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Portal:Opera nomination for Featured Portal

I have submitted a request at Wikipedia:Portal peer review to review our portal for the nomination. I believe with our teamworks to improve the quality of our articles and portal, our portal may be able get the Featured Portal status. You can participate in the discussion, support, etc in here - Jay (talk) 05:11, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I have moved the nomination from Peer Review to Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates#Portal:Opera for further process. Please participate in answering questions or suggestions by the panel members (including vote for it). I am hoping we could get the status very soon. I strongly feel that we have fulfilled the criteria in Wikipedia:Featured portal criteria- Jay (talk) 13:01, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: I've removed the banner which was in this section as it was putting our project talk page into Category: Requests for portal peer review. I've written a summary review at the Portal peer review page. Note that the actual Featured portal nomination will not go ahead [1] until we close and archive the peer review. Voceditenore (talk) 08:16, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Do you think we need people to support it? If so, I like to call for members to support the review to be closed and move on for the nomination - Jay (talk) 11:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it would be a good idea for other members to express their support for going straight to FP nomination (if they do support the move, that is). Members can add their notes to that effect on the Portal peer review page. Voceditenore (talk) 11:54, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Following the instructions for closing a peer review (one criterion for closing is if a Portal becomes a Featured Portal candidate), I've closed the Peer Review (with some difficulty) and moved it to the Peer review archive. I've added a note to that effect at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates#Portal:Opera, mentioning a glitch that I can't fix. --GuillaumeTell 18:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Changes to OP guidelines

As per the various discussions here, I've done some updating of the guidelines on the main page:

Operas: avoiding ambiguity - made the guidelines clearer

Moving pages to new titles - added this section

Role tables - added remarks about avoiding over-categorization of voice types

Operas: original language titles - clarified this one too, per several older and extraordinarily tiresome discussions, e.g. here [2], [3] and elsewhere [4]

Give a shout if you have any objections, changes, etc. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 17:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Without going into tiresome details - it's not exactly only nouns that are capitalised in German: there's a few pronouns like "Sie". Do we have a policy on applying German spelling reforms to German opera, and do we need one? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 00:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

How many German operas have "Sie" or a similarly capitalized pronoun in their title (where they aren't the first word)? I'd venture to say none. I've left in your addition about "Sie", but in my view, that's enough. The titling guideines are not the place to go into detailed lessons on German grammar and spelling reform. Not only don't we need them, they are counterproductive. Let's just let this current version settle in. If a major problem arises with German pronouns in opera titles (which I seriously doubt), we can always revisit them later. Voceditenore (talk) 00:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it's worth mentioning that there are occassional exceptions, but the guidelines hold true in the vast majority of cases. Otherwise we'll get some terribly literal person "correcting" away any exceptions, no matter how clearly marked. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 00:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Capitalisation of arias

From our main page:

“ We recommend referring to the first line in the original language (in italics), followed by the popular title (if there is one) or English translation. Thus Près des remparts de Séville (The Seguidilla) and La donna è mobile (Woman is Fickle). ”

Shouldn't it be "Woman is fickle"? In English opera, names of songs based on the first line use sentence capitalisation, e.g "If you're anxious for to shine" from Patience, or "I am the very model of a modern Major-General" (from The Pirates of Penzance). Unless a very different standard is in use, I think we should keep that for translations. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 00:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I dont think many people know an aria by title "Woman is fickle". The quote says "popular title (if there is one)". Woman is fickle is not a popular title. I personally wouldnt know it is "La donna è mobile" if not because of I'm here.. :) - Jay (talk) 17:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Again about article naming problems

I have just created in the Italian Wikipedia a new article concerning the 18th century's soprano Brigida Banti and I have also translated it into ... English. I have thus had to meet again with article naming problems. Her baptism name was Brigida Giorgi; after getting married, she adopted her husband's surname as her stage-name. So I have found several versions of her current name: Brigida Banti, Brigida Banti Giorgi, Brigida Giorgi Banti and, in the French Wikipedia, even Brigida Banti-Giorgi. In the Italian Wikipedia I have named the article it:Brigida Banti (with a redirection from Brigida Banti Giorgi), and so have I temporarily done in the English Wikipedia (without any redirection), expecting that someone of you would change it according to your established guidelines. All the best. Jeanambr (talk) 14:53, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Brigida Banti is fine. See this contemporary portrait, where she called "Madame Banti": [5]. But it's a good idea to make redirects from Brigida Giorgi-Banti, Brigida Giorgi Banti, and Brigida Banti Giorgi. (The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Opera had her listed as Brigida Giorgi-Banti). Best, Voceditenore (talk) 19:19, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Two competing templates

Jay has just created Template:Bernstein operas which is in keeping with the standard wikiproject opera format. However, there is already a Template:Musicals and operas of Leonard Bernstein which includes many of the same works. I'm don't think we need both. What do you all think?Nrswanson (talk) 21:02, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I have been thinking of creating the template for the past 4 months, and finally I did it last night (GMT +8). I believe we should standardize our article layout including templates. Our nav template includes year in which I find it very useful. We can maintain the old template for his musical works (remove operas) because our template only consists of his opera works - Jay (talk) 00:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I can't see anything wrong with having two different navigation mechanisms in this case. Some readers will come from the musical theatre side of Bernstein's work, some will come from the opera/operetta side; both groups will have different browsing habits and be used to different navigational tools. Such are the effects of fence-straddling. Where's the harm? Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree with Michael Bednarek. First, of all, we shouldn't be monkeying with Template:Musicals and operas of Leonard Bernstein - it's used by WikiProject Musical Theatre. Secondly, that nav box sits at the bottom of the article and does not intrude on it visually at all. The quest for standardisation can go overboard. And while I'm at it, I sometimes find "our" nav boxes a real pain. For composers with a huge number of articles, e.g. Donizetti, the template completely dominates the article and sometimes extends down the page three times further than the text itself. It also messes up the placement of images. Every single image in Le duc d'Albe had to be left-aligned because the gargantuan nav box. If it were up to me, I'd keep the nav templates vertical but provide an option to collapse them, at least after the first 5 operas. Voceditenore (talk) 12:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

On the subject of lengthy navboxes, I wonder if anyone apart from me thinks that the boxes to be found at, for example, Saffo and Il giuramento are completely over the top? Pacini and Mercadante were prolific composers, but (unlike the case of Donizetti) the chances of Wikipedia articles or even stubs on more than about five of each of their operas ever appearing seem to me to be extremely slim, and long lists of the composers' operas with hardly any links to other articles look like an irrelevance and unbalance what there is of the articles. An oddity is that these boxes aren't templates but are incorporated in the article text. --GuillaumeTell 22:48, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh wow.. Thanks for bring up the issue, I wsant aware of that. And definately not done by me. I will fix it - remove list that have not been written yet. - Jay (talk) 01:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Done - created templates - Jay (talk) 02:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I took the liberty of replacing that gruesome image of Mercandante [6] with this one. It's also public domain. The artist obligingly died in 1907. best, Voceditenore (talk) 10:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Re lengthy lists of operas, per se... They wouldn't be appropriate in an article about a specific opera anyway. They belong in the article about the composer which is linked from the opera article (apart from the nav box for existing articles). Kleinzach has been making a lot of very useful "List of operas by X" pages, e.g. List of operas by Pacini which can be linked from the composer's article. This saves swamping the article with lengthy lists and allows much more information about the operas to be displayed in a user-friendly way. He hasn't got round to Mercadante yet, but I'm sure he will eventually. In the meantime, when adding lists of operas, works, roles, etc., editors should consider using a 2 column format to save space and avoid swamping the rest of the text. Here's an example: Marguerite Sylva. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 10:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Suggested Composer of the month (for April?)

Admittedly, he's not performed much now. But should we leave the works that invented the artform: Dafne, Euridice (opera), and the people responsible, Jacopo Peri and Ottavio Rinuccini, in such appalling shape? While we're at it, how about we throw in Opera itself, which is full of infelicities, insufficiently captioned images, and could probably do with adding in a few of these sound files that I've been working on (and a few more composers, perhaps - just ask as needed and I'll make up a couple and we can choose the best.)

Obviously, March is the Handel push. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Um, can we not get so ahead of ourselves? I get bored when things are planned this far in advance. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 16:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, could we hold off on this discussion until March please.Nrswanson (talk) 04:58, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Question about Moses und Aron (Should opera film / album articles fall under Opera Project banner?)

In looking over the article on Moses und Aron (the February project), I finally saw the link to the 1973 film of the opera. Shouldn't that film be considered part of this opera project? Or does this project limit its scope to only stage productions? -- kosboot (talk) 13:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, the answer is "no", it is not and should not be part of our project (although we can give our personal help - not tied up with this project). There are actually many "opera films" out there, for example Carmen (1984 film), Otello (1986 film), La Traviata (1983 film), etc not including albums recording that involve opera singers. The works for films are under WikiProject Film - refer Otello (1986 film) for example. As for our side, we usually add the link under "Selected Recordings" section (with details of the recording) in the related opera article, see example Otello (Verdi) Selected recordings. - Jay (talk) 13:58, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to disagree Jay. In my opinion it is under our project's scope. Just like articles on opera recordings (discography pages, etc.) are under our jurisdiction so too are films of operas. These films star opera singers, are often produced by or in collaboration with opera companies, and involve the work of conductors known for opera. The pages would also fall under WikiProject Film in the same way that an article on an opera singer would fall under WikiProject Biography.Nrswanson (talk) 22:42, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Nrswanson, discography is a list of recordings including films and albums, and it falls under our scope to list down films/albums done by opera singers. However, film articles are best to be under WikiProject Film while audio recording articles to be under WikiProject Album. One of the reasons is because film and album projects have their own formats. On top of that, most opera films don’t follow "opera" plots and music – and they are simpler compared to opera article synopsis. Lets take Domingo for example, there are many of album recordings and films involving him written in Wiki in which I have help contributing some of them by following the respective project format guides, then I linked them with Domingo discography and our opera article under the "Selected recordings" sections. We can offer our personal contributions or join as a member of the projects, but I still feel that it is not suitable to be labeled under the banner of Project Opera. Lets just look at Opera conductors, their articles fall under Project Classical Music - example James Levine and many more. To me, compared to films, opera conductors deserve to be under our banner more than opera films. This is just my opinion. However, if majority wants Film/Album articles to fall under our banner, I have no objection. Lets see what others think - Jay (talk) 01:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

If they're very specifically films of opera, I think that we should banner them. But in the end, it's not terribly important. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 02:46, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Shoemaker's Holiday, in other words, you were saying that we should put a banner because it is related to opera. It is ok to include "Category: Opera film" but I disagree "spreading" our banner just for the name sake of it. In my opinion, we should put our banner if we decided to "hands-on" in it rather than putting a banner just because we feel that it is part or related to "opera". If the purpose of the banner is to tell people that the article has a relationship with OPERA, then we may have to put our banner to many other articles or simply create a new template saying that "This article is part of Opera or about opera". All these while I thought the banner is for "Article that we WANT TO WORK on it (falls within the scope of WikiProject Opera)", not for "ANY articles that have relationship with Opera in general". I think we need to look back and reconsider the purpose of the banner, because now that I am lost! - Jay (talk) 03:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree Jay. This is just an area where multiple projects overlap. Frankly your view is too limiting to what opera is. Numerous operas have been composed not for stage but for radio, television, and film. Under your logic our project couldn't banner operas like Amahl and the Night Visitors simply because it wasn't written for the stage. I say it doesn't matter the medium of communication. If it's opera it is under our project's scope.Nrswanson (talk) 04:35, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Banners are meant to organise work. If people in this project want to work on opera films, then tag it so thy can find it easier. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 05:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Um... First of all a project banner does not confer "jurisdiction" over an article, it merely highlights that the article is within the scope of a project. Project banners serve two different but related purposes. The primary one is so that the relevant project(s) can keep track of the articles within their scope, for maintenance, clean-up, expansion, etc. But another important one is to provide a link to a place where other editors (who may be unfamiliar with the subject) can seek advice or get expert help. Double bannering is not a pestilence to be eradicated at all costs, especially when it can be helpful to other editors, and especially when there little or no overlap between the projects. I prefer common sense and flexibility when a link to this project would be a useful resource for the article's talk page.

In the case of conductors, virtually all of them conduct many other things besides operas. The same applies to most directors and even librettists. But I see no reason why films like Carmen, Otello, La Traviata that use opera singers, actually singing their parts and are largely faithful to the stage version shouldn't have an opera banner too. Incidentally, Carmen (1984 film) was begun as a stub by a member of the Opera Project in 2005 and has remained that way ever since. The banner was later placed by the Film Project but they haven't expanded it. I would imagine it's very low down on their list of priorities. We need to give full weight to the medium. Since it is film, then the WP conventions for film articles should be deferred to, but that's not a big deal. Voceditenore (talk) 17:31, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

PS Articles about opera recordings (not just discographies) currently do fall under the scope of this project. [7]. This is primarily true of recordings of complete operas or excerpts from a single opera. Voceditenore (talk) 18:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with everything voceditenore has said. Also to clarify, I certainly didn't mean to apply any ownership or authority upon the part of this project by using the word jurisdiction above. I really was trying to find a synonym for scope so I wasn't repeating the same word over and over.Nrswanson (talk) 18:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

January to do list

I found it extremely helpful when we did a to do list for Puccini and since we haven't done much work yet on Pelléas et Mélisande (opera), etc. I thought it would be useful. After all we only have ten more days. I didn't get to every article so others may want to add to this list:

• Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)
  • Performance history needs a more detailed discussion of premiere, information about important revivals/ place in the repertory
  • Needs musical analysis section
  • Synopsis could use some filling out
  • could use a prose section on the actual opera article and an expanded lead on the actual discography page.
  • More relevent pictures/images
  • Noted arias? Well, not arias, obviously. But some note of what parts are usually considered highlights.

• Jean Périer
  • Needs copy editing
  • Expanded biography
  • Standard format for roles list
  • Recording section
  • Expanded lead
  • Relevent pictures/images

• Georgette Leblanc
  • A lead
  • Expanded biography
  • List of roles
  • Recordings section

• Hector Dufranne
  • An expanded lead
  • A biography section
  • Expanded biographical information
  • Recordings section
  • More categories

• Félix Vieuille
  • An expanded lead
  • A biography section
  • Expanded biographical information
  • Standard format for roles section

Feel free to add to the list or cross things out when they are done.Nrswanson (talk) 01:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments

If someone can find a copy ofthe Mary Garden recording - however badly preserved - I'll gladly clean it. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 07:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I've done quite a bit of work on the "etc." (Debussy's unfinished operas, Ariane). I was saving Pelléas for the second half of this month. There is a great deal of information out there on this opera and I've been compiling some of it before starting work on improving the article. --Folantin (talk) 08:48, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Wonderful.Thank you and I certainly didn't mean to downplay any work people have done already. This is just meant to help us.Nrswanson (talk) 09:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

If Folantin finishes his expansion of Pelléas et Mélisande by the end of the month, we could use that in the Feb Portal. Alternatively, he's already done a really good article on La chute de la maison Usher (unfinished Debussy opera). We could use that. I like to see rare and intriguing stuff in the portal. Voceditenore (talk) 13:09, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Let's shoot for Pelléas et Mélisande. It will be a good motivator for all of us. I am planning to work on it myself this week.Nrswanson (talk) 20:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)