Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera

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Opera Composer and Singer of the Month Proposals

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Composer of the Month for July, 2008

The composers of the month for July are

  • Egidio Romualdo Duni (1708–1775): L'école de la jeunesse, La fée Urgèle, Le peintre amoureux de son modèle
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Singer of the Month for July, 2008

Click Here to set up July's Singer of the Month!

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Composer of the Month for August, 2008

Click Here to set up August's Composer of the Month!

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Singer of the Month for August, 2008

Click Here to set up August's Singer of the Month!

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Composer of the Month for September, 2008

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Singer of the Month for September, 2008

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[edit] Composer for the month of July

I would like to suggest Antonio Vivaldi as the composer for the month of July. We lack articles on 39 of his operas so I am not sure we could realistically tackle them all. However, it would be good to put a dent in that number. What do you all think?Nrswanson (talk) 02:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

We've covered ten of his operas already, which is a lot considering Grove only list five. (The opera corpus only has two red links.) I'd prefer to continue with the collections of 'major minors' we've been doing - it's been a success. --Kleinzach 03:23, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh ok. Well perhaps later down the road then. I only suggested it because there were a few of his operas I was interested in working on but I guess I could always do those anyway. Here is another thought. How about the opera's of Michael William Balfe as it is his 200th birthday this year. There are 19 red links on the opera corpus list.Nrswanson (talk) 03:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Balfe was suggested before, but his 'champion' left Wikipedia. The list on the Opera Corpus was rather inflated with minor works - some of which I've now removed. (The anniversary was actually last month.) Of course we are not limited to Grove or the Opera Corpus, but if the available information only amounts to a couple of sentences it would probably be better to put that in a list of works on the biography page. We don't need more articles decorated with 'expand' notices.--Kleinzach 06:52, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I am aware his birthday was last month but usually ensembles celebrate a composer's birthday for a whole year. I am sure that Balfe will have a small revival in his works globaly this season. Anyways, I don't seem to be having much luck garnering your interest. How about the works of Egidio Romualdo Duni who turned 300 this year? Or do you have any suggestions?Nrswanson (talk) 07:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Recently we've been picking operas for CotM from this list [1] rather than focussing on a single composer. How about adding a few viable Duni works there for next month? Then maybe, instead of doing Vivaldi, we could have the Scarlatti opere serie on the list (as far as I'm aware not a single work of his has a Wikipedia article). --Folantin (talk) 08:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
That sounds viable. The three Duni titles from the Opera Corpus are L'école de la jeunesse, La fée Urgèle, and Le peintre amoureux de son modèle. --Kleinzach 08:56, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Could do RVW so that there is a possibility of linking one of the articles in his anniversary month.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, there are a couple of his operas missing. So we could do Duni, Scarlatti, RVW and another candidate (or two) from the list if anyone is up for it. I don't think it really matters that these composers aren't linked by any theme. What matters is that we have editors who want to fill these gaps in our coverage. --Folantin (talk) 10:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good to me but I think between those three composers we should have a fairly substantial list. We probably wouldn't need to add another composer.Nrswanson (talk) 10:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
It certainly strikes me as rather a substantial amount already.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
OK, I've set it up. Remember, BTW, we're only doing a representative sample of Scarlatti's works rather than exhaustive coverage (which would be heroic and/or insane). --Folantin (talk) 11:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
If Peter and Nathan are joining the team, I think we might be a little more ambitious. (I see we have basically finished this month's CotM already.) Let's add: Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1750): La Statira, Leonardo Vinci (c.1696-1730) Li zite 'ngalera, and Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783): Piramo e Tisbe. (They fall between Scarlatti and Duni.) I'll 'guarantee' them if nobody else works on them. --Kleinzach 13:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not actually guaranteeing to do anything. I was just suggesting RVW. I have a friend who went to St John in Love and I may be visiting him next month, in which case I'm happy to find out if he has a programme and if there's useful info in there. However, my energy levels are suffucuently unreliable that I've not been able to do more than vandal reverts and similar small contributions for several months. Also I'm having the place redecorated next month, so I don't know about how much work I'll be able to do.--Peter cohen (talk) 13:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
It's fine to do these things in your own time, by the way Michael Kennedy has a short piece in Grove on Sir John in Love - but maybe it would be better to take RVW off the CotM list this time and concentrate on the Scarlatti/Duni era? --Kleinzach 00:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
The reason I wanted RVW now was so that there would be a strong article on one of his operas to use on the opera portal in his anniversary month.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
If you want to start Sir John in Love, I'd be happy to contribute, but we don't need it in CotM, do we? --Kleinzach 23:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I'll email my friend now to see whether he has the programme anyway. QUite likely to have come with a libretto too, in cich case a full synopsis is definitely feasible.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 5,000 articles: cause for celebration?

We now have 4,794 articles (see the total on the Category:WikiProject Opera articles page). By comparison the New Grove Dictionary of Opera apparently has 11,000 articles. (Interestingly they have a greater emphasis on composers than we do: 2900 articles devoted to them compared to 1800 on operas.) However our rate of production must be considerably higher than Grove ever achieved. We will soon have three times as many articles as two years ago. (The May 2006 figure was 1,835 pages.)

Should we celebrate when we reach 5,000 and if so how? I suppose one idea would be to put a notice in the Signpost (though that might attract more undesirable box warriors etc). Or a time-coordinated toast to our efforts to make Wikipedia (to paraphrase J Wales) "not suck"? Any thoughts . . . ideas . . .? --Kleinzach 02:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Those of us in or near the UK could have a get-together, perhaps? Or maybe there could be a virtual get-together of some sort for everybody, not just a toast. --GuillaumeTell 11:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm always up for meeting people. But, during the Proms sason my availability is low.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
You could meet at the Proms! --Kleinzach 13:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I had intended that as part of the subtext of my message.--Peter cohen (talk) 15:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
You could meet at the music festival I am organizing in Levoca, Slovakia (plug)...Smerus (talk) 18:05, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

If one of the project's GA-class articles were improved to FA-class, it could be put on the Main Page to commemorate the occasion. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

We can do several things - both inside and outside WP. Up to now there's been a little recognition of WP Opera on Opera-L, but scant interest otherwise. I think we are getting to the point where we may be able to demand a little grudging interest from the general public/mainstream media. Based on today's revised count (removing a lot of miscategorized articles) we have about 200 articles to go. That will take at least a couple of months to achieve. (We were doing about 50 articles a month, but it has speeded up.) --Kleinzach 09:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I've been keen to have some stronger srticles improved. And we can include sub-project articles as candidates. If someone is able to come up with a list of candidates, we sould have a discussion on what people are happy to work on.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
You could look at the class B articles. I'm also interested in improving the ratio of stubs to developed articles, currently 1:1.96, however we'd need to discuss these things in a new topic. --Kleinzach 13:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment for composers

I just noticed that we do not have assessment criteria for composers. Maybe we should create one.Nrswanson (talk) 21:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean a points scale? --Kleinzach 23:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Correct.Nrswanson (talk) 23:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
That might be best done within the Composers Project. Have you joined it? There's lots of scope there. I've recently suggested uprating their banner. --Kleinzach 03:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not interested in another project frankly. This is enough to keep me busy for now. However, I do think it would be good to develop a points system for composers that is also adopted (or developed) by the composer project). If the composer project is not yet up for adding an evaluative system into their banner (which they may not be), than perhaps we can just invite them to help us create our point system for evaluating composers.Nrswanson (talk) 11:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
The question is not whether you are interested in another project but whether you are interested in composers, There's a considerable amount of project interdependency. This is why most of us belong to more than one project. If, for example, Contemporary Music had guidelines contradicting ours it would create problems. --Kleinzach 13:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree but I still think that this project needs a points system for composers regardless of what the composer project chooses to do. If we are going to have our banner on composer pages we should have a method of evaluating those articles.Nrswanson (talk) 11:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
No, I don't agree. Besides neither assessments or points scales have been agreed by the project yet. Rushing the project into work that no-one actually intends to do would be counter-productive. We need to proceed one step at a time. --Kleinzach 14:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't follow your logic. If we have opera project banners with assesments on composer articles (which is a fact) doesn't that implye that the project has already decided to set up assessment on composer articles?Nrswanson (talk) 14:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

No. We only have nominal, automatic assessments based on the proposal made by GT on 14 March which is here. For an explanation of the trial assessment system (done by myself, GT and Peter Cohen) for the Wagner Project, see this report. To see an actual assessment check for example Die Meistersinger. Details of the Opera Project assessment system have not yet been discussed. There are large numbers involved and there are potential problems, not least of which is the question of who is going to do the work as opposed to the talk. --Kleinzach 03:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying but don't you think setting up a point system for composers would be a part of the beginning process of deciding how to assess articles? We already have composer articles classified automatically like every other kind of opera article but it is the only kind of article with our banner that doesn't have a point system yet. It seems to me that now is the time to start talking about where we are going with this, not later. I'm not suggesting we actually jump into assessment but that we finish setting the groundwork. As for the work of assessment I am sure project members like myself will step up to the plate. It may take us a while but I think it will benefit the group as a whole.Nrswanson (talk) 04:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I would tend to agree with Nrswanson here. There's no harm in actually in setting up a point system for opera composers. After all, we seem to have one for opera directors. Surely composers are equally important if not more so, especially the 'giants' whose work was primarily in opera. Assessing an article like Giuseppe Verdi ought to be a lot higher on the project's 'priority list' than say assessing every obscure opera that Donizetti ever wrote. I also think it might be a good idea to add a note at the top of Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Assessment to the effect that for now, almost all of the current ratings are 'automatic', i.e. "stub" if they have a stub tag or "start" if they don't pending formal assessment. Otherwise people will think we're nuts. They go to really good, well-referenced articles which other projects have rated as "B" and we're assessing them as "start". We know why, but no one outside the project will know. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 07:43, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Since I'm being pressed on this: I made some suggestions (one of which was identical to the one you have just made) to GuillaumeTell on 30 May, and I was hoping he'd lead off a full discussion. I don't want to do it myself because (1) to do it properly would be time consuming, and (2) I'm not a big enthusiast for assessments. If GuillaumeTell doesn't want to do it, I suggest we ask Peter Cohen who is keen on rating and worked on the Wagner ones. (Incidentally, during the five or six hours I spent cleaning up the problems after the bot run, I did move the obvious articles provisionally to B, precisely to avoid people thinking we were losing our marbles, as suggested.)

BTW composer assessments would be the worst way to start. Based on the Wagner experience - and common sense - it would be much easier to start with opera title articles, which have already been edited according to our detailed guidelines, rather than the composers articles which have been done outside the project. The opera articles follow a consistent structure which makes it easy to apply a points scale. There are 1,330 opera title pages so to do real assessments, rather than nominal ones, which would take a considerable time. IMO we would need a dedicated assessment team to take it on - of workers not talkers! --Kleinzach 08:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC) (P.S. Of course articles can be assessed individually at any time. In the case of Giuseppe Verdi all you have to do is start, or in this case add to, a page called Talk:Giuseppe Verdi/Comments.) --Kleinzach 09:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

It may or may not make sense to start one way or another depending on how the work is divided among an assessment team. I personally think an alphabetical breakdown of articles will be the easiest way to handle the load and make sure every article is covered. In which case, all different kinds of opera articles would be mixed together under such a structure. Perhaps we should begin forming a group of dedicated editors willing to be a part of an assessment team. Also, I am going to go ahead and structure a proposed point system for composers and get some feedback on it.Nrswanson (talk) 15:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Here is my proposal for an opera composer point system.Nrswanson (talk) 16:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed point system for opera composers

Elements Points
Family background/studies 10
Early career, with coverage of significant compositions/patrons and notable performances of works 10
Mature career, with coverage of significant compositions/patrons and notable performances of works 20
List of compositions (if available - with dates of composition completion and dates of premier performances) 10
Critical appreciation (with full sources) 15
Bibliography (if any) 10
Illustrations 10
Inline references, notes, sources, internal and external sources 15

Comment The problem is it's impossible to fulfill some of those criteria for many composers (especially the earlier ones) because the relevant information does not exist. User:Moreschi made this point when the biography project was on its assessment drive. He knew he had written short articles on singers that contained every known fact about them. It would be pointless to rate such pages "Start" because, even with the best will in the world, they aren't going to get any longer.

I've never been mad keen on the idea of an Opera Project assessment drive and I doubt if I'll be taking part, but I think using common sense is a better idea than any rigid points system. --Folantin (talk) 18:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. The same problem presents itself with certain operas as well. In many of these cases, historical data does exist somewhere but music historians have not yet brought to light such data. For example La Scala has a whole vault of old opera scores that nobody has poked through in centuries. Or there really isn't any more data available. In such cases an assessment team could evaluate an article differently. I don't think point scales should necessarily be used too rigidly. You should really bring this concern up down below in the assessment section where a policy regarding topics with little data available could be made. The whole point of assessment is to evaluate an articles strengths/weaknesses which is a good thing. Realize though, that a topic with little information available is never likely to achieve good article or feature article status. I think if all such material avaiable is presented an upgrade to B article in such cases should be allowed. Regardless, I believe this point scale would be helpful in evaluating most composers.Nrswanson (talk) 18:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
"I think if all such material avaiable is presented an upgrade to B article in such cases should be allowed." IIRC that was more or less Moreschi's point. A short but "finished" article should be a B. (Forget GA, by the way, the whole process is broken there. Many projects have "A" class articles instead).--Folantin (talk) 18:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Right. You should bring up your concern in the discussion below: "assessment proposal" as it is sort of off topic here.Nrswanson (talk) 18:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Opposed I am against adopting the points scale above. Working towards assessment for composers should be done within the Composers Project - to which most of us already belong. --Kleinzach 23:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh come on Kleinzach. The composer project has no assessment process in place and I see no reason why our assessment point system would conflict with that project. Articles with multiple project banners rarely compare assessment procedures and/or complain about differing assesments across projects. I see no reason why it would be different in this case. You are just trying to create an issue where one really doesn't exist and it strikes me as WP:OWN as well.Nrswanson (talk) 23:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment proposals/banner

Starting a new topic here as this isn't about composers as such.

Sorry, Kleinzach's 30 May email to me got submerged by the need to keep a closer eye on what MelonBot was doing, plus one does have things to do in Real Life (anyone want my recipe for gravlax?). I will be happy to kick off a proper discussion on assessment and will put up some proposals, in a new topic, within the next 24hrs. I'm inclined to agree with K that we should start with the categories for which we already have points scales - Operas, Opera singers and Opera managers (the latter scale was needed for the various members of the Wagner clan; the Singers scale hasn't actually been used yet) - since they all fall within our remit and don't overlap with other WikiProjects. Note, though, that there are a whole lot of other Opera categories which will need looking at in due course - see Category:Opera. When doing the Wagner Project trial, we didn't contemplate a Composers scale because the only composers to be looked at were Richard Wagner and Siegfried Wagner. (Incidentally, the latter hasn't, apparently been deemed worthy of bannering by the Composers Project.)

Before we can start, though, there needs to be agreement on the visibility of a Comments facility within the Opera project banner on the Talk page. During the Wagner exercise, Kleinzach, Peter Cohen and I agreed that the banner should only display a (blue) link to Comments if there were actually any Comments to display, and that there should not be a redlink when there were no Comments. The reasoning was that, when any or all of us assessed an article, we always provided comments to show why we'd given it a particular class - but we didn't want others to come along and provide comments before we'd done the assessment. The Talk Page would be the place for them to do that, rather than the Comments page dedicated to comments by assessors. Anyway, this option has been implemented as part of the MelonBot runs, and where there are comments the result will look like the banner at Talk:Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg rather than the one at Talk:Gudrun Wagner which postdates the Wagner trial and has no rating and hence no comments. However, there are other options, such as those that can also be seen on the Gudrun Wagner talk page:

  • The Biography Project has given it an automatic Stub rating because the article has a Stub tag. The second Biography banner below the first one invites all and sundry to alter the assessment if they think fit and makes no mention of a Comments page.
  • The Germany Project invites all and sundry to rate the article and to "leave a short summary here (i.e. on a currently redlinked Comments page) to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article".
  • A similar but lower-key approach can be found in Philadephia Project articles such as Talk:Betsy_Ross_House where the invitation to assess and comment is in tiny type at the bottom of the banner.

Which of the Wagner/Biography/Germany/Philadelphia options would you prefer to see on unassessed pages? Are there other existing or potential options? Don't all speak at once. Meanwhile, I'll get to work on those assessment proposals. --GuillaumeTell 16:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I personally like the Philadelphia projects format. In terms of problems, I was wondering how we assess articles like Placido Domingo who fall under more than one point scale. Really that is it. In my opinion all that now needs to be done is finishing writing point scales for all opera categories, deciding how to proceed with assessment in an organized and thorough way, and assembling an assessment team.Nrswanson (talk) 16:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

(Edited version of my comments further up the page) I've never been mad keen on the idea of an Opera Project assessment drive and I doubt if I'll be taking part, but I think using common sense is a better idea than any rigid points system. The problem is it's impossible to fulfill some of those criteria for many composers or operas (especially the earlier ones) because the relevant information does not exist. User:Moreschi made this point when the biography project was on its assessment drive. He knew he had written short articles on singers that contained every known fact about them. It would be pointless to rate such pages "Start" because, even with the best will in the world, they aren't going to get any longer. Using the Wagner Project as a basis for the points system has many drawbacks here because Wagner and his operas have been written about in immense detail and a wealth of information exists for those pages. I hope this has been factored in to any assessment points scheme.

(Further to the above) NR Swanson writes: "I think if all such material avaiable is presented an upgrade to B article in such cases should be allowed." IIRC that was more or less Moreschi's point. A short but "finished" article should be a B. (Forget GA, by the way, the whole process is broken there. Many projects have "A" class articles instead). --Folantin (talk) 19:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Let's separate the two issues here which are (1) the banner and (2) the assessment process. GT is working on proposals for the latter. Let's wait and discuss those when he posts them.
Re the banner, we've had problems because HappyMelon wanted us to conform to the system used by the Biography Project etc. based on Template:WPBannerMeta. This was not used by SatyrTN for the Wagner Project (or any opera-related project to my knowledge). We've disabled some of its features but it's inflexible and produces ugly typography. See, for example, the comments display in the Opera banner at Talk:Opera. (Also note the Comments display is not exclusive to Opera - the same text appears in the Version 1.0 box. In other words, if someone writing for another project writes "Stuff opera!" on a comments page, it then appears gloria in excelsis in the Opera banner window.)
I'd prefer to see a banner like the one used by Philadelphia project. I like the small text under the line. I also like the facility to co-opt another project (in this case WikiProject Pennsylvania). This could for example be used for composers. (So Puccini could be Opera Proj (+ Composers), while Beethoven could be Composers (+ Opera).) I also suggest adding a small boxed link to the Opera Portal. --Kleinzach 00:34, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Red links

I see the whole list of operas of Tommaso Traetta have all been red linked, together with all the names of the librettists. Is this a good idea? The WP article on the subject (Wikipedia:Red link) says "Do create red links to articles you intend to create, . . . or topics which should obviously have articles. . . . Do not create red links to articles that will never be created" . There is also another problem. If the red linked names are incorrect (apparently the case for some names on the Traetta page) it's misleading and encourages the creation of duplicate articles. Best. --Kleinzach 05:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I took the list from this page [2] which on the Traetta article. I agree the red links are a bit over the top. I really just did it to see what articles already existed.Nrswanson (talk) 11:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
It's good to have complete work lists. Grove does this and so should we. I've recently been converting some tables from the Dutch WP (e.g. Luigi_Cherubini#Operas) and checking them against Grove. They are convenient to use because they are already tabled. (You could find all the Traetta opera by doing a simple search. They should be in Category:Operas by Tommaso Traetta and The opera corpus.)--Kleinzach 13:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

When I'm working on an article, I often put linking brackets around everything that moves. Eventually, I click the "Show preview" button. This tells me which links are blue (and I check those via popups in case they link to the wrong article or to a disambiguation page, and alter as necessary) and which are red. It's then a matter of judgement which ones to leave red and which to remove the brackets from. I sometimes click promising-looking red links and then click "What links here" in case there are other articles (or a page in Wikipedia:Music encyclopedia topics) where a red link already exists. After sorting all this out, I click Show Preview again to check, then Save page. Sounds cumbersome, but it works. Doesn't do much for my Edit Count, though. --GuillaumeTell 16:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Trial by Jury

The Gilbert and Sullivan opera, Trial by Jury, is nearing its featured article nomination. If anyone would like to review it, we would appreciate it. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 00:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Two different articles on Le Sueur

I just discovered that there are two articles on Le Seur: Jean-François Le Sueur and Jean François Lesueur. Any thoughts on how to fix this?Nrswanson (talk) 13:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll try and merge them. Jean-François Le Sueur is the most common version of his name and that article is the most developed. --Folantin (talk) 13:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Probably just got overlooked. I'd go ahead and create it.Nrswanson (talk) 19:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
I went ahead and created the cat.Nrswanson (talk) 19:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:British opera composers

This has just been created - and is being used alongside Category:Opera composers. This begs two questions. First should the higher cat. be retained or is it redundant? Second, should we use British as opposed to English, Scottish etc. (as the singers are categorized)? (My own preference is certainly for the latter.) --Kleinzach 00:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I think we should keep the higher cat personally because I doubt that a cat of every nationality of opera composer will be created and it may be useful to have one large comprehensive list.Nrswanson (talk) 01:01, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
No, no, that's not the point. The question is whether each article needs both cats. Sometimes we do this for a special reason (e.g. Cat Operas) but most of the time we don't. --Kleinzach 02:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I set up this category on the lines of French, German, Italian. Doubtless Czech, Russian etc, will follow either from me, if I am feeling listless, or from others.

On the two issues: 1)Redundancy of higher category. I am happy to abolish the higher category if that is the consensus - I was following exisiting practice I thought in keeping both. I see some justice in Nrswanson's point of having a 'complete' list available. 2)British I believe is safest - otherwise there could arise squabbles over someone born in Scotland who studied in England etc. etc. etc. But if anyone wants to create subcategories of British, let a thousand categories blossom - well, not a thousand perhaps. Next step doubtless Category:London opera composers.....Irish by the way should of courese be a separate category (therefore I haven't included Balfe) as Britain comprises only Scotland, Wales and England.Smerus (talk) 06:57, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Per Smerus. Arguments whether P.G. Wodehouse was a British or an English writer made it onto Wikipedia's list of lamest edit wars, so let's try to avoid that here. Since none of the composers concerned wrote operas before 1603 (and very few before 1707), it's technically correct to call them all "British" (with the exception of the Irish ones, as noted). --Folantin (talk) 07:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Italian and German opera composers (195 articles in the original cats) are not (save perhaps for a few exceptions) in Category:Opera composers. So if we were going to produce a complete list of opera composers someone would have to go through all these articles and add the cat. I'm not against this particularly but I think the onus of doing a cleanup is on those who want to change the practice. (Likewise using 'British' rather than English, Scottish etc. goes against the current more Celt-friendly arrangement.) Anyway what do other people think? --Kleinzach 07:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Comment: I feel strong(ish) about 'British' but indifferent on the issue of bicategorialism. I will suspend work on categorization until consesnus is reached. If we go for unicategorialism, the main brunt will fall therefore on Category:French composers - for which I feel to some extent morally responsible (for having provoked it), but which Nrswanson actually brought into being.Smerus (talk) 10:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Presumably Category:French opera composers rather than Category:French composers? --Kleinzach 10:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)Yes of course, clumsy meSmerus (talk) 14:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
This "X opera composers" category seems more trouble than its worth and will invite the inevitable inflation whereby we have cats for "X symphony composers", "X string quartet composers", "X oratorio composers" etc. --Folantin (talk) 11:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
My understanding on wp policy on categories is that articles should remain in the higher category unless the subcategories cover it completely. I.e. if we ever get to the point where all the composers in national categories, then we empty the top one; until we do, we don't.--Peter cohen (talk) 12:06, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but the problem here is that two-thirds of the articles are not in the higher category at the moment. If we take Folantin' s point (with which I'm sympathetic) we would need to change the cat on 195 articles. --Kleinzach 13:23, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
How about British opera composers, with subcats Scottish, English, Welsh, and, perhaps, Anglo-Irish, to cover composers like Balfe who were of Irish descent, but worked almost entirely in London, for London audiences? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I'd rather avoid all this because of the potential for insane "category inflation" as stated above. The other reason is we'd probably attract the wrong sort of editor. From my experience in other areas of Wikipedia I know there are people out there who love nothing better than to argue all day over national and ethnic labels. Plus, I think the way the operatic world divides into "nations" isn't really related to passports. For instance, I don't think there's much point splitting German and Austrian composers. These problems can all be avoided by getting rid of the "[Nationality X] opera composer" categories. --Folantin (talk) 14:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Shoemaker's Holiday wrote "perhaps, Anglo-Irish...". Trust me, you don't want to go there. ;-) See Talk:Anglo-Irish. On a more general level, I must say I agree with Folantin, having watched the Catalan nationalists and Spanish Anti-regional-autonomy Brigade periodically slug it out on José Carreras. Personally I'd keep Xnation out of Category:Opera composers. Most of them are categorized by nationality (for better or worse) already in Category:Composers by nationality. I'm happy to help change cats for the 195 if that's the consensus. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 14:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Are there no tools for up-merging categories? It is one of the most common outcomes at WP:CFD.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Template:Category redirect has info on this.--Peter cohen (talk) 14:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support removing nationality from opera composer cats, in other words putting all German, Italian, British and French opera composers into a single 'opera composer' cat. We might also consider adding in Operetta (61) and zarzuela (14) composers. (This would be similar in structure to the singer categories which IMO work well.)

We need AWB to do the move. (A soft redirect can be put in afterwards.) If no-one here has AWB we could ask Black Falcon who did a faultless recategorization of the singer articles earlier this year. ( A bot run is not a good option given the delays, problems we've encountered.) --Kleinzach 23:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC) P.S. Removing nationality from opera composer cats would also conform with the Category hierarchy at the Composers Project. --Kleinzach 05:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

This is all fine by me. The argument from comparison with Category hierarchy at the Composers Project seems powerful. Are we soliciting comments from other participants before proceeding? - Smerus (talk) 11:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I probably misunderstand what Smerus wrote, but I can't see much of an argument at WP:Composers regarding categorisation. There seems to me much more thought at WP:SUBCAT; I suggest that before any large-scale operations are started, that guideline should be consulted. As for me, I have no preference. If pushed, I would prefer not to have articles in more than one level of a category tree, IOW: Birtwistle is categorised only as "British opera composer". OTOH, having nationality/country as a category has often aroused pointless discussions, and will probably do so here, too. Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I was just following what User:Kleinzach wrote in the entry above mine, as I always attribute good faith to my betters :-} Smerus (talk) 17:29, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Maybe I am missing something here but I can't see any incompatibility between the Category hierarchy at the Composers Project and WP:SUBCAT. The Composers hierarchy just indicates what level of categorization is practical is we want to avoid high-maintenance "category inflation". --Kleinzach 23:13, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I'd almost suggest categorising by language, but then, well, most of them would be in at least two categories. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
"I'd almost suggest categorising by language". Not really a good idea. Some German Baroque composers (e.g. Telemann) used three different languages in the same opera. --Folantin (talk) 14:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Il maestro di capella?/La Cleopatra or Cleopatra?

Is this opera spelled wrong? I think it might be spelled with 2 ps: Il maestro di cappella.Nrswanson (talk) 01:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Cappella as in A cappella. I also think it's probably Cleopatra not La Cleopatra (see here). --Kleinzach 03:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I am pretty sure it is La Cleopatra. That is what it is entitled on every source I have found and on the Italian Wikipedia Cimarosa article. (I would assume they would know better than us)Nrswanson (talk) 03:30, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Do you have any reference books now? Which sources are you using? Oxford give Cleopatra. (Italians like to informally add the definite article, hence I pagliacci etc.) --Kleinzach 04:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
And English speakers sometimes like to informally remove definite articles. ;-) Anyhow, Grove lists the work as:
La Cleopatra (dramma serio, 2, Moretti), St Petersburg, Hermitage, 27 Sept/8 Oct 1789.
Best, Voceditenore (talk) 06:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
PS Grove lists the other one as:
Il maestro di cappella (comic monologue), c1786–92
Best, Voceditenore (talk) 06:53, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Underpopulated operas by year categories

Can we get rid of this[3]? It's been applied to 200 pages for no rhyme or reason as far as I can see (what constitutes "underpopulated"?). These year categories will fill up naturally. Having this whopping great template is unlikely to be an incentive to anybody to go and create the articles. --Folantin (talk) 18:10, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you'd need CFD. Then a bot can get rid of the leftovers. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 19:00, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Now starring at CfD [4]. I hope. --Folantin (talk) 19:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Watchlist inflation

I've now got about 2,350 items on my watchlist - more than I can handle efficiently. Are other people in the same position? I'd like to reduce my list to about 1,000. I'm wondering whether there might be scope for cooperation here? For example if I monitored German opera, would someone else like to keep an eye on Italian opera? And a third person watch French opera etc etc? (Or perhaps by period?) Does this make sense? Any ideas, comments? --Kleinzach 23:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... I see your problem. I haven't been editing as long as you so my list isn't quite so big. I'm not sure what can be done. Have you considered that some of the articles may already be watched by other project members? Maybe you could remove some of the more obvious ones from your list that you know others would already have eyes on without necessarily having to share the wealth so to speak. I could watch some composers and their operas for you as well.Nrswanson (talk) 23:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
How many items do you have on your watchlist? --Kleinzach 01:36, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
I have roughly 400 articles on my watchlist. I would be willing to take 200-300 articles off your hands. I wouldn't want to split things up by topic because I like to keep an eye on articles that I have made significant contributions to and those articles are all over the map. Nrswanson (talk) 02:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, but I don't think that's practical. I'm trying to save time here - on a permanent basis - so there has to be a clear overall idea behind the watchist selection. --Kleinzach 02:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC) P.S. I've also already signed off all the voice articles that you've been involved with. --Kleinzach 11:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
I have the following in my watch list:
  • Category:Operas by Adolphe Adam
  • Category:Operas by Daniel Auber
  • Category:Operas by Dominick Argento
  • Category:Operas by Edmond Audran
  • Category:Operas by Eugen d'Albert
  • Category:Operas by Francesco Araja
  • Category:Operas by Kurt Weill
  • Category:Operas by Mark Adamo
  • Category:Operas by Samuel Adler
  • Category:Operas by Thomas Adès

from when we did an exercise last year on tagging and appear to have most of their current member articles on watch too, even though a couple of articles have appeared since. Ditto I am watching practically everything Wagnerian on watch from last year's assessment exercise. I'm not willing to go much further due to the problems I have with fatigue and variable energy elvels.--Peter cohen (talk) 09:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, on checking I wasn't watching most of these. I have now added another 30 or so pages to my watch list which now contains a beastly 666 pages. Of course, a problem with dividing things up is that some pages are effectively unwatched if anyone goes on holiday.--Peter cohen (talk) 09:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment Kleinzach wrote: "For example if I monitored German opera, would someone else like to keep an eye on Italian opera? And a third person watch French opera etc etc? (Or perhaps by period?) Does this make sense? Any ideas, comments?" I probably have about 450 opera-related articles on my watchlist. Generally speaking any article I've edited significantly, I watch, plus any potentially problematic ones that turn up on my daily sweep through the Opera Bot results, and the bios of prominent living singers. (Geesh! The stuff that turns up in those articles!). I'd be happy to take some off you. Would you like me to watch Category:Italian-language operas for example? Dividing the articles up systematically is probably better. Less likely to have ones fall through the net. The vandal fighting brigade is pretty fast at picking up run of the mill vandalism, sometimes within seconds. I guess the main things that have to be watched out for are 'drive-by additions' of trivia, formatting new stuff added by inexperienced editors, and more subtle vandalism like our friend who wrote this completely spurious (but quite funny) synopsis for Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode. Not to mention these entertaining additions to The Minotaur. [5], [6]. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 12:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. If you could take on Category:Italian-language operas that would be great. I'll delete all Italian operas on my watch list except from the 30-odd I've created. That will be a good start. --Kleinzach 13:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)