Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera

Operatic Did you know ...

File:Benjamin Britten-Karsh.jpg

• ... that Leonard Bernstein reworked A Quiet Place, after the premiere on 17 June 1983 drew the comment '"To call the result a pretentious failure is putting it kindly"'?

• ... that Death in Venice by Benjamin Britten (pictured), was first performed at Snape Maltings on 16 June 1973 in sets by John Piper, the librettist's husband?

• ... that Gavin Bryars' Doctor Ox's Experiment, about an experiment with gas that makes people chaotic, premiered on 15 June 1998 at the London Coliseum by the English National Opera?

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

Composer and Opera of the Month Proposals

Composer and Opera of the Month Proposals A simple script will automatically replace the text on the front page with the appropriate month when the time comes. Here are the next three months: [edit] Composer of the Month for September 2024 Click Here to set up September's Composer of the Month! [edit] Opera of the Month for September 2024 Click Here to set up September's Opera of the Month! Click here to show the October and November Opera and Composer of the Month preparation areas [edit] Composer of the Month for October 2024 Click Here to set up October's Composer of the Month! [edit] Opera of the Month for October 2024 Click Here to set up October's Opera of the Month! [edit] Composer of the Month for November 2024 Click Here to set up November's Composer of the Month! [edit] Opera of the Month for November 2024 Click Here to set up November's Opera of the Month!

Clean up project: Unsourced biographies of living persons
This is an ongoing project to reference any opera-related biographies of living persons which currently lack any reliable sources. WikiProject Opera/New unreferenced BLPs has a list of all such articles which is updated daily. All Wikipedia editors are encouraged to assist us. Tips on sourcing can be found here.

Clean up project: Copyright violations

Article alerts

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 Wikipedia. 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.

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)

• Helmut Jürgens, set designer (de:Helmut Jürgens).

Cleanup requests

• Per this discussion, the following transwikied articles from the Italian Wikipedia 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.
  • Update: after I'd done some reorganising, User:ManukaFonsworth came in and did a major expansion of the article with lots of supporting refs. Viva-Verdi (talk) 14:18, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• Martina Arroyo, needs more inline citations, currently tagged with {{more footnotes}}
• Walter Midgley, needs more inline citations, currently tagged with {{more footnotes}}
• Josef Greindl, great singer, needs a better article, odd translation and focus
• May Night needs inline citations, currently tagged with {{more footnotes}}
• Karl Hill, first Klingsor, is a stub, deserves better
  • I've cleaned up the Karl Hill article somewhat and added a Commons image of his grave (where he is clearly shown as Carl Hill!). I'll add some extra stuff tomorrow. --GuillaumeTell 23:01, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Free subscriptions to databases

• Questia Online Library – apply here for the next round
• Highbeam Research apply here for the next round
• JSTOR apply here for the next round
• Credo Reference sign up for waiting list here

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

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.

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

Royal Opera House event - 22 June

Following up from my post a couple of months ago, I am delighted to let you know that the Royal Opera House will be hosting an editathon, focusing on the works of Sir Frederick Ashton, to be held on Saturday 22 June 2013. (It's turned out more ballet focused than opera, admittedly, but I'm sure you'd want to know regardless...)

The day will provisionally include some form of behind-the-scenes tour, though we're still working on organising the details. If you're interested, please sign up now and keep the date free - it'd be great to see you there! Andrew Gray (talk) 00:03, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Opera infobox

This is under development at Template talk:Infobox opera. OP discussions leading up to it are archived in Archive 113. – Voceditenore (talk) 17:57, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

librettodopera.it

I've added this to the project's Online Research Guide, but just a heads-up about a great source which I just discovered, but has been around for quite a while...

• Libretti d'opera, curated by the University of Padua, is a gold mine of information, especially for relatively obscure Italian operas and is very well annotated and organized. See this example for Mercadante's Nitocri. The site has directions and introductions in both Italian and English, but all the data for individual entries is in Italian.

Voceditenore (talk) 14:47, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

A splenddid site! Just used it to add some performance refs to the Donizetti Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo article. Viva-Verdi (talk) 18:02, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Does this project have a policy on article creation?

I was at my local Meetup this weekend where I got into a discussion with a WP administrator. In short, I espoused the opinion that creation of an article should have at least a paragraph's worth of information in addition to sources. This administrator, as one of those who is responsible for deleting AfDs, felt that (assuming notability) all an article needs is a sentence and source to justify creation. I'm wondering how the project feels about this issue. -- kosboot (talk) 17:28, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Good question. Writing as a *user*, I would prefer a concise and fact-filled sentence rather than nothing at all, particularly when information is difficult to come by in English. Writing as a (drive-by) editor, I'm spending too much time groping around WP in other languages but am very wary of creating en:WP stubs that are unlikely to get expanded. Should I add very brief stubs (kosboot's "sentence and a source") for composers who are mentioned in in the body of en:WP articles, who are significant in their own countries (and who may have articles in other WPs), but who lack en:WP articles? Consider Nikolay Strelnikov .. a name I stumbled across in Comic Opera. He wrote something that I have heard of, and has an article in ru:WP but I'm not going to be capable of more than a one sentence article. Should I write it? Scarabocchio (talk) 22:16, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

A little late in my response—I was away until April 22nd and then got involved in some other WP articles. Anyhow, I say go for it and create Nikolay Strelnikov. In my view, even a one fact-filled sentence is fine, provided a decent reference is given which can help expand the article. Something is better than nothing, and in many cases, this is the only way these articles get created. I recently stumbled across Veriano Luchetti and plan to expand it. This morning, it looked like [this. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 11:42, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Oratorio erotico (cross posted from Talk:Oratorio)

Apologies for posting this in two places, but it seems that this may bridge the ground between opera and oratorio so I'd like to raise the subject here as well:

I've just stumbled across 'Oratorio erotico' in es:WP and wanted to know more. Google search tells me that it's an established genre, being mentioned in numerous books in various languages, including the Oxford Companion to Music.

What was the relationship of oratorio erotico and opera? With its emphasis on the sensual and the worldly, is it an unstaged opera in all but name? (a way of avoiding the "no opera in Lent" rule, perhaps?) Scarabocchio (talk) 12:16, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

National epics

See Template:Aeneid, Template:Odyssey navbox and Template:Iliad navbox. The latter does not appear to have any significant operas, but you guys may know of some I have missed.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:35, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

The Pirates of Penzance template

This one is very short, but have a look: {{The Pirates of Penzance}}.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 07:22, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Be warned: The people involved with WP:WikiProject_Gilbert_and_Sullivan are extremely passionate. I would put this before them - and be prepared for them to either shoot it down or greatly transform it. -- kosboot (talk) 13:04, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Alcina inaccuracies?

An IP has suggested that there are some possible inaccuracies in the synopsis. See Talk:Alcina. I'm unfamiliar with the opera, but if any of you are, could you check this out? Best, Voceditenore (talk) 06:50, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

File:Tino Pattiera - Tino Pattiera.jpg

File:Tino Pattiera - Tino Pattiera.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 00:51, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Rescued now. I added a source and fair use rationale and changed the license to {{Non-free historic image}}. I've also added references to the previously unreferenced article Tino Pattiera. However, it needs copyediting for encyclopedic style and re-structuring. Voceditenore (talk) 09:54, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

The Fairy-Queen

I'm not sure what should or could be done about it, but currently our page on The Fairy-Queen reads more like Counter-tenor propaganda than anything else almost-instinct 09:32, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Well it is a GA, so proceed with caution.....--Smerus (talk) 09:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Festspiel

It's about time to get ready for a festival. Tristan and Isolde has a nice passage about the fact that Wagner called this work not "Oper" but "Handlung":

"Wagner referred to the work not as an opera, but called it "eine Handlung" (literally a drama or a plot), which was the equivalent of the term used by the Spanish playwright Calderón for his dramas."

Parsifal has a similar passage:

"Wagner preferred to describe Parsifal not as an opera, but as "ein Bühnenweihfestspiel" ("A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage"). At Bayreuth a tradition has arisen that there is no applause after the first act of the opera."

(I don't know where that translation comes from. It's not the stage that is consecrated, but something sacred takes place on it.)

I miss an equivalent for The Ring, to be linked from the Main page tomorrow, and its parts, which Wagner termed "Bühnenfestspiel", as this list knows (which offers "Consecrated stage festival play" for Parsifal, a bit better). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:50, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Gerda!! The Ring???? I thought you insisted on echt deutsch for the opera, (sorry, Festspiel or Handlung,) titles? I am truly shocked. You are quite right about the "Bühnenweihfestspiel" translation, of course -maybe 'a staged consecration festival'? --Smerus (talk) 19:07, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to have shocked you ;) - There must be sources. It's so much more important what the sources say than what the composer says ;) - I would perhaps try "Sacred/Solemn Stage Festival Play" but I'm not a reliable source. "Weihe" is consecration, but "-weih-" is only derived, as in Weihnachten. - Let's distinguish the official title and the common name, there's a lot of freedom in common names. Wagner didn't say "Der Ring", but we do, it translates nicely to "The Ring". - Did you know that a certain opera has the title "Der Fliegende Holländer" in the German Wikipedia? I didn't know until today. I asked there why, but so far there was no answer. - Enjoy surprises and your day, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:49, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

ps: I decorated my user for the occasion, "Starke Scheite" ("Kinder hört ich greinen nach der Mutter, daß süße Milch sie verschüttet") --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:16, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

La Cecchina, ossia La buona figliuola

Is there a reason why this opera article is La buona figliuola? Shouldn't it be moved to La Cecchina, ossia La buona figliuola, or just to La Cecchina, leaving 'La buona figliuola' as a redirect? I see there are recordings under both titles. I also note that La Cecchina is presently a redirect page saying that the words also refer to Francesca Caccini, although this seems spurious as there is no mention of this nickname in her article as far as I can see, or in Grove.--Smerus (talk) 05:32, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Grove Music Online and Grove Opera both give the primary name as : La buona figliuola [La Cecchina], i.e., there is no "ossia", rather La Cecchina appears to be the secondary alternative name. Apparently there are a lot of other names that were used at various times. These are reproduced in our List of operas by Piccinni. Perhaps the first sentence of the article should be changed to: La buona figliuola ("The Good-Natured Girl") or La Cecchina ("Cecchina").... The other alternative names might be put in a footnote. (And maybe the other variants could be removed from the table for the sake of brevity. Concerning the redirect, I don't know. Just because Grove doesn't mention it, doesn't mean it wasn't Caccini's nickname.) Update: Grove Opera has a rather long article on the opera which gives La Cecchina, ossia La buona figliuola as a secondary title in brackets. (The names I mentioned above were from the composer's list of works.) Holden gives the title as La Cecchina, ossia La buona figliuola. Loewenberg says it was performed under the title La Cecchina with alterations at Bari (the composer's native town) 7 February 1928 (celebrating the bicentennary of Piccinni's birth). That is the first instance he mentions that title in a rather long peformance history. Covent Garden first did it in 1766 in translation as The Accomplish'd Maid. --Robert.Allen (talk) 08:30, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Ah, Grove. I'm getting a little disillusioned with them after their recent series of whoppers. :) Anyhow, there are tons of reliable sources saying that she was called "La Cecchinia". Piccinni's had so many different titles, I suspect because impresarios just called it what they thought would get the punters into the theatre in that town. Almanacco Amadeus lists zillions. So every printed souvenir libretto is going to have a different title. We could title it La Cecchina (Piccinni), or simply "La Cecchina" and cover the issue with a hatnote: "For the singer known as "La Cecchina" see Francesca Caccini. You normally don't need a DAB page for only two uses. My own hunch (borne out by Google) is that most people typing in "La Cecchina" are looking for the Piccinni opera [1]. - Voceditenore (talk) 12:54, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, OK, I propose to move it to 'La Cecchina' with hat note as sugested by VDT, and redirects everywhere else; and to change the first sentence along the lines proposed by RA - any objections?--Smerus (talk) 13:29, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

From everything I've seen the opera was not called La Cecchina until 1928 and later. I suggest creating the redirects per Voce and rewriting the article somewhat, but leaving the title of the article on the opera as it currently is. --Robert.Allen (talk) 20:08, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

OK I will put this on my to do list,on the lines you suggest.--Smerus (talk) 20:11, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Resources for 17th & 18th century French opera and theatre

• Le théâtre de la Foire a Paris – maintained by the University of Nantes. A rich database and image bank concentrating on the "non-official" theatrical troupes and their productions in seventeenth and eighteenth century Paris (in French only).

• CESAR – excellent database and image bank for French opera and theatre in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (in French and English).

Voceditenore (talk) 17:46, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Opera Infobox update

Following discussions here last March {archived in Archive 113), this is been under development at Template talk:Infobox opera. It is now in a usable state with complete documentation and three illustrative examples. It has been kept to only the most basic fields, with minimum scope for misleading oversimplification and/or bloat. The box could be a useful option in that it allows for more interesting images in the lead (although the composer's image can always be used the box). Also, the Operas by Composers vertical navboxes, which currently are the standard "top of article" devices, are now duplicated in many cases by the new horizontal footers that we have for many of the major opera composers. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Horizontal composer templates for the current list.

My recommendation would be to add this infobox as option in the Article Guide and in the Template section of the main OP page, with the proviso that it is not obligatory, and that they should be used with common sense and an awareness of the needs of particular articles. Please take a look at Template:Infobox opera and discuss here whether we should add this as an option in our Guide pages. To keep this discussion on track, any detailed suggestions for amendments/improvements, and examples of alternative boxes should be made at Template talk:Infobox opera (not pasted in here). Voceditenore (talk) 11:57, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I am deeply depressed by the prosepct of the amount of debate which will arise from this initiative, which would be better spent on creating articles. But just to kick off - and quite apart from any debate as to whether such templates are appropriate - as regards your proposed template for the 'Queen of Spades' - why is the native name given as 'Pikovaya dama', when the native name is 'Пиковая дама' (and not, by the way, as given in the article 'Пи́ковая дама'). Nothing prevents you giving the transcription, but it is wrong to give the impression that the Latin alphabet transcription is the 'native name'. And why is 'Pique dame' given as an alternative title for English Wikipedia? It may have possibly have been used in the old days in Germany , but it is not as far as I am aware used as an alternative title today in either the UK or US, or on recordings (contrary to the feeble claim made in the citation given in the article that 'it is now also used in English' - if indeed that is a quote from the source cited, as the wording is ambiguous and the phrase I have cited is not in quotes). Best, --Smerus (talk) 18:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Observe the use of Pique Dame as the title in English [2]. A good point about the native title rendering, though! I'll fix that in the example. Voceditenore (talk) 18:09, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

The examples of 'Píque dame' are fascinating. Discounting those that date from 1910 and 1922, it seems that when the opera was given in Russian in the US it was, up to the 1990s, (?still is) given the title 'Pique dame'. Mystifying. But if it's a usage, it's a usage, of course. I am correcting the Russian title in the article.--Smerus (talk) 20:29, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, its entry in the 2006 Grove Book of Operas is "QUEEN OF SPADES, THE [Pikovaya dama (Pique Dame)]". So, I thinks it's a bit more than simple usage. I've added the Russian to the example box as well. Voceditenore (talk) 06:04, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

i still favor the composer navbox at the upper right of the article. Despite all the nice work done on this info box, the navbox is much more useful, and more convenient in this location than at the bottom of the page. I also favor making this consistent. If there is a vertical navbox for a composer, it should be used for every opera by that composer. --Robert.Allen (talk) 18:42, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate the infobox, and wonder if some kind of information that a navbox is available for a composer might be part of it, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:12, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

That kind of "non-information", i.e., sending the reader to the bottom of the same page or sending them off to a completely separate template page, does not belong in the infobox, in my view, and I'm very against that. This has been discussed at length in Archive 113. There is, however, a facility in the infobox to actually list the other operas by the composer, as in Example 3. Voceditenore (talk) 06:12, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I did not say "send" them away, just: "some kind of information that a navbox is available". - I tried Lolita, would not know how to add that it was first performed in Swedish, not knowing that title. - I offered Carmen on the talk. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:36, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

You don't add that it was first performed in a Swedish translation, an "accident" of opera scheduling. That kind of thing belongs in the article, not the box. Gerda, the whole point of the box is to keep it simple. The title in Swedish was also "Lolita". Saying that a navbox to other operas by that composer is available (however you do it) does not belong in the infobox about the opera, especially when that navbox is right there at the bottom of the page. If it's not at the bottom of the page, then list the operas in the box in the collapsible "other" field. Voceditenore (talk) 07:05, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

"Accident"? Lack of obtaining the rites. - Understand the other, fine. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:22, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

My point stands about keeping the box simple and leaving details to the article. See also the discussion at Template talk:Infobox opera. Re Carmen, I added a clarification to your comment on Talk:Carmen where you invited people there to "help discuss". I gave a link to this discussion. I would appreciate it if simultaneous discussions were not started all over the place. The original plan was to develop the box to a reasonably stable, usable state, then bring it here for discussion about whether or not to provide this as an option in our Article Guide. The discussion has just started and I don't think is helpful to start adding it to articles immediately and/or proposing it on the talk pages of other articles. It completely muddies the waters and makes the whole thing look like a fait accompli, when it is not. Can we please have some patience and let this discussion take its course. Voceditenore (talk) 07:35, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, Carmen was not started, but a continued discussion. - I started Nixon in China (opera), please check, and I had no intentions to do more, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:52, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you had proposed an infobox on Carmen, shortly before it was to appear as TFA. Your new comment and section was misleading. If you meant it as a new proposal to add the box to that article. Then you should have said so, not imply that people should discuss {{Infobox opera}} there, because that's how it read. I also think you were wrong to jump the gun and add it to Nixon in China (another featured article) when this discussion is less than 24 hours old. Voceditenore (talk) 08:06, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I did NOT propose to add the infobox to the Carmen article, just coming from The Rite of Spring (the discussion continued). - I don't know the expression "jump the gun" but only added the infobox to an article of an author I know well enough. WP:QAI members are committed to accessibility. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:35, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

It was a joint work with Brianboulton, and with the community for that matter. I am not getting involved with this. I do not intend to take any action, but that is not because I like or dislike it, but because a discussion is under way about it, (here, though better on article talk). You all work it out please (exiting discussion).--Wehwalt (talk) 10:17, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed that it was joint work. Then let's wait if everybody agrees (with me) that the infobox is better than the list of his other works we had so far, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:26, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I happen to agree that the infobox is an improvement on the old navbox in that article, but that's not the point. I repeat, the original plan was to develop the box to a reasonably stable, usable state, then bring it here for discussion about whether or not to provide this as an option in our Article Guide and to discuss how best to implement the change, if there's a consensus for it, because it has a lot of implications for the previous consistency of opera articles. Jumping the gun refers to the fact that as soon as the discussion started, you went ahead and started adding the infobox to opera articles anyway. Nixon in China has been a featured article for 2 years without this "accessibility feature" and now it needs to have an infobox added immediately? Obviously, if you're going to start adding infoboxes to articles without waiting for the discussion here, you will. I simply do not think it's helpful at this point, and see no reason why you cannot wait a few days. Voceditenore (talk) 10:36, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I would prefer that it be removed, until such time as there is broad agreement. Really, I did not want to be dragged into this and I'm not best pleased by this development.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:14, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I won't repeat my previous reservations but simply note that whoever predicted errors creeping in on infoboxes is right – as neatly proved on the draft Carmen one. I also feel it very optimistic that these will not in time balloon, as the same arguments for starting them in the first place can also be used to expand them to include lots more data in future. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 22:04, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Consistency issues

Trying to get this discussion back on track... We currently have 2,088 articles on individual operas. I think we have to accept that adding this box as an option to the Article Guide means that for quite a while, probably 100 years :-), opera articles will no longer have one consistent "look"—they'd have two. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, or at least so bad that we simply fossilize everything as it has been for the last 6 years. Also, there are currently a lot of obscure opera articles which have don't a composer navbox either. And we already have articles like Candide (operetta) and Der Protagonist, which by consensus use footer boxes (Musicals and operas of Leonard Bernstein and Works for the stage by Kurt Weill) that include the composers' other (non-opera) stage works. But, if we do add it to the Guide and editors start adding it to articles, I do think that as a project we should priortise making all the operas by a single composer consistent, rather than adding the box willy nilly. Some members find the current vertical navbox convenient. Others actually prefer the horizontal footer (at least from past discussions). But I'm not sure that a minor inconvenience for editors (shifting to footer navboxes) necessarily outweighs the benefits of an infobox with its increased image flexibility, etc. Voceditenore (talk) 11:29, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts, but I don't think it's a problem. Actually the infobox "looks" quite like the former right-corner navbox, especially if the image is the one of the composer. - I see it just as an addition, not a major change. Patiently yours, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:34, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

• I'll be in deepest darkest Tuscany for the next week, with only intermittent access, if at all. In the meantime, I've left notes on the talk pages of all the members who participated in the March discussion, letting them know about the new box and this discussion. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 16:29, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

• Sorry, I'm not entirely clear about the nature and location of 'this discussion'. Is 'this discussion' about what an infobox might look like, or about whether there should be some new guidance on infoboxes, based on the proposed model, by the Project? These are two quite separate issues. I am not aware that the second one has yet been formally broached. Gerda 'doesn't think it's a problem' and I congratulate her on her eternal Fotherington-Thomas grade optimism. I have a suspicion that others may not agree with her however.--Smerus (talk) 17:47, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Just nipping in before I go. I tend to agree with you, Smerus, which is why I pointed out some potential objections/problems, others might have. This discussion is about whether there should be some new Project guidance on using an opera infobox, based on the proposed model, i.e. offering it as an option. I had, I thought, made that clear at the beginning of this discussion, but it... er... got a bit de-railed, by the precipitous adding of it to articles before the discussion even got underway. Various tweaks etc. can always be made later to the box itself, if the need arises, but it's in a reasonably stable state now (after a fair amount of discussion on the template talk page), and if we do adopt it as option, it might be a good idea to let it "settle in" and monitor how it's working out for a while. Anyhow, this discussion should stay open for at least a week. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:58, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

bene, a rivederla!--Smerus (talk) 19:43, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I'll second the wise words of Smerus: "I am deeply depressed by the prospect of the amount of debate which will arise from this initiative, which would be better spent on creating articles." That said, my hat is off to those who have developed the opera templates, as the results of their considerable labors strike me as well-considered and classy. I just hope these templates fare better than some other classical-oriented ones that have been developed, only to draw repeated surreptitious deletions by parties who seem to consider anyone objecting to universal application of pop-oriented boxes to be some sort of elitist intent on subverting the common weal. In general I would feel comfortable if we were to offer guidance endorsing the new boxes' judicious use. One question: do they sufficiently allow for operas that exist in more or less coequal versions in different languages, like, say, William Tell? Sorry if my quick skim of the discussion page missed that issue, but if they don't it may be a matter worth considering there--I don't mean to derail discussion further here! Drhoehl (talk) 02:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Responding just to the point about versions, so as not to mix it up with my tome below, which is on the general principle at hand. "Guglielmo Tell" could be added as "Other title", with "Guillaume Tell" used as "native title". We discussed the possibility of a "versions" field at Template talk:Infobox opera, and decided against it, as this is the kind of detail best left to the article where it can be properly explained and contextualised, not to mention that the distinction between a revised version and something which constitutes a virtually different opera is a blurry continuum. We're always going to have a few "outliers", whether we have an infobox or not—it applies to questions of categorisation etc. as well. We also tend to treat versions quite differently from article to article, although that's again a separate issue. Sometimes, it's a brief mention, as in William Tell. Sometimes, the "other versions" are gone into in much more detail in a separate section in the article, e.g. Lucia di Lammermoor#Lucie de Lammermoor. Sometimes they get two separate articles, e.g. Les vêpres siciliennes and I vespri Siciliani. Voceditenore (talk) 10:19, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

One of the reasons why I support making the recently developed infobox as an option (and spent the time helping to develop it and keep it simple) is that it is probably our best chance of avoiding these depressing, cyclical time-sinks. Up to now, we have had the situation where half-baked "test" boxes were added to articles on a one-off basis, e.g. Motezuma or yet another "experimental" version is proposed for addition to an article that was about to become Today's Featured Article, e.g. Carmen etc. with resulting unfocused, rambling, and sometimes disruptive discussions started all over the place. Like it or not, this will keep happening, unless we develop an infobox for optional use which has minimum capacity for:

1. misleading or over-simplifying

2. skewing or drastically limiting the layout of the rest of the article

3. adding walls of code which are off-putting to both new and many experienced editors

4. re-creating the whole article as wall of bullet points that actually obscure the key information rather than making it more accessible.

I think this box fulfills that and in addition gives us greater flexibility in illustrating articles, and could be a positive improvement for many of them. I've gone through all the past discussions here on developing an opera infobox, and all the editors participating were either in favour (in varying degrees) or at least not opposed to one, if it was succinct and reasonably well-thought out. The main problem before was the worry that developing one would entail a distracting time-sink. But the main donkey-work has now been done. Voceditenore (talk) 10:19, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

It's a shame that there's so little data reuse possible in the current state of the proposed draft infobox. For instance, the flattening of every single work to the undifferentiated category of "opera" means that extra work needs to be done to create, say, a list of works (where it is usual to describe the sub-genre). One possibility of making the data more useful, while not reopening discussions on display formats, would be to store some info as non-displaying. It will mean a very small amount of extra work loading the structure up in the first place. This would improve re-usability, and offer the possibility of richer meta-data. Also, if it is decided that a reader can gain valuable information from knowing if a work is an opera bouffe or a tragédie lyrique the sub-genre field can be made visible and no extra work needs done. (edited) Scarabocchio (talk) 21:51, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, we have lists of operas for every major composer (and most of the minor ones as well). Virtually all of them already include the sub-genres. The vast majority of them were made by Kleinzach and are, in my view, some of the most valuable opera pages on Wikipedia. See Category:Lists of operas by composer. – Voceditenore (talk) 06:37, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

To elaborate on Scarabocchio's points, I believe the infobox is structurally much more significant that most of us realize (it's not just about making a nice article). I was reading The WP article on Wikipedia. It actually mentions one of the functions of infoboxes: Since WP is often mined for data to be supplied elsewhere (e.g. Google's Knowledge Graph), the infobox supplies important main points to populate these other uses of WP, particularly as the semantic web begins to emerge. For that reason I think infoboxes should be used when possible and that over-simplification, while making them easier, does not do justice to WP:Opera or to WP. -- kosboot (talk) 22:38, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Just to answer a couple of points here. There is no need to add an extra field for sub-genre. The current guidance is

If there is a referenced sub-genre, the linked term can be put in parentheses, e.g. "Opera (dramma giocoso) in 4 acts". However, do not list the sub-genre if it would lead to misleading oversimplification. Sub-genre distinctions can be very blurry, and are best explicated in the article text.

So I really don't see what the problem is. There was also discussion on this point at Template talk:Infobox opera when the box was being developed. I'd suggest that discussion about the specific details and structure of the box, proposed future changes etc. take place there, so we can keep track of it as the box develops rather than diffusing it here. Re the general issue of metadata, I think everyone here is aware of that aspect, and most of us see a certain amount of value in it. However, I also think that, as with everything else, we need to balance several issues, including editor retention and our duty not to mislead the reader or to bury the key facts in a wall of detail. Those are my priorities and those of several other active editors here—not simply making life easy for the commercial companies data-mining Wikipedia for profit. I'm sure this essay won't change minds either way, but it's worth reading an alternative viewpoint. Voceditenore (talk) 06:15, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Update

As this discussion has been open for over two weeks with some reservations but without any major objections to making this box available as an option for articles on individual operas, I've now gone ahead and added it to the list of templates on the main project page and to the Article Guide. Hopefully, this will not prove to be the end of civilization as we know it, although you never know ;). Voceditenore (talk) 06:32, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Admin help

Someone's just created an article on Lina Abarbanell (soprano) - can an admin move this page to Lina Abarbanell, over the existing redirect, please? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:06, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Done. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:11, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:14, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

More admin help needed with a page move + clean up

I vespri Siciliani (the Italian version of the opera) has recently been created as a separate article from Les vêpres siciliennes (the original French version). However, it needs to be moved to I vespri siciliani (correct capitalisation of the title). That page is currently a re-direct to Les vêpres siciliennes, and needs an admin to move the new article to that title over the redirect. Once done, we also need to change the Verdi navboxes and to change redirect page I Vespri Siciliani to redirect to I vespri siciliani, and make sure that the links to the various redirects in other articles are going where they're supposed to be going. Voceditenore (talk) 10:48, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Moving and navboxes done, please check. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:30, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Nikki! All seems in order now, apart from checking the articles that link to the re-directs, but I'm pretty sure that in all cases, they were intending to link to the Italian version, so it should be OK. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 12:33, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Johann Hugo von Wilderer

Johann Hugo von Wilderer was created as a stub (with some hidden text) as a red link from a Bach article. He created several operas, room for expansion? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:57, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Most of the hidden text is now translation, but it needs citations - the typical German article. Grove is cited as literature, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:07, 17 June 2013 (UTC)