Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 95

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Turandot

An editor remarked on the talk page that the Critical response section is very one-sided with only negative opinions of the work. I tend to agree. If anyone has access to reliable sources that could provide alternative views of the work, it would be helpful. Voceditenore (talk) 11:17, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Deborah Voigt

Is there anyone willing to work on this for peer review to get this BLP up to GA status? Bearian (talk) 16:43, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Maureen Forrester

For those of you who may not have heard, Maureen Forrester passed away yesterday.4meter4 (talk) 23:31, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Tosca expansion

The article is undergoing development. More details on the talkpage. Brianboulton (talk) 22:18, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

June CoM update

I've created stubs for Much Ado About Nothing and The Rising of the Moon, but they could use expansion. We now have substantial articles for The Rose of Castille and Transformations. Voceditenore (talk) 15:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs - update

A crop of 8 just appeared at Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/New unreferenced BLPs. They're not new articles, just newly tagged with {{BLP unsourced}}. I've managed to source all but:

1. Irena Petkova (done)
2. Victoria Taranova – Prodded. I can't find a thing about her after an exhaustive search. Prod declined and finally went to AfD where it was deleted [1].

Neither of them seem particularly notable. Liping Zhang is notable (and now sourced) but could use a good dose of the 'red pencil' - it's blatant PR. Voceditenore (talk) 15:21, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks to Smerus for taking his trusty red pencil to Ms. Zhang's article. ;-) Voceditenore (talk) 07:32, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Libretto

I haven't looked at this article in a long time and was surprised to see it tagged for OR. It's a pretty significant article for this project and could use our attention.4meter4 (talk) 02:01, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

… a tag applied by 87.112.148.3 without further explanation in a series of not particularly constructive edits. The article may well need to be improved, but not because of this particular tag; in fact, its removal would be a good start. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:20, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Done. I was just about to say the same thing. The article does need much better referencing, so I replaced it with a refimprove tag. It's a holdover from the "olden days" when editors just wrote what they knew. But the referencing would be fairly easy to do. Voceditenore (talk) 04:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

July Composer(s) of the Month

The Composer(s) of the Month focuses on composers in the opera corpus whose works still lack articles. Any ideas, suggestions, etc.? Voceditenore (talk) 16:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

July Opera(s) of the Month

The Opera(s) of the Month focuses on improving existing articles. Any ideas, suggestions, etc.? Voceditenore (talk) 16:03, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Here are some birthdays of note to consider:

• It is the 350th birthday of Alessandro Scarlatti; not sure which operas are good potential articles.
• It is the 300th birthday of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi whose article needs a list of works.
• It is the 250th birthday of Luigi Cherubini. Lots of missing operas for this composer, but I'm not sure which ones could yield good articles.
• This year is the bicentennial of Robert Schumann and the article on his opera, Genoveva, is unreferenced.
• It is the 175th anniversary of Camille Saint-Saëns and we are missing articles on 6 of his operas.
• It is the 150th birthday of Hugo Wolf. Der Corregidor needs clean up. citations, role creators, etc. I'm not sure if his unfinished opera, Manuel Venegas, deserves an article or not.
• It is the centennial of Samuel Barber: Antony and Cleopaatra needs a synopsis, A Hand of Bridge is a stub, and Vanessa is in pretty good shape.4meter4 (talk) 16:46, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for these! In the next day or two, I'll put together a draft for the CoM and OoM based on them. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 16:59, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. :-) Just a thougt, but maybe we should add these to the In this month section of the portal. 4meter4 (talk) 17:05, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Not, I am afraid, that he has any notable anniversary this year, but the Spontini article is incredibly sparse, as are those on his operas - even La vestale - and many operas are missing. Can we make a note to get Spontiniana up to speed in time for 2011? (160th aniversary of his death).--Smerus (talk) 17:06, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Opera North

This editor, seemingly straight from Opera North's PR department has been adding external links to their website in the middle of every opera they're doing this season (all reverted and user blocked). However, we did get one new article of it: The Portrait (opera). Mind you, I had reduce it to stub and re-write, but never mind. :-) Voceditenore (talk) 16:57, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The editor in question has now been blocked indefinitely. (And I'll update the article after I've seen the opera!). --GuillaumeTell 18:11, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Carlo Moresco

I've been trying to dig up some biographical details on conductor Carlo Moresco without much success. I know he was one of the most important opera conductors in Philadelphia from the late 1940s through the 1970s, working for the Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company, the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company, and the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company. He also was the director of the Tulsa Opera for some years (according to my former voice teacher who sang Liu and Gilda with the company under his baton). Anyway, I can't find out where and when he was born, if he is still alive, or anything about his education. Any help in this area would be appriciated.4meter4 (talk) 20:49, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

• b. Genoa, Italy, May 20, 1905. See [2]. But that's all I could find so far. Voceditenore (talk) 04:58, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much for that. I've pieced together some more content at User talk:4meter4/sandbox. Still no info on his training and early career in Italy. I haven't found any mention of his performing beyond 1983, and no obits either. The Tulsa Opera website has a pic of him and refers to him as music director, but makes no mention of the dates he was active with the company. The rest of his career is pretty well covered, but it would be nice to know when he resigned as music director of the Connecticut Opera. It would have been sometime in the late 1960s I think.4meter4 (talk) 13:31, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

AfD: Victoria Taranova

This article is being discussed for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Victoria Taranova. Voceditenore (talk) 22:00, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

August Opera and Composer of the Month + summer plans

I'm going to be away 19-27 July with only limited computer access, but as this is due to a family member's medical problem, it might be prolonged. Consequently, I've provisionally filled in the August OoM and CoM, by holding over July, so at least blank boxes won't show up on the main OP Project page on August 1st, if I don't get back. Feel free to amend these if you all decide on something new.

I'm very much in favour of Smerus's idea last month:

"the Spontini article is incredibly sparse, as are those on his operas - even La vestale - and many operas are missing. Can we make a note to get Spontiniana up to speed in time for 2011? (160th aniversary of his death)"

As July and August are very slow months, with many members/editors on holiday, I'd suggest we schedule the Spontiniana for the autumn months.

Meanwhile, I'll be in Italy (for far more pleasant reasons than my July trip) from 30 July-25 August and then away again from 28 August-7 September. If any members are around and have any spare time, could you check User:AlexNewArtBot/OperaSearchResult every couple of days for any articles that would fall under the OP and add {{WikiProject Opera}} to the talk page so they don't fall under the radar?

Also, recently found unreferenced BLPs periodically show up at Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/New unreferenced BLPs (the page is currently empty, and generally the ones that do show up are not critical bios, in fact most of 'em are given the boot) but it might be worthwhile for one or more of you to add this page to your watchlist. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 07:14, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Tosca

Many congratulations and a big thank-you to Brianboulton and Wehwalt who have just brought this to Featured Article status [3]. I've added it to the Portal:Opera rotation of "Selected articles", and updated the list of FAs on the Portal and the OP main project page. Voceditenore (talk) 07:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes congratulations. It's good to see major operatic subjects such as this moved up and having two such editors who are so familiar with the FA process doing the work is a big advantage. I would have been interested in joining in the effort but am instead helping User:Smerus in his drive to get Richard Wagner promoted. I've just nominated it for GA and we plan to move on to Peer Review and FAC, though I have a few bits of tinkering to do before we get to these. If anyone is an experienced reviewer and wants to assess for GA, then please do. Also if anyone wants to join in the next stage of improvement, please put yourself forward. (The tinkering I'm doing is fixing footnotes and sourcing, while the GAN is in, I'm wanting to avoid any structural work. but as soon as that hurdle is cleared, then other suggestions are welcome.)--Peter cohen (talk) 09:36, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment: italic article titles

An RfC has been raised concerning the use of italics in article titles (i.e., rendering the main title in italics on the Wikipedia page). A guideline currently restricts the use of this feature to "special cases", but there is now a suggestion that it could be more widely used, wherever appropriate to the article's title. Opinions are invited at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. (Copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music#Request for comment: italic article titles.) -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 08:05, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Bot changing categorisation of opera discographies

A bot recently changed categorisation for various Italian operas discographies. The Category:Italian discographies has been changed to Category: Discographies of Italian artists. (for example the discography of Le Nozze di Figaro and other Mozart operas, even Die Zauberflöte: the Austrians will be glad to hear that Mozart is now an Italian !!). Also many other Italian opera discographies were moved to this category, which in my opinion is completely wrong. The category is intended for discographies of Italian singers and musical groups, not for works by Italian classical composers, or for works in Italian by composers of other nationalities. What do opera project members think of this? I propose that this new category be removed from all opera discography articles; since the category Italian discographies now no longer exists, simply undoing the change would result in a red link to a non-existing category. Francesco Malipiero (talk) 17:12, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

• Agreed. It was never that useful of a cat anyway.4meter4 (talk) 17:40, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Clearly Category:Discographies of Italian artists is quite wrong for opera discographies (I see that Andrea Chénier and Don Carlos are Italian artists!?), but it also seems to me that Category:Italian discographies isn't very useful, either. Category:Opera discographies is fine, and it could perhaps have sub-categories such as Category:Italian opera discographies. I'm not sure that the effort involved in creating them would really be worthwhile, however. Meanwhile, I'll get rid of the operas from the Italian artists cat. --GuillaumeTell 17:45, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've done that. I notice that most/all of the discographies are in Category:Opera recordings as well as Category:Opera discographies. Really, one of those (probably the discographies?) ought to be a sub-category of the other. I may do something about that later today or tomorrow if I have time. --GuillaumeTell 18:05, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad to learn that the above action has been taken; am totally in support. Viva-Verdi (talk) 18:40, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I have just now noticed that exactly the same problem has affected categorisation of discographies of German operas: they are now all in a category called Discographies of German artists: so e.g. Die Walküre and Das Rheingold are now German artists?!. I suppose the same rationale applies here, and this category should be removed. Francesco Malipiero (talk) 19:08, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Done for German operas discographies. I will now check other language operas, starting from the Category: Opera discographies page. Francesco Malipiero (talk) 19:41, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I think I got them all now. Found just two more (one Czech - Bartered Bride, one American - Porgy and Bess).Francesco Malipiero (talk) 19:46, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I am under the impression that all these problems with Classical music discographies are caused by the fact that the participants in the WikiProject Discographies are completely focusing on popular music. The concept of a discography of a particular work is of course completely unknown in popular music culture, which focuses on performing artists. There may be dozens of Tosca recordings, but there is and will always be only one Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, or one Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. Maybe someone more experienced than me in projects connected to classical music could join the WikiProject Discographies to make sure that the interests of classical music articles are given proper consideration. Francesco Malipiero (talk) 14:27, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

New sub-sub-category Opera singer discographies

In my opinion this new Category: Opera singer discographies is misleading. I believe the four articles in this new category should be categorised as Classical music discographies (the main category), since these singers do not limit themselves to opera, and all four discographies also contain non-operatic recordings. If there is to be a further sub-categorisation of the category Classical music discographies (apart form the Opera discographies sub-category), it would make more sense to separate discographies dedicated to a particular work from discographies dedicated to a particular classical "artist" (be this a singer, instrumentalist, conductor, orchestra or ensemble). However, considering the relatively small number of articles in the main category, I don't think further sub-categories are necessary for now. Opinions pls? Francesco Malipiero (talk) 15:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not all that new - created February 2010. However, I agree with the above and was planning to do something about it. Also, have you looked at Category:Opera recordings? I've depopulated all the opera discographies from it, having set up Category:Opera discographies as a sub-category, but the other subcategories there are mostly as problematic as the ones you've mentioned. --GuillaumeTell 16:05, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree: what is the use of sub-categories that contain only one or two articles? If someone creates a sub-category, he or she should put in the effort to contribute articles to put in them. Maybe it would be a good idea to try and reach some consensus on this matter, since it seems to be a bit of a hornet's nest. Francesco Malipiero (talk) 16:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I see that some but not all of the singers referred to above are also in categories like Category:Discographies of Spanish artists, so we could add those if necessary when removing them to Category:Classical music discographies. But what to do with Category:Porgy and Bess recordings? We already have Porgy and Bess discography, which links to all the recordings cited. --GuillaumeTell 17:17, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion the Category: Porgy and Bess recordings is redundant and should be replaced by the higher category Opera recordings. The purpose of categorisation, as I understand it, is to provide centralised and easy access to all articles concerning a particular subject. For recordings of the opera Porgy and Bess this purpose is already (better) served by the article Porgy and Bess discography. Francesco Malipiero (talk) 17:54, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Der fliegende Holländer/Flying Dutchman.

I post here for comments the following from the Wagner WikiProject discussion Page:

Flying Dutchman

Is there a reason why this, alone of W's operas, is listed under its English title for the main article? If it's on the grounds of common use, we don't have 'The Mastersingers','Tristan and Isolde' or 'The Ring Cycle'. So for consistency we should move it to 'Der fliegende Holländer' - shouldn't we? --Smerus (talk)

• I don't object to this. It does seem to be a strange quirk that this opera is usually referred to by its English title when most of the others are not. We should use the German for the title.--Dogbertd (talk)
  • Way back when, there were discussions on article talk pages and at the Opera Project about WP:EN (Use English). The result was a guideline (WPO#Operas:_original_vs_English_translation) and a short list of operas with well-known English titles that aren't too similar to the original-language title (Wikipedia:WikiProject_Opera/English_names). Hope this helps. Please raise this at the Opera Project talk page if you want to pursue the matter further. --GuillaumeTell

Given the above, I would like to move the FD to der fH, subject to there being no intractable objections. Best regards, --Smerus (talk) 10:35, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I have no strong feelings one way or another, as long as the English title remains a redirect, but... if you do move it please make sure you update the Wagner navigation template(s) and check for incoming links. I suspect there may be a lot. -- Voceditenore (talk) 11:16, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

There is definitely an inconsistency between Mastersingers and Dutchman. I am probably more likely to use the English name for each when talking informally but Skelton uses the German names in Cosiam's Diaries.--Peter cohen (talk) 13:01, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Dogbertd writes above: "this opera is usually referred to by its English title". I gather that is exactly the reason why the English Wikipedia uses the English title. I note that a number of operas on the list Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/English names have since been moved to their original titles. I don't think this should have been done with revisiting Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera#Operas: original vs English translation. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:34, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

• Can I add for reference here that most modern publications (including those used for references) use the German titles in their indices. E.g. 'The Cambridge Companion to Wagner' ed.Thomas Grey (2008), Grove, etc. To be precise for these two instances: The Cambridge Guide in its index gives 'Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman)' whereas Grove Online, if you ask for 'The Flying Dutchman' offers 'see Der fliegende Holländer' (with a hyperlink).

The question of which header to use for the best convenience of users is purely theoretical of course. Anyone entering 'The Flying Dutchman' at present goes automatically to a rather rackety article on the legend, which doesn't mention the opera until near the end. They have to be wise enough to ask for 'The Flying Dutchman (opera)' to get the opera. If we set up the new title and the disambiguation pages correctly, no user will be any the worse off for the opera being under its German title, being automatically redirected.

The philosophical problem you are facing here is, it seems to me, one of consistency. You can be consistent with an arbitrary decision as to 'which operas are best known by their English titles' - which might in itself give some problems with WP:V. This is arguably a very feeble consistency [code: I think's its as good as useless]. Or you can be consistent with giving operas in their original language titles as long as there is a redirect from the English title. That,it seems to me, is rock-solid consistent and not open to argument.--Smerus (talk) 15:50, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

… except that titles like Леди Макбет Мценсково уезда or Braniboři v Čechách may mean little to many readers. I think it's quite sensible to use English title "when it is common convention", as the guideline says. This follows WP:ENGLISH. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Michael. English titles should be used in cases where it is likely that the foreign titles will be incomprehensible or seem odd to most readers. The problem here seems to be the inconsistancy in application, not just at wikipedia but in everyday speach. Why do some Wagner operas commonly get referred to in their German names or others in their English equivalent? Just a quirk of culture I guess. I personally don't mind the inconsistancy.4meter4 (talk) 14:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

All this arose because of a Wikipedia Guideline which I mentioned above: Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(use_English). This states: "The title of an article should generally use the version of the name of the subject which is most common in the English language, as you would find it in reliable sources (for example other encyclopedias and reference works)." A discussion in the archives can be found here (before my time on WP). I've looked through later archives (and my own archives) and can't find anything else, but I was involved in January 2006 with drawing up the list referenced by Michael Bednarek above. It was deliberately kept as short as possible, so Tristan and Isolde and The Mastersingers of Nuremberg weren't included because they are so similar to the original.

Like Voceditenore, I don't have very strong views on the matter, and I reiterate that what we were trying to do was follow Wikipedia guidelines. And, by the way, entering 'Lohengrin' doesn't get you any closer to the opera than entering 'The Flying Dutchman'.

If there is a consensus for renaming The Flying Dutchman (opera) then, to be consistent, we need to rename all the other operas in the list. I would nevertheless put in a plea to leave the English-language titles for all operas in non-Latin alphabets and East European, Scandinavian, etc., languages. Straszny dwór, Tjenerindens Fortælling, Povest' o nastoyashchem cheloveeke, anyone? This is, after all, the English-language Wikipedia.

--GuillaumeTell 17:09, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

'Cheloveke' for me:-} --Smerus (talk) 17:32, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The Met database lacks that consistency. Mastersingers and Dutchman in German, Pukivaya Dama in English. And Figaro in Italian in the database but in English on the listing of next season's performances on the main site.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:14, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

While not wanting to add to the discussion on whether the rules on languages is correct, I'd just like to say that in my neck of the woods its always "The Flying Dutchman" and "Tristan and Isolde" and - and yes, I know - "The Meistersingers". I'm not sure how helpful that is almost-instinct 11:06, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I confess that I am rather puzzled by the diffident tenor of these responses. But if noone is too het up one way or the other I suppose the best thing is to let it all lie. --Smerus (talk) 17:54, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Why does this discussion conjure in my mind the image of an article condemned to sail endlessly on a sea of contradictory titles until it finds a Wikipedia reader faithful to one of them until death? Ahem. For whatever it's worth, in part along the lines set out by GuillaumeTell above, I'd favor English in two circumstances:

• The work's original-language title would appear in an alphabet or language that would be a barrier to a reasonably knowledgeable English-language reader.
• English readers would unequivocally know the work by one English title and likely would not recognize the original (thus, 'Son and Stranger', not 'Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde').

Otherwise, considerations of consistency noted above and concerns about the potential for conflicting translations strike me as weighing in favor of the original language, especially in the case of opera house staples. (Note that the existence of competing widely-used translations would rule out my second case for English above.) Therefore, I'd be in favor of dropping the Dutchman's anchor in a safe German port. Drhoehl (talk) 22:54, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Korngold operas

I don't know if this is the correct way to do this, but I have expanded the articles on Korngold's operas Violanta and Die Kathrin and would like to request (re)assessment of the rating on the project's quality scale. I also created Der Ring des Polykrates and would like to request a rating for this article. Francesco Malipiero (talk) 13:29, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

• You can absolutely request an assessment here. These are great little stubs that could easily be raised to start level articles with the addition of a brief synopsis that is at least one paragraph in length. I have created a navigation template for the Korngold operas for you and have added some role creators.4meter4 (talk) 19:33, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you for the encouragement and for your improvements to the articles. The template is very useful for navigating: I was aware of the existence of these sort of templates, but I have no idea how to create and/or include them (still a lot to learn). By the way, isn't it funny how a picture improves the look and feel of an article? I will get to work on a synopsis for all three asap. Francesco Malipiero (talk) 19:48, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

• You are welcome. Images are always a major plus. If you have any questions feel free to ask here or contact me or any other project member on our talk pages. We are a very friendly group and are glad to have another editor working on the opera articles. If you need help with any future templates just hit me up. I don't mind creating them. If you are looking for an example of a well written synopsis, I would suggest taking a look at the Tosca article. Of course, a short synopsis in one paragraph is all that is needed for a start article, but you may be feeling more ambitious. :-)4meter4 (talk) 20:01, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

• I have just added a synopsis for Der Ring des Polykrates. Just one paragraph, but the plot of the opera is actually very thin: it took a genius like E.W.Korngold to make it sound so good. I tried to flesh it out a little with a reference to Schiller's poem that inspired the title of the opera. Thank you again, and I am sure you will be hearing more from me in the future. Francesco Malipiero (talk) 21:14, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Anthony Rolfe Johnson

As many of you know, Anthony Rolfe Johnson died last week. What should I find stuck on his article shortly thereafter but this monstrosity. In these cases, I find it best not to remove completely, but to replace with a simple biographical infobox. I've also added a fair use image. I heard him sing a wonderful recital accompanied only by a lute at St John's, Smith Square in the late 1990s. A beautiful singer! Voceditenore (talk) 12:37, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Figaro (character)

User:Nono64 just created Figaro (character) as a split off from the Figaro dab page. He/she has been linking Figaro in all the opera singer/opera articles as well. However, the Figaro (character) page itself is just another dab page. This hardly seems like something worth linking to, or even worthy of creating an entirely seperate dab page for. Readers clicking on it will most likely be looking for an article on the character of whatever particular work they are reading about. They will be sadly misled and dissapointed. I think the Figaro (character) page should be deleted, but if not, at least unwikify Figaro from all the opera related articles. Of course another option would be to actually create an article on the character like at Prince Hamlet. The Beaumarchais trilogy of plays were of course the inspiration for all the other works. 4meter4 (talk) 20:39, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I am not saying I approve of the linking, but I think I understand why the user created this page: when you type 'Figaro' in the search box en press Enter or click on the magnifying glass, you used to get a list of pages, none of which referred to the operas or the plays in which Figaro appears as a character. Now the page he created is the first hit. Maybe he is just trying to make it easier for users who don't know the exact title of the operas or the plays to find them; of course, there may be a better way to do this I am unaware of. Francesco Malipiero (talk) 21:30, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Yikes! It's a bit of a mess and creates more confusion rather than less. It also made a mess of the Figaro DAB , which then said: "Figaro (character), the central character in:" and... er.. that's all. I've reverted the edits to Figaro to restore the links to the opera and play pages and redirected Figaro (character) to it. If that doesn't stick, I'd suggest checking all the opera/singer articles and changing the link to The Marriage of Figaro or The Barber of Seville as appropriate (or delinking if unclear), if you don't want the palaver of an AfD. I just spot-checked Giorgio Tozzi and changed the link accordingly [4], but discovered that it has a lot of other wrong links to characters. e.g. linking to Philip II rather than Don Carlos. Voceditenore (talk) 21:58, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

It appears from his talk-page that user Nono64 has a history of disambiguation issues. I have undone most of his edits which changed perfectly good wikilinks from Figaro to Figaro (character), which in my opinion is now a totally redundant DAB page. I have also checked his French WP user page: it appears this user has already been blocked from editing French WP before. I really don't know what to think about all this Francesco Malipiero (talk) 23:59, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

A much better idea is to remove any link on Figaro. Words should never link to a disambiguation page, i.e. Figaro. See what I did here instead. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 00:06, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Everybody please check Nono64's contributions to French WP. This "contributor" has created THOUSANDS of DAB pages and useless stub articles on French WP, some of them just blank pages. I am afraid we are dealing with OBSESSIVE BEHAVIOUR here (and I am being friendly now). Somebody please report this user to an administrator (I have no idea how to do this) Francesco Malipiero (talk) 00:49, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

If you need to alert admins you can leave a messge at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents (WP:ANI for short). I am not sure if this user has been disruptive enough yet on the English wikipedia to warrant admin intervention, but it never can hurt to alert admins to a potential future problem.4meter4 (talk) 01:08, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

• If any concerns or queries arise in future, I'd suggest getting more specialised advice, either from the talk page of WikiProject Disambiguation or the talk page for Wikipedia:Disambiguation. You can also contact User:JHunterJ who is both an administrator and a member of WikiProject Disambiguation (but note that he is currently away until August 2nd). Voceditenore (talk) 10:02, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

• Yes that is a better idea. Wish I had thought of it earlier before sending Malipiero to ANI.4meter4 (talk) 13:36, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

• I probably over-reacted to the problems caused by user Nono64. Sorry for that. Still find it strange though that this user marks all his edits as minor, despite having been told by an administrator not to do this. Francesco Malipiero (talk) 22:36, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Restriction on editing Royal Opera House

I have removed the tag on the Royal Opera House which imposed editing restrictions on the article as this is against the founding principles of Wikipedia - Wikipedia:Five pillars, and WikiMedia - [5]. WikiProjects offer useful guidelines on formatting an article, which editors may decide to follow or not (I personally like to consult and follow such guidelines); however it's inappropriate to attempt to prevent editors from progressing an article. If there is some particular issue with this article that is of concern, then please let me know. SilkTork *^YES! 23:00, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I have tracked it down to this edit at the start of 2008 by Whjayg, in response to Theolimeister adding an infobox. I seem to remember there being an infobox war around that time, with a number of editors (myself included) being uncomfortable with the spread of infoboxes. However, by wide consensus, infoboxes were seen as useful and popular, so they are here to stay. The tag is a leftover from that long forgotten war! SilkTork *^YES! 23:13, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, in the "spirit of Wikipedia", I've just removed the rather tacky flag icon, which does nothing to further the reader's knowledge of this building.;-) I must say, I've never been comfortable with the tone of some of those anti-infobox warnings, and I'm surprised they were added to articles about theatres which can fall under the scope of several projects. Our main objection has been to using the "musical artist infobox" which is designed for pop singers (and rather badly to boot), but dreadfully inappropriate for classical singers, especially historical ones. Voceditenore (talk) 23:38, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that having infoboxes that are too specific can be problematic. Have you folks designed your own or do you use {{Infobox person}}? SilkTork *^YES! 17:27, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

We've had several lengthy discussions on info boxes and have ultimately decided as a project that they are not useful on opera singer biographies for many reasons. The composer project has a similar guideline. That of course does not mean that an infobox can not be added to these articles, but as a project we have decided against using them. I don't think anyone here is open to discussing this again, as we've already talked about this multiple times and like the guideline that we have. I'm sorry to be so curt but it seems like we have this conversation over and over again about every 4 or 5 months. Ultimately we end up re-hashing the same issues and coming back to the same conclusion. I'd rather be editing articles than doing that again. If it's really all that important to you I suggest reading through our archives. Best.4meter4 (talk) 17:57, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) None of us use them, for reasons basically summed up here and here. We prefer a well-written lead. But, if I find an inappropriate infobox has been added, e.g. this gruesome example, I change it to a plain and very minimal "Infobox person", e.g. this. Summary removal without a reasonable replacement is a sure road to this, and I'd rather write articles instead.;-) Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:16, 29 July 2010 (UTC)