002.

In fact[5] implies he has several recordings:

• In these last years he has won acclaim as primo baritono in several operas, including La Traviata, The Barber of Seville, La Boheme, Lucia di Lammermoor and Madame Butterfly. Some of his most distinguished opera performances available on record are Mercutio in Campoamor (Oviedo), Don Giglio in La Capricciosa Corretta (highly recommended for opera lovers), or in Damut’s version of Marina.
• Marin has also participated in zarzuela (Spanish operetta). He participated in the zarzuelas in the Jardines de Sabatini (Sabatini Gardens in Madrid) point of encounter for the music lovers during the summer season at the Gardens of Madrid’s Royal Palace. Some of his performances in the Spanish operetta can be found in DVD like La Gran Vía (The Great Way), La Revoltosa (The Rebellious), where he plays Fernando, and La Verbena de la Paloma (The Pigeon’s Festival), where he plays Julián. --Peter cohen 16:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's not worry about this. Actually one other tenor editor asked for the banner to go back on. No one has asked for it to come off as far as I'm aware. Anyway let's stick with the figure of 3,530. (I've made a new section to hive this off. Hope that's OK with everyone.) -- Kleinzach 13:28, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

seeking help with Comédie-Italienne

Hello, over the past few days I've done a translation of this article from the French, but there are some parts of the original article that leave me puzzled. It's partly because I'm more of an anglophone than a francophone, and partly because I just don't know much about that time period. I would really appreciate another pair of eyes to compare the English and the French to see what I've missed or gotten outright wrong, because I've gotten a bit burned out right now from looking at the thing. Thanks, --Kyoko 18:56, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll take a look, though my French is of 'Allo 'Allo qualities. Folantin is better at this sort of thing than I. Perhaps Grove has something I can add. Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 08:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Initial impressions are extremely positive. Nice work! I think the big problem is the nightmare of what we do with French capitalisation in some of those titles (it's been discussed here before). I'll play around with it and you should see some of those red links turn blue. Any other specific problems you suspect, Kyoko? --Folantin 09:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I've left a note on the talk page as regards the first picture (someone needs to transfer it to Commons, assuming the license is valid). But yes, very impressive stuff, bravo! Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 09:13, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

There is a fair amount of material on the Comédie-Italienne/Théâtre Italien in the article on Paris in Grove. Anyway the article looks good. -- Kleinzach 11:52, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for the compliments! One thing that I don't quite get is the subject of the independence of the theatres. I understand to some extent that in the past, plays were subject to the scrutiny of the crown, but I don't know quite when that stopped. There is a phrase in the French article, during the Restoration, that says "De 1815 à 1818 le Théâtre royal italien a retrouvé son indépendance." I don't understand how to reconcile that statement with the following paragraph where it says that Catalani's privilège was revoked and the theatre shut down. It's as if the theatre is independent of royal control and yet it's not, and it makes for confusing reading. --Kyoko 15:56, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Gilbert and Sullivan

This article is currently a Featured Article Candidate, if anyone wants to have a look. Adam Cuerden ^talk 21:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Oops :)

We may get a couple of these, so keep an eye out... [6] -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 00:20, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

That's because he's in Category:Tenors, (sandwiched, if that's the right word, between Lauritz Melchior and Vernon Midgley), right? I'm dubious about whether we need the banner for Midgley, either. --GuillaumeTell 00:53, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Mercury was on my list of 35 special exceptions so absolutely no bot problem there. (I've dealt with all of them now.) I gave the benefit of the doubt to Vernon Midgley - probably not very notable anyway. -- Kleinzach 08:46, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Infobox: To remove or not to.. better do it once and for all

To avoid misunderstanding especially from the die-heart fans, I think we should remove the infoboxes from all operatic singers – famous or less famous. Some people put it back on because they thought we being “double standard” – simply because famous operatic singers have info boxes in their articles. I just removed from Pavarotti, Caruso and Domingo. See how it goes from here. (It feels a bit sad for me to remove it from Domingo’s article because it looks “nice” in there..) I truly understand why some people were unhappy and decided to put them back on again and again after some of you removed them. Usually when we have our “pet singers”, we tend to “protect” them.. to the extreme :)) I seriously understand the notion. - Jay 10:03, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The Pavarotti one seems to have made a specialty out of pointing out the obvious. Genre = Classical music? Instrument = voice ? No, you don't say (and I always think that Instrument = voice sounds so strange). Moreschi ^Talk 10:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Besides, if you're an opera singer, surely your instrument is naturally going to be your voice? So much for professionalism. Moreschi ^Talk 10:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The background to this was a case of racial abuse from an IP user (now temporarily banned) on the Lauritz Melchior article. (Perhaps comically, he thought I was Chinese rather than a height-challenged German.) -- Kleinzach 11:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• Please do not remove infoboxes. The Opera Wikiproject may not like infoboxes, but webpages about operatic singers and composers do not exclusively "belong" to this project. These are biographies also included in Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography, which places a high value on infoboxes for all biographies. I restored the infobox for Grace Moore, who (by the way) was clearly a movie star and pop singer, not "just" an opera singer. (I am not particularly fond of infoboxes; I simply don't think that Opera project participants should be removing them, considering that Biography project participants think they are vital.)--orlady 13:43, 17 June 2007 (UTC)