Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 37

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Archives Table of Contents

Operas by year

I've added a line on operas by year to Other categories.Sparafucil 00:15, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Our Project page expresses no preference between (opera) and (composer). If, for example, I created a stub [[The other Scottish opera (Sciarrino)]], should I leave Macbetto alone or move it to [[The other Scottish opera (Verdi)]]? This predicament also arises at Falstaff (disambiguation) in connection with a composer of the month. Cheers, Sparafucil 01:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

The project page does cover this. The section is Operas: avoiding ambiguity. So for example we have the play Macbeth, the main (Verdi) opera Macbeth (opera) and the minor opera(s) Macbeth (Bloch) etc. So no problem! -- Kleinzach 02:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, the most important (or is it the first created?) gets and keeps (opera). But Macbeth (disambiguation) is missing Bloch, and has (YYYY opera) for Verdi and Sciarrino. Shall I clean it up? Sparafucil 03:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes that's a good idea. That Macbeth (disambiguation) page is a bit wierd. -- Kleinzach 03:41, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Apropriately enough! They seem to have followed a movie naming convention.Sparafucil 06:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I've since got a followup here.

November Composer(s) of the Month

Here are some ideas/previous suggestions for the November composer(s) of the month:

• Early German composers and the development of Singspiele: Johann Adam Hiller (1728-1804), Anton Schweitzer (1735 - 1787), Johann André (1741-1799), Christian Gottlob Neefe (1748-1798), Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752-1814), Peter Winter (1754-1825)
• Kurt Weill (1900-1950) and Ernst Krenek (1900-1991)
• Gaspare Spontini (1774-1851) and Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842)
• Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)
• Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)
• Albert Lortzing (1801-1851)

Any other suggestions as always welcome! -- Kleinzach 03:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Krenek is one that I'd work on; Rossini (and Verdi for that matter) could still use some attention but wouldnt need to be a composer of the year like Gounod or Haydn.Sparafucil 06:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Cherubini was popular and influential during his lifetime (although I suppose not necessarily for his operas) and his article is weaker than he deserves. Strauss and Rossini are certainly popular enough to be improved on eventually without a specific drive being required Lethe 14:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Weill and/or Krenek for me - for no particular reason. Moreschi ^Talk 15:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

GT (currently away) and Peter Cohen were originally interested in Weill (here) so let's go with Weill and Krenek! Thanks. -- Kleinzach 11:44, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Tchaikovsky question

Okay - so I can see why Compositional style of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky might be its own article - it's really long, so should be separated from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. But my question is - does the new article get the same cats as the old one? I mean "Compositional style..." isn't a Category:Russian composer, right? Or how does that work? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 09:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to our tech guru! Unfortunately Compositional style of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky isn't really in our bailiwick. Maybe Composers' Project? -- Kleinzach 15:09, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Hunh. Good point :) I'll try over there :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 07:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Articles needing verification

Here is a list of opera articles needing verification (i.e. sources): Farnace, Destiny (Janáček), Biuraliści, Bjørn Talén, Halka, Abbie Mitchell, Deborah Drattell, Vladimir Stoyanov, Goyescas, Lili bárónő, Tony Hall (arts manager), Orlando furioso (Vivaldi), Kaiserin Josephine, Arnljot, Marina Prior, Miss Julie (opera), Monika Gonzalez, Victoria State Opera, Gül Baba (operetta), The Boy Who Grew Too Fast, Alan John, Zampa, Isabella Colbran, The Haughty Princess, The Bravest Hussar

There are not so many of them and I'm wondering if we could each deal with a few of them? Thanks in advance. -- Kleinzach 09:41, 7 August 2007 (UTC) Footnote: I've just found there are other unverified articles but perhaps we can start with these? -- Kleinzach 10:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Done a couple. We should come back to this issue of unsourced articles periodically. It's good to keep on top of. After all, Wikipedia's main problem is our unreferenced content. Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 13:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I can't find refs for the Hungarian operettas. Any ideas? -- Kleinzach 15:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Here is another batch:A Night in the Appenines, Al gran sole carico d'amore, Alceste (Lully), Alexander Twice, Alfonso und Estrella, Alice Tully, Anne Azéma, Aranyvirág, Arizona Lady, Balbina Steffenone, Bel Canto Trio, Casanova's Homecoming, Christus (sacred opera), Der Wildschütz, Die Csárdásfürstin, Die Faschingsfee, Die Landstreicher, Dragaredokko, Europeras,, Fiona Keys, Francesco Feo, Gladys Swarthout, Ideał, czyli Nowe Precjoza, Il Guarany, Josephine Veasey, König Jérôme, La serva padrona -- Kleinzach 00:42, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

And another: Live from the Met, Maria Golovin, Maryetta Midgley, Faust and Marguerite, Monte Amundsen, Muriel Foster, Nelson Martinez, Porin (opera), Richard Stilwell (bass-baritone), Riverside Opera Ensemble, The New Don Quixote, Thomas Hampson (baritone) -- Kleinzach 23:32, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Moniuszko minimal, unsourced operetta stubs

We have six minimal stubs on minor works by Moniuszko, two of them unperformed, one lost, and all of them single sentences offering no more information than the main article on Moniuszko himself. They were started by User:Ernst Stavro Blofeld (who I have contacted). Most of them have verification tags on them.

I think the best thing to do is to make all of them re-directs to the main article on Moniuszko. Would anyone object, or have a different idea? -- Kleinzach 07:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Well do you consider the Halka article I started useless? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^{"Expecting you?" Contribs} 09:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I am not including the operas Halka and The Haunted Manor only the six operettas. -- Kleinzach 10:05, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

On the subject of Moniuszko: I was messing around with tables, and wondered, would this be of any use to expand on what is already on his page? Or is the format too ugly? If it's ok I'll do it for his other works on a seperate page for his full works Lethe 14:31, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Splendid! Is it based on Grove? Yes, that's ideal and I don't think it's ugly. Maybe it's short enough to go on the main Moniuszko page? What do other people think? One thing - one column says 'completed' but were some works left incomplete? Would 'composed' be an alternative? -- Kleinzach 10:08, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Whoopsie! I didn't notice the contradiction in the completed header, I'll change. The details are from this site (written by a Polish person, I can only assume they have insider info :-) ).

I'll add the table to his page, if anybody else can fill in some gaps that would be great (I think this article could reach GA status soon with a few section expansions and some more sourcing/rewording) Lethe 12:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

There's a similar list in Grove (from which we got our English translations) so I can check against that when you've finished. -- Kleinzach 12:25, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I've become dangerously obsessed with improving that page, hehe... I'd better give it a break for a little while, thanks Lethe 13:08, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I've now added details from Grove. The sources don't agree completely but that was probably to be expected. I've added to the existing information rather than changed it when Grove has different dates (especially for composition). -- Kleinzach 00:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much - those tables are getting pretty comprehensive now Lethe 02:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whther you want to do any more work on this page, perhaps to try to make it a GA? The biography is good, but perhaps the legacy section could be developed in more detail with more 'critical appreciation' stuff - also a discography? Maybe difficult without knowing some Polish? -- Kleinzach 02:52, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It would be very nice to get it to GA. Legacy does need expanding a lot (and music can be a bit, too), but it's more difficult finding things about that in English than biographies or discographies, as to Polish people his fame is a "given". It was hard enough cobbling together what is already there (the referencing I used on that section is very inelegant). I'll work on a small discography and see how that goes. Lethe 15:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I know some Polish if you can point me out some material you want looking at/translating (the Polish Wikipedia article is not that great, by the way). I can also check this article against some not very extensive info on M in Viking, The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera and CD booklets. --Folantin 15:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for helping :-) There are a few pages I had bookmarked that may be able to add to the article: [this one http://www.culture.pl/pl/culture/artykuly/dz_pl_moniuszko_spiewnik_1996] may have more information to add to the music section, and [this one http://www.culture.pl/pl/culture/artykuly/os_moniuszko_stanislaw] at the bottom seems to have a comprehensive list of Śpiewnik domowy songs to add to the songs section on his WP page - although I'm not sure if each sub-category under each volume is a small song cycle or single song (if it's a single one, then it's not as comprehensive as I thought it may be) Lethe 17:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like it's just a selection because the abbreviation "m. in" you see there is short for między innymi, i.e. inter alia or "amongst others". --Folantin 17:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, it looks like his songs are going to be a bit difficult. I Googled a selection of the songs on that list to see if any other site has a similar grouping (hopefully complete) but the only results were the culture.pl one and another with an identical selected list. I guess I'll put the song section expansion plan to rest for now Lethe 18:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Added a discography. It's a bit long, but with so few recordings made, it was realistic to include basically everything I encountered Lethe 21:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Eva Gauthier 'Good Article'

Marginal to opera, however this interesting page is now a 'Good Article'. -- Kleinzach 01:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Soprano page - Pop section

On the Soprano talk page I suggested permanently removing the Pop singers list to a new article. In the talk page, I have tl;dred the reasoning behind the proposal. John Holly 19:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

List of Orphean operas

A rather rough-and-ready version of this is now up, in case anyone cares. I've put a to-do list on the talk page, if anyone wants to chip in. At least this time we don't have the palaver over list selection...Cheers, Moreschi ^Talk 20:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Are you planning to add the names of the operas? --Folantin 20:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Ye-es. That does need to be done. There will be quite a lot of repetition, but not all the time. Moreschi ^Talk 20:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Address for the Kurt Weill template?

Hello all.

I've just spent a while unsuccessfully trying to locate the template page for the Kurt Weill navigation box, as I wanted to fix a link in it.

It appears from your page here that there used to be an article for the Brecht/Weill collaboration He Said Yes (Der Jasager, but it's broken now.

For the Brecht template, I created a stub page for this collaboration:

He Said Yes (play)

I've described it as a play since it's classed as a Lehrstücke or 'learning-play' in German.

Could someone point me to the template or else fix the link themselves?

Many thanks,

DionysosProteus 16:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Not sure whether there was ever a page on Der Jasager. It may have been a mislink, but according to the detailed article in Grove (by Stephen Hinton) it was a 'Schuloper' performed by singers rather than a play by Brecht. (The Kurt Weill musicals and operas navigation box wasn't done by us, but it's easy to fix as there is an edit link in the top left corner.) -- Kleinzach 18:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info on the edit link - hadn't noticed those before. About the genre, however, what you write is not exactly correct, I suspect thanks to your secondary sourcing. Weill describes it both as a Schuloper and as a Lehrstück (or 'learning-play'), as the primary material collected by the editors of the playtext confirm. It is an experimental form designed for performance without an audience and the author directs that "the two little plays should always be performed together". Given that Weill contributed no music to the second piece, and that they are a generically-hybrid, experimental form, I fail to understand why you have created a redundant page. The opera-entitling guidelines are idiosyncratic with regard to titles from all other media, and are superseded when a piece is well-known in its English-language translation, as the wide-readership of Brecht's playtexts produces (hence the article titles for Threepenny and Mahagonny). DionysosProteus 03:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you please check Stephen Hinton's article in Grove before continuing to edit the article on Der Jasager?. It's long and thorough-going. I suggest you develop the article focussing on the Brecht drama aspect He Said Yes. This only has one sentence at present, unlike the opera page. The idea that only the final revision of a work can be addressed by a WP article is not really tenable. (Hence Grove decided to publish an article on what you regard as a "redundant" page.) If you are concentrating on the Brecht dramas that's fine. Please go ahead, research and write up the works accordingly, but please leave the Weill pages alone if you are not interested in them and don't have sources. -- Kleinzach 04:02, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You are confused. By redundant I referred to your creation of a redundant page when there was already one in existence in the standard English-language translation with a redirect from the German title. You proceeded to undo the redirect and create a new page, inserting the material gleaned from Grove after this page had already been created and your attention drawn to it. I did not suggest that only a final version deserves consideration, as you can confirm for yourself by reading the text given above. I suggested that given the final version's pairing, and the piece's generically-hybrid nature, to create a second page is redundant, and pedantic without being accurate. I have primary sources, in Weill's own words, which I believe, trump any secondary description in terms of a Wiki hierarchy. There should not be two pages for the same piece, and according to the entitling guidelines, this is clearly a borderline case; I offered significant evidence for it remaining on the already-existing page, which you have studiously ignored. Why is this? DionysosProteus 05:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

There are precedents for treating an opera and a text separately when they have been used/developed separately. This is what Hinton says:"Brecht made two separate revisions . . . . The additional music supplied by Weill for the first revision has never been published, no doubt because it disrupts his original design, and there is no musical setting of Der Neinsager. "

There is no standard English-language translation for Der Jasager, unlike Die Dreigroschenoper and Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny. ('He Said Yes' is not an obvious translation.)

You redirected the opera link (to a planned article - Opera of the Month November above) to He Said Yes (play) which treats the work from the viewpoint of Brecht's final revision. Weill isn't even mentioned! At present the entire text of the article is as follows:

He Said Yes (Der Jasager) and He Said No (Der Neinsager) are a pair of related Lehrstücke by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht.)

I suggest you develop He Said Yes (play) so it is complementary to the other article. (It's possible they could eventually be merged.) (Finally I'd recommend avoiding starting minimal stubs as these are unrewarding for everybody, the reader included.) -- Kleinzach 06:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The Weill article really ought to be moved to Der Jasager (opera), or? It's fairly common on WP and elsewhere for plays not known by a single translation to be listed under the original title (Les aveugles), and He Said Yes sounds as weird to my ear as The Affirmer. Are these titles of actual translations? I've actually seen two productions of S/he Who Says Yes/No, but I wont suggest that this is closer to a standard title in the English speaking world than Der Jasager. Sparafucil 08:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

We try to avoid creating our own translations. (Multiple versions of the name are just confusing for the reader etc.) In this case 'the Affirmer' is the translation in Grove, so it has at least that degree of currency. (Also there's no reason to re-title Der Jasager. It's not ambiguous.) -- Kleinzach 10:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I have not responded to the most recent discussion about this because I have been waiting for the opportunity to consult the secondary source you recommended, as I like to speak from an informed position. You created a German-language title page, in contravention of the Wikipedia policy of naming opera--if that is what is is (and that is far from clear)--after the standard English translation when a piece is known as such (and the Amazon sales figures indicate that the single volume of Brecht plays that includes the piece has roughly comparable figures to the Grove Guide to Opera, which is a general work with one brief article on the piece; besides the fact that every A-level theatre studies student in this country knows it under its English-language title). Your objections about this appear to be based on a lack of familiarity with the work itself; specifically, that the English-language title offered by your secondary source, "The Affirmer", is an appropriate rendition in English - when familiarity with the work would inform you that this is simply a crude transliteration; the boy in the text is not an "Affirmer", like some nodding dog on the back window of a car or Bush's 'the Decider', he is someone who makes a singular, punctual decision just once, at the climax of the piece; it is for this reason that the standard critical edition of the works of Bertolt Brecht (recognised as such at least in universities both in Britain and the US, in my direct experience) renders the title as He Said Yes (He Who Said Yes has also been used in the past). As I say, though, I have not followed through on this discussion because I wanted to consult the article to which you referred. I could give you an extensive bibliography substantiating the standard nature and familiarity in Britain and the US with this English-language title, just on the basis of articles on my bookshelf. DionysosProteus 19:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:PROD nominations

• Balbina Steffenone 15 August --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 22:06, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The Balbina Steffenone article is an anomaly. It refers to Mexicanos, al grito de guerra but that article names another soprano as leading the first performance. Does anyone have any information? Is Steffenone notable? -- Kleinzach 15:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Copying my post from the talk page talk page:

I did a bit of a poke round Google. It suggested an "i" instead of an "e" on the end of the surname. Although there are a couple of orders of magnitude fewer references they actually look more believable than the ones I looked at for our spelling (apart from the National Anthem mention). One refers to a premiere of Trovatore with her as Leonora at "nell'Academy of Music (ex-Astor Place) Opera House" in New York. The Academy of Music (Manhattan) seem to be what the Metropolitan Opera was set up to compete with. But I don't know really how important it was. I would suggest finding someone with access to Grove sees what sort of a mention they can find for the singer (each spelling) and the opera house.--Peter cohen 22:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I've responded on the Balbina Steffenone Talk page. -- Kleinzach 02:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Category:Musicals by Bertolt Brecht / 'Death of the Author'

I have recommended this category for deletion on the grounds that Brecht wrote the words not the musicals (actually operas by Weill and Dessau). Cfd is here. -- Kleinzach 15:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I remind you of the Oxford English Dictionary definition of 'musical':

"musical: A film or theatrical piece (not opera or operetta) of which music is an essential element".

A musical is a drama, with spoken dialogue, that also has a musical score and songs; often significant proportions of the musical is not under-scored at all. To say that Brecht is not the author of these musical works, then, is ridiculous. As an inherently multi-medial art form, a musical has more than one 'author'. That there were other forms of dramatic-musical works by included in the category may be addressed easily through a rename. DionysosProteus 18:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The heading of this thread has been changed and a link to Death of the Author added. Why is this? -- Kleinzach 00:56, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

With reference to scholarly debates about the nature of authorship and the absenting of Brecht as an authorial voice from the musicals that your objection performed. DionysosProteus 15:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)