Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Gerda Arendt (talk | contribs) at 07:15, 19 March 2013 (DYK Lauritz Melchior, died 1973). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Did you know ... related to opera ...

• ... that Lauritz Melchior, the Wagner tenor of his time, who died on 13 March 1973, made his debut in the baritone role of Silvio in Pagliacci at Det Kongelige Teater in 1913?

• ... that baritone Alfred Poell, born 18 February 1900, performed in Bach's Mass in B minor alongside Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Kathleen Ferrier?

• ... that soprano Elisabeth Röckel (pictured), born 15 March 1793, a friend of Ludwig van Beethoven, was probably not the namesake of Für Elise but saved a lock of his hair?

Opera Portal DYK Archive (by topic) • Opera Project Talk DYK Archive (by date)

Archives – Table of Contents
Archives – Alphabetical Index

Article creation and cleanup requests

Article requests

In a now archived discussion about List of operas performed at the Wexford Festival, GuillaumeTell suggested that the following conductors/directors/designers really ought to appear in Misplaced Pages. I'm copying it here for editors who may be interested in creating these articles:

• Conductors – Maurizio Benini, György Fischer, Arnold Östman, Evelino Pidò
• Directors – Jean-Claude Auvray, Anthony Besch, Robert Carsen, John Cox, Peter Ebert, John Fulljames, Stefan Janski, Keith Warner
• Designers – Charles Edwards, John Stoddart, Joe Vaněk.
• Opera - Ugo, re d'Italia - A Rossini opera that was left unfinished

Per this discussion

• Peter G. Davis (critic and opera scholar of The New York Times and New York magazine)

Voceditenore (talk) 12:43, 10 March 2010 (UTC) (latest update 06:29, 2 May 2011 (UTC))

Update: Dr. Blofeld has now created basic stubs for all of the above. I'll leave them up for the moment, as they need to be checked for bannering and possibly the addition of further references and/or external links with information for expanding the articles. Voceditenore (talk) 13:38, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Cleanup requests

• Per this discussion, the following transwikied articles from the Italian Misplaced Pages need considerable clean-up:

Stefano Gobatti • Luigi Bolis • Lando Bartolini • Gaetano Bardini • Basilio Basili • Lamberto Bergamini • Angelo Bendinelli • Armando Bini • Adolfo Bassi

• Per this discussion Andreas Scholl (needs copyediting and better referencing, too many "cherry-picked" quotes) and the Helen Donath recording section needs clean-up and pruning.

• Per this discussion, José Cura needs a better and more factual article with better referencing.

• Martina Arroyo, needs more inline citations, currently tagged with {{more footnotes}}
• Walter Midgley, needs more inline citations, currently tagged with {{more footnotes}}

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Voceditenore (talk) 10:53, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Opera articles: Recordings - which to exclude?

As there has been no further discussion on this since early December 2010, I've archived this here. But this is a topic we may want to revisit at some point, re expanding/clarifying the current article guidelines. Voceditenore (talk) 08:37, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Greetings from the German language Opera Project

Hello, just wanted to say Hi! from the German language Opera Project. We started in the beginning of 2011, a very recent effort compared to you. Likewise, our average articles on operas, composers etc. are quite behind the en:WP in terms of coverage and content. Which is a shame, considering the richness of opera life in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We have started by focussing on the widely read articles on popular operas, see this List, which gives page impressions in de:WP and en:WP and also global number of productions per year as a proxy for popularity. The rationale is this: given our low number of contributors, having 20 formerly poor articles on popular operas turned into solid works is worth more then 20 more articles on arcane subjects. How did you go about growing your project? PS: Maybe there could be some areas of cooperation, especially as regards access to and understanding of German language sources and literature. Let me know what you think. --Non mi tradir (talk) 16:49, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

• I have introduced this timely proposal to the discussion here. --Smerus 20:27, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Articles needing libretto links

Note that for now some of the Rossini librettos can still be accessed from the list on this page on Karadar, but it will require adding those new links to the articles, and I'm not sure how long it will be before Karadar closes that loop hole. Anyhow, here's the list of operas so far where I've removed dead links and there is currently no other alternative. It's also possible to recover some of the karadar links via the Wayback machine, as was done at L'éclair, although it's a bit fiddly. If you add a new link, just strike through the opera name(s) below. Voceditenore (talk) 16:55, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

List

Le domino noir, Sigurd (opera), Ciro in Babilonia, Sigismondo, Ricciardo e Zoraide, Eduardo e Cristina, L'equivoco stravagante, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Médée (Charpentier), Emilia di Liverpool, Francesca di Foix, Il signor Bruschino

Category:Opera composers

Any objections to a split by nationality, e.g Category:American opera composers?♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 23:03, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

…which will no doubt re-ignite pointless discussions about many composers' "nationality". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:51, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

No objections to a split; disputes can be handled on an individual basis. There are 1,687 articles in the category - the benefits far outweigh the costs. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 07:54, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

A less contraversial division might be by decade of birth. I look forward to your deciding which nationality to ascribe to Handel, a German writing Italian opera for an English market, and I wonder if, conceptually, opera predates nationality. Presumably most Italian opera was written before Italy existed. And then Mozart, too? Is he an Austrian opera composer? Austria didn't exist then. A German singspiel composer? I hope whoever decides to opts for this division will be happy to put the time into resolving the 1,687 potential individual disputes almost-instinct 08:50, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

What Michael and Almost-instinct said. Anything involving nationality or ethnicity on Misplaced Pages is going to cause massive headaches, especially combined with the blunt instrument which is categorisation. AFAIK technically, Stravinsky was a Russian opera composer when he wrote The Nightingale, a French opera composer when he wrote Oedipus Rex, and an American opera composer when he wrote The Rake's Progress.--Folantin (talk) 09:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

You are aware that an article can be in more than one category? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's possible, we certainly do that kind of stuff elsewhere. But if the category needs to be split (and it is very large), perhaps a less problematic split might be by century? Voceditenore (talk) 10:53, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Royal Opera House

Hello all,

Tim riley and I visited the Royal Opera House in London on Wednesday to talk to them about Misplaced Pages and run a short "how to edit" session. One of their staff (OperaBalletRose) has been expanding the articles on various operas and ballets over the past few months (mostly with synopses), and they're interested in getting more of their staff up to speed to help with this.

Alongside this, they're interested in hosting some kind of editathon event; we haven't got a firm date yet, but it'll probably be in June, and probably on a Saturday. If you might be interested in coming along to the ROH for a look behind the scenes and a chance to work with some of their collections, do get in touch - I'll let you know a firm date as soon as we've sorted it out! Andrew Gray (talk) 14:19, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Wow, that's fabulous. When the event is set, create a page for the editathon. I (and I'm sure others) would be happy to do remote editing. -- kosboot (talk) 14:51, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Brilliant! This is really good news! Voceditenore (talk) 19:00, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Well done. -- Jack of Oz 19:21, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

If I am in London for the editathon I would love to participate.--Smerus (talk) 11:22, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Just make sure you don't practise on Edita Gruberova.  :) -- Jack of Oz 08:36, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Women's History Month is in March

Hi everyone at WikiProject Opera!

Women's history month is around the corner, in March, and we're planning the second WikiWomen's History Month.

This event, which is organized by volunteers from the WikiWomen's Collaborative, supports improving coverage about women's history during the month of March. Events take place both offline and online. We are encouraging WikiProjects to focus on women's history related to their subject for the month of March. Ideas include:

• Women's roles as performers, directors, writers and instructors in the opera.
• The importance of women's roles in opera
• Music, works and styles of opera that have specifically impacted women and women's history

We hope you'll participate! You can list your your project focus here, and also help improve our to-do list. Thank you for all you do for Misplaced Pages and stop by my talk page with any questions! SarahStierch (talk) 00:15, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

How about Ethel Smyth as composer of the month? We're missing four of her operas. Adam Cuerden 15:10, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea. I see you've already put her in the March CoM, I've copyedited it a bit. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 17:39, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

For the Opera(s) of the Month we could work on improving stub or near stub operas based on female historical characters, e.g. Adelaide di Borgogna (1817) based on Adelaide of Italy and Émilie (2010) based on Émilie du Châtelet. We should aim for a variety of periods and styles, if possible. Voceditenore (talk) 17:52, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

List of historical opera characters may provide some other possibilities. I've started looking through the List of operas by Gaetano Donizetti, but so far I've only clocked up Il castello di Kenilworth, which is a stub featuring QE1. --GuillaumeTell 00:49, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to GuillaumeTell's suggestion, I nipped over to List of historical opera characters and checked the articles. Below are some more suggestions. We don't have to use them all, maybe a selction of 5 or 6?. The remainder will be good for next year. Some are extraordinarily stubby and may be hard to source, e.g. Olga. Some are slightly more developed but lack significant bits of available material such as detailed synopsis, performance history, critical reception, premiere casts etc. and/or are poorly referenced. A couple of them are by notable composers, but are completely missing. The historical/legendary women don't have to have been "nice people", in my view. Voceditenore (talk) 16:47, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

List of OoM suggestions

• Jorge Antunes: Olga on Olga Benário Prestes
• Handel: Berenice on Berenice III of Egypt
• Jack Beeson: Lizzie Borden on Lizzie Borden
• Alberto Ginastera: Beatrix Cenci on Beatrice Cenci
• Domenico Cimarosa: La Cleopatra on Cleopatra
• Robert Planquette: Nell Gwynne on Nell Gwynne
• Donizetti: Fausta on Fausta
• Antonín Dvořák: Vanda on Princess Wanda
• Emmerich Kálmán: Kaiserin Josephine on Joséphine de Beauharnais
• Ottorino Respighi: Lucrezia on Lucretia
• Umberto Giordano: Madame Sans-Gêne on Catherine Hubscher note also Sardou's play on which it is based is a red link Madame Sans-Gêne (play)
• Antônio Carlos Gomes: Maria Tudor on Mary Tudor, Queen of France
• Isidore de Lara: Messaline on Valeria Messalina
• Reinhard Keiser: Octavia on Claudia Octavia
• Saverio Mercadante: Nitocri on Nitocris

On this day - did you know

You know probably that I try to find a fact related to the day to put on top of this page. Some of the articles would profit from improvement. I plan to list those here, not starting a new section everytime.

• 2 Feb Martina Arroyo, ref tag

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:52, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Gerda, I've added her to the section at the very top of the page: Article creation and cleanup requests. It's better to list them all in one place, so editors can see them all at a glance. I never archive that section, although I periodically update it. So she'll stay there 'til she's fixed. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 10:37, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

• 13 Feb Walter Midgley, 100 years today, do we know more? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:34, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

• 20 Feb Die Kluge, 70 years, premiered in times of war. Orff did well to term it "Märchenoper" (Fairy tale opera) to evade censorship for text such as "Wer die Macht hat, hat das Recht, und wer das Recht hat, beugt es auch, und über allem herrscht Gewalt" (Whoever has the power, has justice, whoever has justice, bends it, and violence reigns everything). The article is too harmless. - The set designer just got a German article, de . --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:46, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

• 3 March Elisabeth Röckel found, birthday 15 March, can we expand her until then, as a woman in history (possibly not Beethoven's Elise)? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:04, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Pre-revolutionary Russian orthography

I'm seeing a few examples of editors inserting the old Russian orthography in the ledes of operas, such as here. I've reverted those I've found.

Sure, that's the way those people wrote back then, but those old letters are now of interest only to specialist linguo-historians. It's enough that we show any non-Latin script at all in our articles in this most English of Wikipediae. -- Jack of Oz 10:22, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

They're not even used in the Russian Misplaced Pages , . Voceditenore (talk) 11:22, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I could honestly see a case for it, maybe, if both old and modern is used. Adam Cuerden 23:59, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

What would the case for it be? Old style hasn't been used in Russia for a century almost-instinct 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Адам, это не надо!!--Smerus (talk) 15:20, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Учитесь властвовать собой почти-инстинкт 17:04, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

У меня болит голова! Voceditenore (talk) 18:50, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Does this mean we'll have to move Handel's Messiah to Meffiah? --Folantin (talk) 09:07, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

No, because f and long-s aren't the same letter; and that case really is more of a font issue (Better examples: The Recruiting Serjeant, Love and Freindship, or, if you want examples of no-longer-used letters, Þjálfi and Röskva, Æthelbald of Mercia.) It can also be useful to have the old-style Cyrillic because scores have a tendency to stick around for quite some time, and because it will help explain any inconsistencies between the Cyrillic given and, say, a contemporary poster using the reformed-away letters. But I think the examples I've given show we're at least tolerant of more old-fashioned spellings in English, so I don't see why expanding it to Russian would be such a stretch. Adam Cuerden 22:57, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

If there's a case for showing them at all, how much more of a case is there for also showing the modern orthography, which is much more likely to be encountered in practice. I think, on reflection, that my objection is to showing only the old style alphabet, as per my example above. Sure, it's possible to come across these letterings in old scores and even in my trusty 1954 Grove's Dictionary, where, for example, we have "Golden Cockerel, The ('Золотой Пѣтушокъ') ...". The yat (ѣ) is not even represented in our editing drop down boxes, so that gives you an idea of how often users ever need these old letters. -- Jack of Oz 01:31, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Re; The Golden Cockerel, I might be wrong but I seem to remember Rimsky was deliberately going for an archaic spelling there. --Folantin (talk) 10:41, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, obviously the modern spelling should also be provided. Adam Cuerden 20:56, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Seems like excessive pedantry to me. --Folantin (talk) 21:23, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Per Adam Cuerden, I prefer the spelling actually used in the available scores. If modern spelling is more common on recordings or secondary literature, there's a case for the cumbersome Translated title, ('original title, transliterated title, suitably piped|'modern spelling) format, but couldn't some of this go into a footnote instead? Sparafucil (talk) 23:32, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Trouble is, no modern scores, including the most authoritative urtexts, will ever use the old orthography, just as no Russian books or journals or websites ever use the old orthography. It is completely obsolete for all but the most abstrusely technical and arcane purposes. All books written before the spelling reforms are republished using the new orthography. Our articles on Russian operas are not meant to be lessons in the history of the Russian alphabet. They are articles about the operas and their histories. We never use antiquated English spellings like "shew" for "show", "musick" for "music", "antient" for "ancient", "moone" for "moon" etc, so why would we shew show antiquated and obsolete Russian orthography? -- Jack of Oz 08:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Exactly which modern scores of Aleko, Boris or Igor do you suggest I trade my not-very-old reprints for, Jack? Sparafucil (talk) 10:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I feel persuaded by Sparafucil and Adam Cuerden that having the original would not merely be an indugent archaism. What would be the best format be? "EngName (ModernRussian, originally OldRussian)"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Almost-instinct (talk • contribs) 11:42, 5 March 2013 (UTC)‎

Links to libretti

Dear opera lovers, could you please add two new links to line-by-line opera librettos?

• French-English line-by-line libretto to http://en.wikipedia.org/Rom%C3%A9o_et_Juliette
• French-English line-by-line libretto to http://en.wikipedia.org/William_Tell_%28opera%29

These line-by-line libretti are exclusive. Благодарю! --Murashev (talk) 12:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Done. I also updated the ext links on Roméo et Juliette (fixed a broken one to the Juilliard Manuscript Library and removed one to the now defunct Baltimore Opera website). There's also a link to the somewhat improbably named Jana Lady Lou singing "Ah! Je veux vivre!". Could someone listen to this and tell us if it's worth keeping? Voceditenore (talk) 09:59, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Voceditenore! I just listened to Jana Lady Lou sings. There is also a link from Turandot wiki page to her singing. As about me, she sings well but not great. And her french is far from being perfect. Her english `R' instead of guttural R... brrr! Her aria from Turandot - nothing special, as well as aria from La boheme. I listen to opera a lot, and there are many better singers. I still wonder what others think about Jana Lady Lou singing. --Murashev (talk) 09:59, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I listened to it finally. She's classically trained but basically sings arias in cabarets and clubs. The recording is very poor quality and has only a piano accompaniment. I found this replacement and added it to the article. This is a YouTube video but is OK to link to as it's the official channel of ABC Classics. YouTube clips not from official channels are not OK as they are virtually all copyright violations and we can't link to them. Voceditenore (talk) 08:50, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I've also replaced the link in Turandot as well. By the way several opera companies have official YouTube channels now, and these can be very useful for finding high quality, copyright compliant video clips. I'll list some of them here, and will eventually add a section to our Online research guide. Voceditenore (talk) 09:09, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Official opera company YouTube channels

• De Nederlandse Opera
• The Met
• La Fenice
• San Francisco Opera

Voceditenore (talk) 09:32, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Quite useful information! --Murashev (talk) 13:55, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Barcarolle (Offenbach) or Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour

I am here to request that some experts here consider making an article titled either Barcarolle (Offenbach) or Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour (currently a redirect) for inclusion in {{The Tales of Hoffmann}} and {{Jacques Offenbach}}. According to the Barcarolle article it is among the most famous Barcarolles. WP has an article for Barcarolle (Chopin) but not this one.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 06:02, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Done. (Still editing though, I'm going to expand its context in the opera and copy over the stuff about arrangements of it.) Can we get a better sound file? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 07:37, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Couple more questions for people who could help!

• Where can I find sources with more musical analysis? Or should I just write about the piece from the score? (like, I want to talk about the cello figure in the intro...would that be OR)
• Is it true that it isn't necessarily meant to be sung in character, and if so, can this be sourced?

–Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 08:48, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

According to this source, in Carvalho's version, it is sung by two minstrels outside Antonia's window (the whole Giuietta act was cut). Ditto this one. This source has some musical analysis re the flute and how the music heightens the anticipation of the listener. This one (Siren Songs: Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Opera) also has an interesting analysis. Voceditenore (talk) 09:09, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I've used two of those already (the one with the musical analysis doesn't discuss the cello - and it says that the melody comes in in the strings so it's apparently not talking about the original vocal version) and mention the piece's use in the second act, though I could add more detail about that, I suppose. Siren Songs may be useful, thanks (and also refers me to Dahlhaus, which is definitely useful). –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 09:48, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Stage band in Rigoletto

Rigoletto#Instrumentation includes "banda", with a redlink to Banda (opera). I have started a draft article, Thnidu/Banda (opera) and would appreciate any elaboration by someone who knows the territory. My main call for help is at Misplaced Pages:Help desk#Banda (opera).

--Thnidu (talk) 21:03, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Minor nit: I think you created that page in the wrong namespace; you probably wanted to cteate it in User:Thnidu/Banda (opera). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:14, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! As you can probably guess, I haven't used this namespace-for-draft-version method before, although I've done a lot of minor and middling contributing and editing. --Thnidu (talk) 03:23, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Verdi's middle-period operas used bandas a lot. So did Rossini and other composers of the era. I've expanded your draft at User:Thnidu/Banda (opera) and added further sources. There is definitely enough now to move it into main space as a viable stub where it can be further expanded. Let me know if you'd like me to do that. Voceditenore (talk) 15:10, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I know in Rigoletto and Traviata (and probably others) that these banda sections are unorchestrated - the idea being that the local house person (conductor?) would orchestrate the banda based on what was available at that particular venue. Unfortunately I don't have a source for this (though maybe it's in Gossett, or in the introduction to the critical edition of Rigoletto). -- kosboot (talk) 18:07, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Grove Opera has an article by Julian Budden entitled Stage band (linked in WP to Misplaced Pages:Music encyclopedia topics/41)‎. As well as Rigoletto, there are stage bands in Ballo, Wozzeck and Gloriana, and Budden also points out that the 'banda' music in L'amico Fritz and La bohème was fully scored by their composers. --GuillaumeTell 00:30, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Does Budden use "Stage band" to include off-stage bands which are still part of the drama? almost-instinct 14:27, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes - he says "A group of instruments that perform on stage level, either behind the scenes or in view of the audience." Also, kosboot's remarks above are supported by Budden - "the banda was under separate direction ... the bandmaster scored in detail what the composer wrote out on two staves ...". I'll add these bits and pieces after Voce moves the article into main space. --GuillaumeTell 18:18, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to move the draft into main space, but need some thoughts about the primary title. I'm inclined to use Banda (opera) as in the literature it is usually referred to by the Italian name, even in the Opera America glossary . I rather fear that Stage band will lead to a lot of people arriving there who are looking for something completely different. Voceditenore (talk) 14:57, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Agree that "Stage band" will be confusing and "Banda (opera)" looks OK. There's currently a redirect entitled Stage (band) which may also muddy the water. "Banda" is the heading of the article in the Oxford Dictionary of Opera, so it looks as if Budden is out of step. (There is also extra stuff in the OD of O that I can add to Budden's remarks). --GuillaumeTell 18:18, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

OK I've boldly moved it to Banda (opera). So get to work one and all.:) Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:43, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

• I think it'd also be helpful to include an image of a full score for an opera that includes music for banda, so that readers can see how it's written in separately. Any preferred operas? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:30, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
  • For copyright reasons, of the ones listed, it'd have to be Rigoletto or La boheme, I think, unless there's an example that's clearer. (I have to admit I've seen La boheme a few times, and can't recall ever seeing or hearing a band onstage, but then, it's one of those operas that's default modernised.) Can anyone think of one where the banda is so important to the staging that it can't be avoided? Possibly Rossini? Adam Cuerden 14:57, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
• Thanks to all of you knowledgeable folk. Thnidu (talk) 17:50, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

108.227.19.84 's addition to the Alceste (Gluck) article

While I was tempted to remove all of this (and it certainly doesn't seem to fit under "Performance history"), I'm not qualified to figure out what he/she means in regard to this opera and from where the refs come. Maybe someone can improve it? Viva-Verdi (talk) 20:11, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

In Don Giovanni, written a whole twenty-five years after Alceste and the year Gluck died, in 1787, Mozart uses the exact same chord progression for the Commendatore speaking to Don Giovanni In the garden scene,that Gluck uses for the line of the High Priest when saying Alceste will die if no one takes her place. In Hector Italic textBerlioz's A Traver Chant, in volume two called Gluck and his Operas, Berlioz notes how this section of Don Giovanni is "heavily in-inspired or rather plagiarized". He further notes the plagiarism of a full aria in Francois-Duncan Philidor's era Le Sorcier. Berlioz notes how Philidor got possession of the score in 1764. Philidor thereby changed the date from 1762 to1764 in the published score of Alceste, to make it look like Gluck plagiarized Philidor's Le Sorcier of 1763. Berlioz further discusses the authenticity of some of the arias. For example, when Gluck went to Vienna, an aria was added to act 3. Usually these were already written arias from operas. Berlioz comes to the conclusion that Gluck was under so much pressure that he let it happen. Also, Berlioz makes note to corrections added by Gluck during rehearsals, and misunderstandings in the score, due to what Berlioz calls Gluck's "happy-go-lucky" style of writing.

The book the IP is talking about, Gluck & his operas, with an account of their relation to musical art, is on line in its entirety here. I checked the text and the Philidor plagiarism (and his changing the publication date of Gluck's score) refers to his Orfeo, not Alceste (see pp. 30-33), for starters. So, that probably needs to go. But on page 85, Berlioz does claim that Mozart "copied" the bit in Don Giovanni from Alceste. The bit about the "Happy-g-lucky" style and the Act 3 stuff, appears to be true, or at least true to what Berlioz said. (See pp. 149-151). Perhaps someone can fix it? I'm sort of busy elsewhere on Misplaced Pages at the moment. Voceditenore (talk) 11:33, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Edited Alceste and Orfeo accordingly.--Smerus (talk) 09:24, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! Best, Voceditenore (talk) 10:59, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata and infoboxes

I want to tread carefully, being that many are passionate about infoboxes. :) This past weekend, the NYC WP group had its Misplaced Pages Day meeting. I wasn't there, but I've been apprised of some of the sessions. One of the speakers came from France to talk about the Wikidata project. If any of you are following composer pages, you must be seeing that the manual interwiki links are being replaced by Wikidata. After this they are going to want to work on geographical names. The idea being that that the significant information will be held in wikidata which will then populate articles in all the language wikis. How are they going to do this? By using the infobox! The infobox is the key to establishing articles in language wikis where currently no article exists (i.e. the infobox should supply enough information to automatically create an article lede. This suggests a harmonization of articles between all the various Wikipedias and indeed, it was relayed to me that the WMF considers internationalization of Misplaced Pages a very high priority, as it promotes open access. Not meaning to rub lemon juice in open wounds, but if I may gently suggest, those of you resistant to infoboxes might want to think through the implications. -- kosboot (talk) 19:30, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I gently suggest that those of us who do not have the mighty privilege of having WMF's policy directly relayed to us don't give a flying frankfurter about such ominous mutterings. When we hear from WMF (if ever) then we can decide what to do in the wake of the information forthcoming.--Smerus (talk) 20:54, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I gently repeat that infoboxes might be a good idea, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:57, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

They might or might not be a good idea. I think there are few editors here who don't see the value of them in certain types of articles, or even the relative harmlessness of a simple infobox person (with the vast majority of parameters removed) in opera-related biographies. If the word comes from "on high" that infoboxes are the only way to code Wikidata and that they will become obligatory in all articles, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. So far, no one has given a clear answer to the simple question, "Are visible infoboxes the only way to encode Wikidata?", let alone "Will they become obligatory?" Some have been deliberately evasive on the subject (no one in this thread) because they are very pro-infoboxes for other reasons, which have nothing to do with Wikidata, and have latched on to this latest initiative as another weapon in their armory.

I should also point out that the Wikimedia developers and planners also tend to make "improvements" and initiatives, some of which are very costly, without even thinking through the editorial implications of what they are doing. The simple reason is that they are not editors, and often haven't a clue what the implications are. (Take a look at the RfC on Wikimedia's article feedback tool.) As for the Wikidata initiative, the idea of automatically generating articles in one Misplaced Pages solely from the infoboxes in other Wikipedias, is utterly bizarre. You end up with a completely unreferenced article derived from information in another Misplaced Pages article which in itself may be unreferenced or patently false. We've all seen the kind of lax referencing in the non-English Misplaced Pages articles. This may be relatively harmless for geographical locations, but it has dire implications for biographies or articles on artistic works and the hapless editors who have to maintain them. Voceditenore (talk) 09:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Equally alarming is the notion that "this suggests a harmonization of articles between all the various Wikipedias". We now have the beginning of the roll-out of transferring the interwiki links on the English Misplaced Pages to Wikidata. These are now edited from the sidebar rather than in the article. So far, this has not extended to the non-English Wikipedias, although presumably that is the goal. So, what we will eventually get is an editor on the Catalan Misplaced Pages editing the Wikidata there, and it will instantly appear in all the Wikipedias. Of course they might get the interwiki link wrong or deliberately link to a spurious article, but never mind, at least all the Wikipedias will be "harmonized" in their wrongness. Now let's move forward a few years. Infoboxes are obligatory in all articles on all Wikipedias and are now "harmonized" in the same way. Any editor on a Misplaced Pages of any language can edit or even vandalise the Wikidata and all the infoboxes in all the Wikipedias will be instantly "harmonized" to accommodate that edit? Fabulous. We can have international edit wars. Voceditenore (talk) 10:20, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

• Wikidata as a repository for Interwiki links: I, too, am concerned about the effect of unobserved changes to a centrally kept repository of interwiki links. It remains to be seen whether the watchlist option "Show Wikidata" is a sufficient tool to monitor them. At the moment it's difficult to say because of the watchlist's myriad entries by User:Addbot and siblings, but I can already see that monitoring will be much more cumbersome because WP:POPUPS don't work.
• Wikidata as a central repository of further information: as VdT already pointed out, the same concerns apply to biographical and other data. However, the central storage by itself doesn't further any argument for (or against) infoboxes. It is proposed that the main source for biographical data is the Italian Misplaced Pages's use of their it:Template:Bio which can hold a wide range of biographical details. The opening sentence of most biographies on the Italian Misplaced Pages is constructed from that template. It's their equivalent of every other (except the Sardinian) Misplaced Pages's Template:Persondata, but it is much, much more. So I don't understand how the creation of a central repository should have any bearing on the use of infoboxes. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:57, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi all. I'm not working very closely with the Wikidata project, but hopefully I can give a quick summary of what's planned!

• Firstly, Wikidata isn't really a "Wikimedia developer" thing; Wikimedia Deutschland have funded a small group of software developers for two years to get it up and running, but the project is run by its own community, the same way as any of our other sister projects - it's like Commons in that regard.
• Wikidata will contain a structured set of information on each "entity" (concept, person, thing, etc) - see, for example, d:Q1339. That information will contain names ("en:Johann Sebastian Bach", "ru:Бах, Иоганн Себастьян"), relationships ("born in:Eisenach", father:"Johann Ambrosius Bach") and data (date of birth:"21 March 1685"). These will all be fully internationalised, meaning that even if you don't read the language of the Misplaced Pages articles, you can still see the core data.
• The first of these (names) is now mostly complete, and also provides a central database for the interlanguage links in articles - you'll have seen it on your watchlists. (It went live on Hungarian, then Hebrew, then English - testing it worked okay each time - and will roll out to all projects early next month). The second of these (relationships) went live a couple of weeks ago, and is being populated; here's an example of a visualisation of the family relationships around Bach. The third ("text" values in data) is not yet available, but should be soon. One interesting feature is that relationships and data can both be sourced - so Wikidata can itself contain citations for the data it includes - and will be able to be marked for reliability/updatedness/etc.
• Where Misplaced Pages infoboxes exist, they will be probably used to automatically populate Wikidata fields; however, this doesn't mean we need to add them to any given Misplaced Pages in order for Wikidata to work! The data can still be added by hand; this is how it's being done at the moment.
• In the long run, it's possible that where infoboxes exist, they will be dynamically populated from a central database. This has been talked about hypothetically, but there's not many clear plans for it yet; the main desire is to have core statistical data, like population figures, be consistent. This does not mean that a) all infoboxes will be completely synchronised with Wikidata; or b) that all articles will have to get infoboxes. The Wikidata community has no power over the other projects and what happens to English Misplaced Pages will, as always, be decided by a local consensus here.
• Automatic generation of articles has been talked about, but again, it's not likely to happen without a community consensus, and on enwiki I'd rate that as very unlikely to be generally accepted. Most projects are strongly against mass generation of articles! However, it may be that smaller projects get value from pulling in automatically generated infoboxes to go alongside existing two-sentence stubs; this will be up to them, I guess, but I can easily imagine it being seen as useful.

The summary of the above - the existence of Wikidata will not mandate the creation of infoboxes in articles, although it will provide the means for recording structured data without visible infoboxes. The community here on enwiki could of course decide to require infoboxes on every article... but it's not done so until now, and I doubt Wikidata will change that existing consensus.

Hope that helps explain what's going on! Andrew Gray (talk) 12:12, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for this very helpful explanation which makes it clear that, whatever is happening at Wikidata, it should not be used by third parties to intimidate or annoy those editors who happen not to like to use infoboxes in certain circumstances or topics.--Smerus (talk) 13:20, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your excellent summary. -- kosboot (talk) 13:50, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I've done a bit of digging over lunch, and it seems that I'd got the wrong end of at least one stick - plans for integrating Wikidata into existing infoboxes are well underway; see, for example, this summary here. We may see this appearing quite soon.

However, it seems clear that the system they're using will just use a special template to fill in certain values within existing infoboxes (etc), rather than creating a new infobox on top of everything else. If there isn't one there before, it's not likely to affect the article. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:26, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Andrew. All this is very helpful. I see that the infobox integration for now seems to be concentrating primarily on geographical/population data, although that's dubious enough. It also seems that the operation and maintenance of the WikiData project are being handed over in March to the Wikimedia Foundation, who are all very chuffed about it . In a way, this is better as it's a lot easier to yell at the WMF when they start monkeying around with their various "initiatives". My main concerns, the lack of adequate sourcing for this data and who will bear the burden of monitoring it, still remain. I honestly don't think that either the WMF or the WikiData project have thought through the human/editorial side at all, and they will probably live to regret it. Voceditenore (talk) 16:08, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

As I've already commented to Andrew, the fable of the bed/infobox of Procrustes comes to mind.--Smerus (talk) 17:25, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I believe "operation and maintenance" there means day-to-day hosting - WMF will run the servers rather than WMDE - but doesn't imply close tinkering with the direction of the project any more than it does here. Infobox integration is likely to focus primarily on statistical information, as the editors of the WP articles will have to choose to include these "variables" - it won't be an automatic process - and so it'll only get done where it provides some benefit over just writing it out!

The data should be sourceable and maintainable in the same way as it is here, and potentially the real value here will be getting some of enwiki's high sourcing standards out to other projects - we'll be exporting the citations along with the data. I understand your concerns about vandalism, and I've had them myself, but I feel pretty positive we'll be able to handle it - the problem's no more insoluble than that of Misplaced Pages's own maintainability. ;-)

Finally, it might actually help with the infobox issue, counterintuitive as that sounds. Once we have wikidata fully up and running, we'll have somewhere to store structured data about composers (etc) that isn't in an infobox in the article itself - the people who find value from this data can go ahead and collate it without having to expose it to the reader. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:33, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

• Articles that don't have infoboxes or persondata are being complied. With the intend of adding Wikidata to them in the future in some manner - not by way of forcing infoboxes but through a revised persondata template or other means. The community understand that a small portion of articles are simply not ready for the upcoming upgrade and thus will happen in stages - with no article being forced to add visual info if not wanted.Moxy (talk) 18:03, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

It remains to be seen if this could be accurately described as an "upgrade". Voceditenore (talk) 18:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Correct - perhaps not the right wording - but it is happening non the less. I am sure your all aware that when this change happens there will be editors going around and adding infoboxes to article just because they think Wikidata is missing - got to be prepared for a large round of edit wars over boxes. The project really should write an essay about how you guys feel about infoboxes so you can point to it in the future - as of now pointing to Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Composers/Infobox debates does nothing but illustrate there is no consensus even within the group about the boxes. Moxy (talk) 18:19, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Please see Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Opera/Article guidelines#Infoboxes. This is not WikiProject Composers, and that section of our guide does not simply point to that project's discussions. It explains why we do not recommend them. You may disagree with that reasoning, but that's another issue. Voceditenore (talk) 18:31, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

That link is even worst - its contradictory in nature and simply links back to all the discisions that are pages and pages long. Really should take the time to write a proper essay on the matter if you expect editors to respect the project(s) POV. You seem more concerned about peoples POV on the boxes then conveying the situation to our editors - in the future assume peoples recommendations are because they wish to help this project deal with all the backlash you guys get and not because they like or dislike boxes.Moxy (talk) 18:51, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Moxy, but your reply is very confusing. We have a paragraph there explaining why this project does not recommend their use. We also quote the relevant material from the Misplaced Pages Manual of Style and link to it. The various links to past discussions are simply there for people who are curious about them. They are not the explanation for our recommendation, they are simply a coda. If members think we need a 1000 word essay, and want to write one instead of writing articles, fine, but in my view, what is there is adequate. And what on earth does all this have do with anyone not assuming good faith on your part? Voceditenore (talk) 19:09, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

You have been here long enough to know full well that that page (and the others like it) has cause nothing but problems for the project(s) of this nature. Pointing to an advice page that say "I dont like it" has done nothing but cause edit wars and the isolation of the project. At the help desk(s) people tell new editors to simply avoid the projects advice and follow our policy (some even say avoid the project(s) all together). Would be better if the project(s) had a nice non-contradictory essay that people would be willing to link to over just saying FUCK the project(s) advice. Having the project the isolated child of the site is not helpful to this project let alone to Misplaced Pages itself overall. Take the time to address the concerns raised by the community and confront them head on (with a big set of balls) and write out the main concerns of the project. You seem to imply your group has better things to do then write an essay - I would argue that the project could save time with an essay - instead of having to fight all the time on page after page let alone on the project pages. Should try to find a solution - as the norm clearly has not worked out for the projects thus far.Moxy (talk) 19:35, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Read the page, Moxy. It doesn't say simply "We don't like it". It says we don't recommend it, and it outlines the reasons why. What is there in that paragraph that you find "contradictory"? If people want to say "F**k the Project", they will regardless how long the essay is, or where it is. And as for "fighting all the time on page after page", where is your evidence that in the last year or so, the Opera Project has been "fighting all the time on page after page". Incidentally, "fighting" is in the eye of the beholder. As you well know, the MOS explicitly states

"The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article."

Since when does discussion among the editors at each individual article equate to fighting? Voceditenore (talk) 21:51, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd also appreciate it if you'd stop referring to "our policy". There is no Misplaced Pages policy that our advice page contradicts. Voceditenore (talk) 22:36, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Ok will stop saying contradicts policy despite the fact in my opinion they do. Lets move on from that and see if I can explain better the problem. I will try to be more clear as to why there should be an essay as my point is being missed. Pointing to the project(s) advice page(s) regardless of what they say is the problem. The project(s) need/should write an essay they can link to during talks that is not affiliated with the project(s) advice pages because of the inherent hostility there is to the projects in question. Write an essay that is more then a few sentences long that discuss the problems in detail, while linking to other essays (like Misplaced Pages:Not everything needs a navbox) that support the views expressed here in other forms. As for evidence that there is a problem just look at the archives here and other related projects - having this ongoing long standing debate that is clearly not being solved by the advice pages you have has lead to a reputation of ownership for the projects. You got to be tired of this problem that has lasted for years... Try - just try to see if there is a better approach like an essay. Moxy (talk) 23:20, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Since you continue to say that in your opinion our advice page contradicts policy, would you please name the policy which our advice page contradicts? And again, please provide evidence that over the last year this project has been "fighting all the time on page after page". The last knockdown, drag'em out fight over an infobox had nothing to whatsoever to do with opera. It was about an historic building. As for essays, they are exactly that. When they're cited, people who don't agree with them repeatedly dismiss them as "just an essay" and plow right ahead, as is their right. It's fine by me if any OP member thinks it would be a constructive use of their time to write hundreds of words which will be then be dismissed as "just an essay" by people who claim that it's against "policy" and therefore should be ignored. It's not a constructive use of my time. Voceditenore (talk) 00:24, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

At this point I see your not even willing to admit there is a problem (still fishing). Your not understanding that this project is all tied up with the 2 others in there reputations because of association. As for essays - disappointing to hear your opinion on them considering how long you been here Misplaced Pages:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle and Misplaced Pages:Tendentious editing both essays that I would love to anyone dismiss. No point in this conversation continuing if one side thinks all is perfect with the current situation. Moxy (talk) 01:02, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I simply gave my view that writing essays on infoboxes is not a particularly constructive use of my time. No one here has said "all is perfect", so please stop putting your spurious constructions on what others have said. Your very choice of words, i.e. one "side" against another, is both adversarial profoundly unconstructive. And as for your claim that no one would dismiss essays, well, you yourself have dismissed them: "And you do understand that "BRD" is only a essay" and "WP:CNR is only an essay". Voceditenore (talk) 22:31, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

At any point please feel free to offer any suggestion of how to fixing the long standing problem - over how someone should talk to you. Moxy (talk) 18:48, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

As someone who consistently finds VdT to be a shining example of calmness, respectfulness, intelligence and clear-sightedness, I find the direction this conversation has taken to be thoroughly bemusing, and am wondering exactly which variable it is that is responsible almost-instinct 22:05, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Did you notice that that the conversaton was continued below? That Philip Glass has an infobox? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:12, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes Gerda, I read everything on this page, and everything that appears on my watchlist almost-instinct 09:36, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I think maybe Gerda was responding to Moxy. I saw the stunning piece of infoboxery at Philip Glass when I was writing In the Penal Colony. I was shocked, shocked, I tell you. So much so, that I had to lie down for half an hour to recover. Voceditenore (talk) 10:50, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Looks like the Techno-Titanic is ploughing full steam ahead towards the iceberg of reality. I might not stick around to enjoy the crash. --Folantin (talk) 20:54, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Chicken! :) Voceditenore (talk) 22:43, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Q & A at the Village Pump

• Lydia Pintscher from Wikimedia Germany, who is closely involved in the Wikidata project is currently answering editors' questions on the deployment of Phase II at the Village Pump here. Voceditenore (talk) 12:25, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

In the Penal Colony

Could someone translate the French In the Penal Colony, at least a bit? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:06, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Gerda, do you mean create an article here from the French Misplaced Pages? Or is there just something specific you want to know about the opera that's in the French WP article? Voceditenore (talk) 22:46, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I note that many of the sources are in English (and a few in German). -- kosboot (talk) 23:13, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Article, please. - Someone inserted the work in Franz Kafka (I feel responsible), and it would be nice just to link, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:24, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Okey dokey, I'll have a bash at tomorrow. It won't be magnum opus, though, just a viable starter article. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 00:44, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Here 'tis: In the Penal Colony (opera). I'll add a bit more to it today. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 14:23, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:36, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Quite amazing what you call "a bit" ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:52, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes, I did get a bit carried away :) but (for once!) the French WP was so impeccably referenced with inline citations that I had plenty of sources. I couldn't resist. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 23:59, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Stoepel

This discussion, complete with its sample infobox was about whether Robert Stoepel should have a biographical infobox, and opinions in general about biographical infoboxes for opera-related biographies is archived at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 112#Stoepel. The article in question now has an infobox following a discussion on the talk page. If anyone wants to discuss the general issue of biographical infoboxes (yet again), please start a new section. Voceditenore (talk) 11:04, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

File:Jean de Paleologu - Jules Massenet - Sapho.jpg

Saw the brilliant Scottish Opera performance of Werther the other day (better than most La boheme's I've seen!), and decided to try and finish the last and most difficult of the three Massenet restorations I've been working on. This poster was rather horrifically damaged. Adam Cuerden 02:23, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

This image (the poster for the premiere performance of Sapho) is currently being discussed at Misplaced Pages:Featured picture candidates/Sapho. Click on the image for a bigger view. Voceditenore (talk) 10:30, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

For comparison, the previous version of this image is at File:Massenet Sapho.jpg. Voceditenore (talk) 10:33, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Mind you, we'll have to see whether this can pass FP. This is not a very pretty poster, one has to admit, so it's going to have to pass on Encyclopedic Value, which is pretty obviously quite high, but requires the FP crowd to read the necessary information about it instead of skimming over. Adam Cuerden 15:06, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Promoted and now added to the Portal:Opera rotation. Congratulations, Adam. Voceditenore (talk) 09:03, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Thank you! Adam Cuerden 13:16, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

One thing I do wish - as much as I love Sullivan and Massenet - is that we could get a better variety of composers into the FP rotation there. Adam Cuerden 06:48, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

See my comment in the section about your latest nomination. We have 33 pictures in rotation, and they're quite varied. I also use a lot of FPs in the portal that depict other things than just posters or illustrations of actual operas. I use ones that depict settings, opera houses, people whose lives or works inspired operas etc. They're quite useful, as I can often get several operas mentioned per each picture and the whole point of the portal is to introduce the subject as widely as possible to readers. See, for example, Portal:Opera/Selected picture/21. Voceditenore (talk) 17:12, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Spelling Theatre/Theatre again

Another move discussion at Theatre District, New York failed to make the point that it has long been the consensus at en.Misplaced Pages to spell the word "theatre", in part because theatre professionals prefer this spelling throughout the English-speaking world, and because this spelling it is not wrong anywhere, while "theater" is wrong in many places,such as the UK. Those who write about theatre, including New York theatre, should have been notified of the discussion at the obvious WikiProjects but were not. Note that nearly all of the Broadway theatres are called "X Theatre". I have now notified the Theatre and Musical theatre WikiProjects and this project of the discussion, and I hope that, even though we have gone over this again and again, editors will weigh in at Theater District, New York (either way, of course) and demonstrate the consensus again. Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:36, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, going by the article, it's apparently officially zoned as the "Theater Subdistrict". Perhaps it might be best to just use that, since that spelling, at least, is presumably unambiguous. As for the other options... well, the admin messed up; the policy for ENGVAR is that where there's ambiguity, you use wherever the article got made first; you do not move it. The rest of the discussion now seems to be an attempt to block discussion of a bad admin action, and to make sure it's perpetuated. Adam Cuerden 03:52, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Opera FPs

I'm running a bit low. Outside of a questionably-good one for Patience (opera), a good Falstaff (opera), and a very-hard-to-scan A2-size Ruddigore, the only other thing on the table is some more Le Cid (opera), and that one's getting a little illustration-heavy at that point. Anyone have any suggestions for good opera illustrations? Or, for that matter, have anything they could scan? Adam Cuerden 17:13, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Nancy Storace - Eyes please

We've got an IP, Special:Contributions/68.146.78.244, with a bee in their bonnet about her year of birth which is contrary to all reliable published sources and is "referencing" this stuff to genealogy websites and his own conjectures based a picture from Find-a-Grave. I'm the most recent editor to revert him. I've added 2 highly reliable published sources as an inline citation for the YoB and also added a section to Talk:Nancy Storace. Voceditenore (talk) 19:53, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Wow, that was fast. :-). And a special thanks to Antandrus for fixing the ref. Of all things, I had made a typo in the chapter title which reproduced the wrong date. Doh! Voceditenore (talk) 07:19, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

On which subject... Adam Cuerden 04:51, 11 March 2013 (UTC)]]

This image has been nominated as a Featured Picture. The discussion is at Misplaced Pages:Featured picture candidates/File:Nancy Storace Portrait By Pietro Bettelini.jpg. - Voceditenore (talk) 07:19, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Full linkage composer navboxes

I have noticed that WP:OPERA has a preference for a type of navbox in the standard infobox position (e.g. {{Verdi operas}} or {{Handel oratorios}}) I have recently begun creating more complete footer style navboxes such as {{George Frideric Handel}} and {{Giuseppe Verdi}}. Was there a decision somewhere against footer style navboxes. Also, why do the biographies tend to have neither until I place mine on them?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:46, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I can speak only for myself, but it happened only yesterday that I looked at Messiah and thought Handel should have a navbox. Thank you! Also for Verdi, of course! I will add Handel's to the other Messiah articles, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:11, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I added Handel to the four articles assisting Messiah, and two to Handel Festivals (Halle, Göttingen), and added Verdi's non-operatic works. The article on Quattro pezzi sacri is a challenge, politely speaking, in the year of his bicentenary, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:36, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Please add each article to {{George Frideric Handel}} when you add the template to the article.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:16, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, I would not mind some assistance arranging the templates as I create them. This Handel one seems particularly in need of organization.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:18, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

As far as I know, we haven't had any discussions about full-linkage ones since I've been a member (2008). The current opera navboxes were originally developed in late 2006 . There were discussions here (2009) and most recently here (2011) about the opera navboxes and whether to make them horizontal footers or keep them as vertical headers. The general consensus was to keep them vertical, partly because of the immense amount of work required to change everything over + re-add {{Italic title}} manually to all the articles switched to horizontal ones. Having said that, I kind of prefer the horizontal ones. They give much more flexibility as to what to use for the lead image. Voceditenore (talk) 15:52, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I think many people who work a lot with classical and opera music are probably use to the infobox position. Many other users are trained to look for templates like these at the bottom of pages. If there are no issues, I will continue creating footer style templates.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:16, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Am I right in thinking that all the dropdown boxes are of single lists, eg Donizetti operas? Whereas the footers you are creating have multiple sections? If so, there's a natural distinction between the two, and thus current placings sees natural. ie imo it all looks good to me :-) almost-instinct 10:00, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I like the bottom navboxes, because they have greater flexibility for grouping than the narrow space where readers expect an infobox (hint hint). In {{Franz Lehár}}, the mixture of English and German titles looks a bit strange to me. - I would like to add years to the works of Wagner and Handel, but - especially for Wagner - don't know which one to take, start of composition or premiere, sometimes that's a big difference, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:20, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

CfD Category:History of China in operas

This category and its 4 sub categories have been nominated for deletion. The discussion is here. Voceditenore (talk) 10:24, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

New article for a new Scottish opera

I've just created Ghost Patrol (opera) - I've not done it as well as I hoped I might, so I would be grateful for heavy-handed polish! Creating a new article shouldn't be done late in the evening, I suppose almost-instinct 22:26, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Since it won a South Bank Show award yesterday, there might be a DYK hook in there for people who like doing those. See the article for a link about that almost-instinct 22:28, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Yet another opera-related image restoration

Cover illustration by M. Browne and Herbert Railton for the October 1, 1892 Illustrated London News, showing a scene from Sydney Grundy and Arthur Sullivan's Haddon Hall.

I'm going to be on-stage in The Yeomen of the Guard next week, so I'm afraid the opera portal is likely to get some more Sullivan. Little bit worried that portal is getting dominated by Massenet and Sullivan, but, well, you know, there's only so much I can do alone, and I happen to have a lot of Massenet and Sullivan stuff. Hell, I have a few more illustrations to Le Cid yet to come, and there's already two FPs for that. Adam Cuerden 13:00, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

• The image is being discussed for promotion to FP at Misplaced Pages:Featured picture candidates/Haddon Hall. Voceditenore (talk) 14:37, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there will be a problem of overload at the portal. We now have 33 Featured Pictures in rotation at the portal. See here. Currently, only 2 are G&S related, and 5 Massenet related (for 4 different operas), and they're all randomized. Voceditenore (talk) 14:53, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh, good. I didn't realise how few of the G&S FPs were part of the portal - that was an issue a few years ago, and I just presumed it was still the case. (That said, File:Utopia Limited Poster.jpg is probably the best of the G&S FPs, and might be worth adding.) Adam Cuerden 20:07, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Opera template usage

I have now made hundreds of multimedia templates. Previously, we discussed the usage of biographical footer style navboxes. I would like to encourage one additional consideration by this project. I find WP:OPERA to be inconsistent with other projects in its template usage in terms of its most prominent works. Those works that have spawned the most topics notable enough to have wikipedia articles are welcomed on the pages of the authors in other related fields. E.g. at Oscar Wilde or Fyodor Dostoyevsky you can see how other projects accept these templates on the author's pages. I have now created 10 traditional opera templates: {{Der Ring des Nibelungen}}, {{Parsifal}}, {{Rigoletto}}, {{Pagliacci}}, {{Aida}}, {{Carmen}}, {{The Magic Flute}}, {{Madama Butterfly}}, {{The Tales of Hoffmann}}, {{The Merry Widow}} and one Rock opera {{Tommy}}. I have tried putting about five or six of these on the authors' pages, but have been rebuffed in the majority of my attempts. Can you explain the project's logic.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:33, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean for example, adding {{Rigoletto}} and {{Aida}} to Giuseppe Verdi? I can see how some readers might find it useful, actually. As long as the templates are added in their collapsed state, I see nothing wrong with it all. Which composer articles have these individual opera templates been removed from? Voceditenore (talk) 16:32, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Might there be concern that eventually the Verdi page will have templates for Aida Rigoletto Otello Falstaff Traviata Trovatore Macbeth....you see, I'm sure, where I'm going here.... almost-instinct 16:55, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

P.S. if you want to see a stack like at Oscar Wilde, we would likely have to include Opera composer links in the main body of the template, for templates sourced from other media. E.g., the first line at {{Ivanhoe}} would have to be changed to Ivanhoé (Rossini) · Der Templer und die Jüdin (Marschner) · Il templario (Nicolai) · Ivanhoe (Sullivan). That would take a lot of work and possibly some consensus along with people outside of OPERA. Don't think that is the way to go at this time or at least it is well beyond what I am trying to do now.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:33, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but as long as they're parked at the bottom and collapsed, they're harmless, and like I say, some readers could find them useful. Voceditenore (talk) 17:04, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

First keep in mind that many of the operas that you mention are derivatives so the template would belong on the Shakespeare page and not the Opera author page. It is rare when the opera is considered the work most people are deriving from. Also, note that since Shakespeare page would have so many, the individual plays are not currently on that page. The most I have seen on a page has been at Charles Dickens. About half of those were ones I created. At some point, I will probably talk with the Shakespeare folks about having 25 or 30 templates on the page, but that is another issue. IIRC, {{Carmen}}, {{The Magic Flute}}, {{Madama Butterfly}} and {{The Tales of Hoffmann}} have all been removed from the author pages. I don't think there are even 10 more source operas that have 4 or more notable derivative pages. Often when I do a notable opera, I end up with something like {{Turandot}} that is not considered to be an opera source. For the few that are truly considered sources of other works, I think we should put them on the author pages. We should keep in mind that for many authors, their greatest operas are derivatives of other sources, which may explain confusion about why this policy is different for operas.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:19, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I ususally use autocollapse, which means it will collapse in the presence of another template. All of these authors should have biographical templates including all their great works. So these additional templates should collapse.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:23, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Wow! I'll be interested to hear what the Shakespeare folks have to say when you propose adding 25 or 30 templates to the Bard's page. :) Yes, I see what you're getting at in terms of which ones you suggest putting on the composer's page. I don't have a problem with it but I'd suggest that when used on any opera or composer page, they be collapsed by default, regardless of the presence of another template. Voceditenore (talk) 17:48, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I am going to get feedback from Melodia (talk · contribs) who has removed {{Carmen}} from Georges Bizet, {{The Magic Flute}} from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and {{The Tales of Hoffmann}} from Jacques Offenbach and Michael Bednarek (talk · contribs) who removed {{Madama Butterfly}} from Giacomo Puccini.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:44, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I removed the template {{Madama Butterfly}} from Giacomo Puccini's article because I don't see how this template (please look at it) can contribute any meaningful information to Puccini's biography. On the contrary, it will contribute to navbox clutter, especially if such work templates are added in large numbers to biographies. I don't think such clutter is more acceptable because it appears at the bottom of articles. The collection at Wilde and Dostoyevsky does nothing to convince me otherwise. In short, I don't believe in the goal of A navbox on every page; instead, I'm wary of template creep.

Returning to some earlier arguments: How are these templates "multimedia" templates? An author's most notable works are invariably mentioned in the narration; less notable works are mentioned either in a section "List of works" or in a separate page mentioned in the biography. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:42, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I am with Michael Bednarek on this. He poses the essential question: what does this template add to Puccini's biography? Answer - nothing. And a template for each of his operas (even for only the most popular ones) on his biography page would be simply clutter, encouraging the first-time reader to get lost, rather than to understand the topic of the article. The aim of Wikipeida is after all to be an on-line encyclopedia, not a version of Pinterest.--Smerus (talk) 07:53, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

In general I like these boxes at the bottom of pages, when collapsed, but I'm in agreement with the general argument that boxes relating to individual works belong on those pages, and not on the author/composer's page. (In the opposite direction, I can imagine that a box relating to a composer being suitable for the page for one of their creations) almost-instinct 08:47, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

A thin horizontal bar at the very foot of an article page (not even at the end of the article itself) hardly qualifies as "clutter", even if there were 5 or 6 of them. They do not interfere in any way with the article's image layout or the flow of the prose and sections. I also find it hard to see how they can "distract" the reader from reading the article. You only come to them when you have gone through the whole article right to the bottom of the page. And let's suppose the reader gets to the end of the article page and wants to follow up something they've read there. It's a lot easier to click on the navbox than to go back through the article to find the wikilink again. The only issue that might arise is if the article is very long and heavily illustrated. Having more than a few navboxes at the end might conceivably affect page loading time, but that's about it. I really cannot understand the opposition to something so innocuous and unobtrusive that could be of benefit to some readers and/or pique their interest in related subjects. Voceditenore (talk) 10:11, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

As the template creator, I am obviously a supporter of their inclusion. There is data that provides the answer to whether people on the biography pages click through to derivative work from the templates. I don't have access to that data. However, anyone who does, actually can say whether multimedia templates are useful. I don't actually know, but I find them useful. I believe people are interested in adaptations of an author's work. That is my guess. As for Michael Bednarek (talk · contribs)'s question "How are these templates 'multimedia' templates?", either he or I misunderstands the term. The template he removed contains a variety of media types (plays, music, literature, film, musicals and operas). Maybe I am not understanding MB's point, but that seems to fall squarely in the multimedia class.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:02, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I would leave the templates with the pieces, as the info seems too distant from the biography of the opera composer, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:59, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

@TonyTheTiger: I understand the term "multimedia" as "content that uses a combination of different content formats", not as a list of "a variety of media types". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:14, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break for navigation

We seem to be getting away from the point as to whether these templates are appropriate for the biography articles. No one seems yet to have given an positive rationale for this. I can see that they are appropriate for the works themselves and the other topics mentioned in the template - many of which have little or nothing to do with the biography. As TonyTheTiger points out, the template which Michael Bednarek removed 'contains a variety of media types (plays, music, literature, film, musicals and operas)' - none of which illuminate the life of Puccini. Some of them might- conceivably - relate to critical or cultural reception of Puccini, but there is no mention of any of this in the article itself. And indeed the template is not, as it is headed, about 'Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly' - it is about the subject of 'Madam Butterfly' in general, and (I wilingly concede) very interesting in that context. Maybe the issue here is in fact the titles of TonyTheTiger's templates - the contents of the templates themselves do not actually correspond to their titles.--Smerus (talk) 14:17, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

It's not just the titles that are potentially misleading. I haven't got time to check the growing number of these horizontal navboxes for individual operas. But from what I've seen so far, so many of them have been problematic, that every single one needs to be checked. Today's Template:Don Giovanni was a mess. It listed Réminiscences de Don Juan as an opera, when it is nothing of the kind. And what does that field "Operas" mean? Operas based on Mozart's opera? Operas using the same libretto? Operas using the same libretto source? Operas vaguely similar in some aspect of the plot? Ditto for the field "Literature". What does that mean? I removed Mary and the Giant which has only the vaguest of similarities in plot, and quotes one reviewer who said he thought he saw similarities. Also what is that template doing in Category:Film templates? Can we at least have all these navboxes for individual operas in one consistent and bespoke category so we can find them and gradually check them all for accuracy, consistency, and usability? Until that is done, I am now totally against adding these as footers to any opera composer articles. Voceditenore (talk) 17:33, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I am not an opera virtuoso, scholar or student. Please forgive my good faith effort to classify Réminiscences de Don Juan as an opera. Yes today I deployed {{Don Juan}} and {{Don Giovanni}}. In Mary and the Giant, the author claims it is a retelling of Don Giovanni. I think it should be restored to the template for the good of the reader for this reason. I could be wrong. It could be as different as West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet but note that the former is on the template for the latter. With this in mind and given the author's intent, I think it is consistent with WP general policy for me to restore this to the template.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:20, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Tony, I don't question your good faith at all, and as I said these templates are potentially useful in theory. But the fact remains that they are problematic and all of them need to be checked and cross-checked for consistency of the field names used, care that the field names are not misleading, and that what you're adding to any field is accurate. It's important to read an article all the way through, and if necessary follow up the other links in it before adding it to a particular field or even adding it all, as in the case of Réminiscences de Don Juan. This is especially important if you're creating templates in a subject area where you don't have particular expertise. As far as I know, we're not in a race here or under some kind of deadline, so why not take the time to do them slowly and properly? Re the novel, Mary and the Giant, the plot never even approaches the similarity between West Side Story and Shakespeare's R & J and the evidence for what those similarities are is vague and flimsy. Add it back if you think it's important, but what do you mean by the "Literature" field you had added it to. What does literature mean in that context? It's not at all clear to me, and I'm speaking as a reader in this case. Any novel, poem, play, etc. that shows even the vaguest similarity to the plot of Don Giovanni? Any literature which contains an allusion to the opera or its title? Any literature which might have been the source for the libretto? Voceditenore (talk) 18:57, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

At this point I have made about 200-300 of what I call multimedia templates (See User:TonyTheTiger/creations#Templates_Created). Loose adaptations are always a judgement call. There are often cases where something is a parody or adaptation of 4 or 5 different things. I don't include those on a template. I don't include things that are only linked by title in most cases, although {{Casanova}} is a bit of an exception. In some cases the article is so thin, the title is almost all that I have to go by (E.g, Don Juan in Hell (film) and Don Giovanni in Sicilia). Again this is a judgment call. Oddly, the most consistently difficult decisions seem to be episodes of The Simpsons because its seems a vast proportion of the shows are parodying famous literature. However, the shows often parody three or four different works in the same show. I have not actually been that consistent/careful with my field names. E.g., sometimes operas, musicals, ballets, and/or plays might all get lumped under stage and in other cases each has enough works for its own separate field.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:37, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Use Navbox

Orlando furioso
Antonio Vivaldi
More about the composer

Now that we have great composer navboxes, I suggest we make them more visible. In Orlando furioso (Vivaldi), I tried to replace the collapsed list of Vivaldis operas by a link to the navbox which supplies much more, - please discuss --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:52, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

In Motezuma I tried adding a bit about the work, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:35, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

In order to see how it would work and discuss, look at Orlando furioso --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:36, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Gerda, I have reverted the box on Orlando furioso (Vivaldi) and pasting it here, so people can see what it looked like). First, to the reader who knows little or nothing about the subject, it could be read as the person in the image being someone named Orlando Furioso. Secondly, the self-referencing to direct the reader to another navbox at the bottom of the page "More about the composer" is wildly inappropriate in my view. The hyperlink on Antonio Vivaldi in the first sentence of the lede takes the reader to much more "More about the composer", not simply to a list of articles about his work with no explanation whatsoever about him, i.e. the navbox. If the footer navboxes are useful, people will use them. You don't use the head of the article to send the reader to the bottom of it. There's no need to add that to the image of the composer. There is a reason why those composer navboxes are used in this way in articles about their operas. It is to provide the list of their operas in chronological order which helps set the current one in context and provides quick links at the top of the page, and that was the previous consensus. Also, I do not agree that the composer navboxes are "great". They are OK, but somewhat inconsistent between themselves, and in the past, I have found several of the ones by TT, mostly on the individual operas to be actually wrong or misleading in places.

As for Motezuma (which I also reverted), what you are doing there is basically making a big change that affects all opera articles—unilaterally adding an opera infobox which has a completely different function (although you used infobox person for Orlando Furioso). I'm not necessarily against that, provided there is a consensus here to to start changing all the opera articles to something like this, but it's a big change, which affects all the articles about operas, and in the transition stage, there will be big inconsistencies across our articles. If you want to do that, and I know you are keen to add infoboxes in general to virtually every kind of article, then it needs to be discussed in a separate section here. See below. Voceditenore (talk) 07:59, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for discussing a test (see below also), you have to imagine the link to the navbox because it's not on this page, or look at the previous version where you can try it. I think it might be a way to have less info at the top, but still point out that it's there, but am not passionate about it ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:38, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

ps: we have now a lot of comment on infoboxes in the navbox-section, also the other way - if split, can we really split? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:42, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes we can split it and we should split it into something more focused and explicit. What you were proposing in this section was not simply the addition of something to an existing infobox. You are proposing a complete change of a long-standing practice, i.e. the invention of a new infobox and replacing the traditional navbox with the composer's image with this new box on every article that has one of TT's horizontal multi-article footer templates. The general principle needs to be discussed in the section below and simultaneously at Template talk:Infobox opera what sorts of fields would be appropriate on a potential Opera infobox with the latter discussion used to inform the general discussion. It should not be done via changing two articles unilaterally and presenting it as a fait accompli. Voceditenore (talk) 14:44, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Opera infoboxes

I am re-opening this subject, previously discussed here (2009) and most recently here (2011), as to whether we should begin changing over opera articles to have an infobox about the opera at the top of the page, and navboxes for the composer's works at the bottom of the page. The one at the right is an example. Voceditenore (talk) 07:39, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for discussing, it is no more than that, with the wording more a placeholder than anything else. I would like to point out at the top of an article that a lot more is available at the bottom, - how can we do that best - or do people know? I could imagine to add some vital information in an infobox, therefore I combined the ideas, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:59, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

It's inappropriate to "tell" the reader something like that and to "advertise" what else is on the page. The reader will scroll to the bottom if they are interested. That really is clutter, and it's both distracting and misleading. As I said before, the hyperlink to the composer in the lede or in the currently used composer navbox at the top takes you to the article which tells the reader more about Vivaldi. The box tells them nothing about Vivaldi except which articles Misplaced Pages has on some of his compositions. It has some potentially useful information about what is in Misplaced Pages about him, but in no way would I describe it as "vital information". List of compositions by Antonio Vivaldi and List of operas by Vivaldi has vital information, properly documented—not that footer navbox. And for the operas, which would be relegated to the footer, they are far less easy to read (much smaller print), and see in chronological order than the current navbox devoted solely to his operas which is currently on the top of the page. Even if we were to switch to infoboxes about each individual opera, I would be very against adding the anchor link you propose. Voceditenore (talk) 08:15, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

"If they are interested", readers will scroll, - I wonder how many only see the top, and wish I could interest some of those in more. I meant the word "vital" only for the infobox, not the navbox, did I say that wrong? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

No, it's not remotely "vital information" for any proposed opera infobox. The vital information would be links to List of compositions by Antonio Vivaldi and List of operas by Vivaldi. If the proposed opera infobox links to the proper complete lists of his works, they will see them right away. The footer navbox is just that, yet another navigation aid for someone who potentially wants one but of no educational value. It has no vital information about either Vivaldi or the works listed in it. Therefore, the link actually misleads the reader. Incidentally, the guidelines on infoboxes are to not use them to navigate to sections of the page itself. Voceditenore (talk) 08:40, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

As for the box you are currently proposing, Gerda, "Text" is wrong for that field, it should be "Libretto". But that and the anchor link to the the footer navbox are issues to be left for when there is a consensus, if any, to switch over to these kinds of boxes. So I suggest we keep to that topic first. It's a big change and involves a lot of work for the editors here, and that's what needs discussion first, not what to put in it. Voceditenore (talk) 08:49, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

We had a misunderstanding. I had the idea (see above) that if we have a broad list about a composer in a navbox, we don't have to repeat his operas on top, and would win room for some information about that particular opera. But if we don't do that - and I see good reasons not to do it, - forget that. I was talking only about composers for whom we have a navbox, such as Handel, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:11, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

My attitude in this matter is perfectly expressed by quoting Voceditenore from the above-linked 2011 discussion: "I don't think it would be practical to start changing the navboxes to horizontal and ditto developing an opera infobox. There are just too many current navboxes that would have to be changed, not to mention the time-sink involved in developing and agreeing on an opera infobox, for not much gain in terms of actually improving articles themselves." -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:30, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I understood what you were on about, Gerda, but you were simultaneously doing that by adding a whole new type of infobox at the top of articles, and one which incidentally removed the {{italic title}} format. For now, I do not think the current box is necessarily redundant. However, I actually think it might be a good idea to switch over to a well-designed opera infobox for some or possibly all articles, and it would be a useful and timely discussion to have. But we need to discuss the general principal first, because it's quite a big change. I don't think it's a good idea or helpful to just randomly add them to two articles and then have a diffuse conversation about what's in the ones you added. I've contacted all the OP members who have participated at least once on this talk page in the last year and invited them to the discussion. We need lots of views, not least because changing over also means potentially quite a lot of extra work. But once again, the discussion in this section should be about the general principle first, and not about how to advertise the footer navboxes to the readers. Voceditenore (talk) 09:32, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Why does it need both a date and a "period"? Presumably our definitions of periods are going to be following the usual 1600-1750-1830-1900 rubbish, as if Vivaldi's opera had more to do with Orfeo than with Mozart opera seria. I suggest that if people wants us to discuss the introduction of opera infoboxes they go away and design a good one, thinking carefully about what fields are suitable (interesting and factual fields) and they present it. This constant swamping of this page with this topic is becoming a HUGE distraction almost-instinct 09:36, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

(ec) How would you suggest some people "go away"? - Classical music is discussing "orchestra", collecting needed fields first, now a sample is built and is under discussion. Perhaps wait for a model there? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:09, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

See my comment below, Gerda, re Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Opera/Opera infobox drafts. First of all, this is not WikiProject Classical music and what they do there and how they discuss it is up to them. Secondly, the proposal there is to change an existing infobox, already in many articles. You are proposing a very big change and that we go ahead and develop an infobox which has never been in any opera articles. I would personally prefer a more methodical and gradual approach via discussing the general principle first. Voceditenore (talk) 10:23, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I am not necessarily against a navbox if it is kept simple. A few points at this stage, based on the example given - please take a look at the template specifications in edit, as some of the points I mention below are not visible in the example as it shows:

• Why premiere conductor, place, performers, etc? These are typically better laid out in the 'roles' box in the article. You open endless pointless debate about e.g. which performers to include.
• Why portrait of composer? Isn't it better to show a scene from the opera, or a page from its score or whatever, if available? The article is after all about the opera. If nothing form the opera avaialble, then there should be no pic.
• 'Period' and 'Style' - again, potential prompts for endless pointless squabbling; if the article is any good it will contextualise this issue appropriately. Forget it for a navbox.
• Scoring, solo, choir, instruments - why? Such detailed info belongs to the article.
• Published - does this mean date? or publisher? But in any case, so what? Irrelevant for a navbox; forget it.
• 'Text' should of course be 'libretto' as per Voceditenore.

An infobox on these lines would I think be non-intrusive, broadly non-controversial and would meet WP:KISS.--Smerus (talk) 10:00, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I took the existing infobox musical composition as it is, as I am better with examples than theory, subject to discussion. The fields don't have to be filled everytime. I used it for an article mentioning the premiere only as a fact, without artists, for example, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:09, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm in favour of first paragraphs, not infoboxes (not in this topic area anyway). As I've repeatedly stated, prose is so much more flexible and accurate than a standardised, Procrustean "bucket full o'factoids" in the right-hand corner. Nobody has ever given me a convincing argument - in fact, any argument at all - why people are incapable of reading the opening sentences of an article. Also, infoboxes on short or stub articles would be ridiculous, merely repeating the content of the article in quadrilateral form.--Folantin (talk) 10:22, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Some people are incapable of reading English prose, but able to understand keywords. I agree that having for example a premiere date marked as such in the text by an invisible keyword, and showing its day/month/year in numbers hidden, but words to be seen, would be even better, but we are not there yet --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:38, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

"Some people are incapable of reading English prose". Oh really? Isn't there a Simple English Misplaced Pages for such hypothetical people anyway? --Folantin (talk) 10:41, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Hee Hee. I have a secret life . Voceditenore (talk) 14:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

It is, but doesn't help people who want to take the key facts to one of the many Misplaced Pages languages around the globe. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:45, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

What? What does this even mean? If people can't read English, then there are Wikipedias in dozens and dozens of other languages.--Folantin (talk) 10:47, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

How many languages have Vivaldi's Motezuma or Wagner's Tannhäuser? How many could more easily assemble a decent stub in their language and an interwiki-link if we supplied basic data in an infobox? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:25, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

This is English Misplaced Pages. It's written in English prose. It's for users who speak English. I've engaged in plenty of cross-Wiki collaborations with foreign-language editors, but it's been through the medium of speaking to each other and making sure information was accurate and sourced, not through infoboxes. Don't even get me started on the problems of machine translation...Bottom line is, if you can't speak English, you can't use English Misplaced Pages. --Folantin (talk) 14:52, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I've started Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Opera/Opera infobox drafts for editors who wish to monkey around with different styles and discuss the parameters a potential opera infobox should have. I tend to agree with Almost-instinct, that the minutiae of what to go in it should be worked out separately and then proposed here once (if) there is a general agreement amongst the editors that having an opera infobox in some or all articles is worthwhile idea. As per Michael and Smerus, I think working on that separate page would be a real eye-opener as to just how much of a time-sink working out an acceptable one can be for editors who want it to meet WP:KISS and those who want a second vertical article running down the side of the page. So please, no more pasting of different versions of a potential box on this page, and no more random experiments in article space. I personally find the latter very disruptive. Simply discuss here whether in principle it's worth pursuing and ultimately switching over some articles to this type of infobox. Then, we can discuss the one that's on offer. Voceditenore (talk) 10:16, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Moved to Template talk:Infobox opera. I've started a draft at {{Infobox opera}}. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:03, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Hey, folks, let's step back for a minute; this thing shows signs of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Despite more than one admonition, we're seeing a lot of "what should be in the box/why is that in the box/shouldn't that part of the box be phrased differently?" cart before much of any "do we even want to do this?" horse. For my part, I'm not so sure. On the one hand, there's no doubt that boxes add visual interest to the articles in which they appear. On the other, as has been noted, developing them and adding them systematically to all the opera articles in Misplaced Pages promises to be a task like tidying up the Augean stables. So:

• Aside from some modest cosmetic improvements, what's the universe of things we think adding boxes could do to improve articles?
• Within that universe, what do we want them to do?
• Within that universe, what is practical for them to do?
• And is that benefit worth the investment of time and effort and the discord that inevitably will ensue?

Please--if we don't have clear objectives and expectations in mind, this initiative promises to degenerate into another of those periodic pointless infobox brouhahas that have sapped so much time and energy to so little point over the past several years. Drhoehl (talk) 21:13, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Purpose, style, approach, considerations and much more are available here, if they are really not known. - "Adding them to all opera articles" is not the question I see, but that a standard should be thoughtful even if added to only a few. (It's easy for me to say so, because I didn't suffer the "past several years". I am new to the topic, with a history of fighting infoboxes.) Here's my classic example what granular data means, mentioned in the purpose section. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:52, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Fankly, I have little patience with trying to follow these long discussions. I'd rather be working on articles - and, heaven knows, there's plenty of work to do there!

Even if we determine that there are good reasons for adding these boxes, is the expenditure of energy not better spent on getting the articles themselves improved? Can't say I'm a fan of adding them. Viva-Verdi (talk) 23:45, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what you will resolve with this issue, but I have a list of composers for whom I intend to create footer templates. I have already created {{Franz Lehár}}, {{Jacques Offenbach}}, {{Georges Bizet}}, {{Giacomo Puccini}}, {{Giuseppe Verdi}}, {{George Frideric Handel}}, {{Antonio Vivaldi}}, {{Gioachino Rossini}} They include most of the major composers who don't already have them: Ruggero Leoncavallo, Gaetano Donizetti, Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss II, Benjamin Britten, Engelbert Humperdinck, Charles Gounod, Leoš Janácek, Pietro Mascagni, Vincenzo Bellini, Franz Schubert, Philip Glass, Maurice Ravel, Antonio Salieri, Henry Purcell, Gaetano Donizetti, Claudio Monteverdi, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, André Previn, Anna Netrebko, Paul Dickey, Charles Goddard.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Orlandi furiosi

Just to vary the topics....I notice from the Vivaldi template mentioned by Gerda that of Vivaldi's two operas on Orlando furioso, one article is entitled Orlando furioso (Vivaldi), and the other Orlando furioso (RV 819). Shouldn't the former be moved to Orlando furioso (RV 728)?--Smerus (talk) 09:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

And then of course Orlando furioso (Vivaldi) should become a disambig--Smerus (talk) 09:28, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I submit that the current names are fully supported by WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:33, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I fully agree with Michael on this. As it is, "(RV 819)" isn't an optimal form of disambiguating between the two current Orlandi. It's very opaque to the average reader. Voceditenore (talk) 13:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Well is there a better way of labelling RV 819 then? - e.g. Orlando Furioso (Vivaldi - 1714 version) - --Smerus (talk) 15:27, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

To someone who had no idea there were two versions, this strikes me as a good way of expressing it almost-instinct 15:29, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

There's a precedent: Anacréon (Rameau, 1754) and Anacréon (Rameau, 1757) (two different operas by the same composer with the same title). --Folantin (talk) 15:32, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, something similar for the current Orlando furioso (RV 819) would be a good solution. Voceditenore (talk) 15:34, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Orlando furioso (Vivaldi, 1714)? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:37, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Done.--Smerus (talk) 16:37, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Ah, if only all discussions here were that easy. :) Thanks, Smerus. Voceditenore (talk) 16:51, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I changed the two templates but don't know how to pipe so that people know that it is not The Orlando but the early fragment, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:10, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I have sorted this.--Smerus (talk) 20:34, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:25, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

In Re All of the Above

I am inspired by the very sane comments of Dr. Hoehl to make the following points:

1) This is an Opera Project. I am not interested in the insane proposals to weld all the world's knowledge into a virtual nugget, and if I were, there are other platforms in which I could discuss it. In fact all that can be said on this futile topic was brilliantly dealt with 150 years ago by George Eliot in her portrait of Dr. Casaubon in Middlemarch - go read it if you haven't. I therefore suggest that the next person who mentions 'granularity' (yes, I mean you, Gerda), or who attempts to bully editors by alleging huge techno revolutions going on somewhere out there, is suspended from this project for a period ranging from one femasecond to numerous millenia. This may be WP:OR, but I suggest that 95%+ of the regular editors in this project are interested in opera and wish to write about opera. And don't give a f**k about metadata. As it has been made abundantly clear that the use of infoboxes is neither mandatory nor forbidden, regardless of trending geekery in the world of WP, that I think gives this project grounds for setting this aspect aside permanently.

2) Looking at the Orlando Furiosi, (where the question in hand was, aazingly, resolved as far as it went), I note that these operas (and many others) now have the same information twice, the picture template at the top and the flat template at the bottom. One of these, at least, is redundant and therefore clutter. Can we develop a policy as to which should stay? If the flat template stays (in Vivaldi and elsewhere), I see no intrinsic objection to a modest infobox at top right hand corner, which would be no more intrusive that the existing template. Any attempt to make such a box rival the article with more than very basic information however would be ridiculous. I have made my suggestions as to what such an infobox might contain in the appropriate place and am entirely content (of course!) in any case, to go with the wishes of the project as a whole.

3) As regards the efforts of Tony the Tiger, these really seem to me to be on the level of graffiti. They are are, as I have indicated above, mistitled. There can be no rational justification for a template to contain (for example) both a discography of Puccini's 'Madame Butterfly' and a Broadway show on a similar storyline. You could indeed have a template for the 'Madame Butterfly' storyline and its various incarnations, but it wouldn't belong in an article on Puccini, and wouldn't include the opera discography. And so on for all the others. If TtT has an obsession with disseminating his inspirations in this way, then unfortunately it falls to us to clean up after him, so far as it affects this project, unless we seek more extreme sanctions.

Пока - --Smerus (talk) 07:01, 19 March 2013 (UTC)