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Requested opera templates

I would like to see templates created for the following famous opera composer/librettist duos (along the lines of these musical-theatre composer/lyricist duo templates: Template:Kander and Ebb, Template:Lloyd Webber and Rice, Template:Rodgers and Hart, Template:Rodgers and Hammerstein).

Please do not add or include items not directly related to the duo or their operas -- i.e., please do not include items which happen to have or include the same or a similar title as an opera, or are only tangentially related, or articles which happen to have an opera mentioned in the article. Please only include works that are direct and complete official adaptations of the original work(s). Thank you.

If anyone wants to add other notable opera composer/librettist duos, who wrote at least three operas together (hopefully most of them notable), please do so. These are all that I can think of.

PS: Categories can also be created for these duos (trio in the case of Puccini/Illica/Giacosa). Along the lines of Category:Musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Category:Musicals by Rodgers and Hart. Softlavender (talk) 03:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte

Film
Arias
Also add
  • the discography article for each of the three operas

Operas by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Also add
  • the discography article for each opera, where present

Operas by Giacomo Puccini with Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa

Film
Arias
Also add
  • discography article on each opera

Operas by Giuseppe Verdi and Francesco Maria Piave

Films
Arias
Also add
  • discography articles for each opera, where present

Operas by Giuseppe Verdi and Arrigo Boito

Related
Also add
  • discography articles for each opera, where present

Cairo Opera Ballet Company

Dear opera enthusiasts: I have tagged the above article for deletion because it was copied from a web site, http://www.cairoopera.org/companies.php?lan=En . Someone who is knowledgeable about opera may wish to recreate it with new text. —Anne Delong (talk) 11:18, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I see that Voceditenore has taken care of this. Thanks!—Anne Delong (talk) 16:13, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Agents

Articles in WP on opera singers are written generally as if the singer was wholly responsible for their career. That is usually not true: there are many people always involved in an individual's career, beginning with their teachers (if not their parents). Currently at work I'm working on materials from Edgar Vincent a promoter, who apparently worked for Hurok before leaving and founding his own promotional firm, Edgar Vincent Associates. Vincent was responsible for many singers's careers, at least as far back as Lily Pons and Risë Stevens up to his death in 1990 (he played a significant part in Cecilia Bartoli's career).

This is just an entreaty to others in the project to not forget including agents or promoters in articles who are often instrumental in singers' and organizations' career. kosboot (talk) 15:24, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Spam

This was reported in the past but a bunch of IPs are at it again, spamming classicistranieri.com into multiple articles. Helpsome (talk) 19:39, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Helpsome. Thanks so much for the detailed report you filed at WikiProject Spam. It finally did the trick. The classicistranieri.com domain has now been blacklisted. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 19:16, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
It was a pain to track down all those IPs for the report but I'm glad it finally stopped the spamming. Helpsome (talk) 21:35, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Balázs Kocsár

Dear opera enthusiasts: Here's an old AfC draft that needs references. I see quite a few news reports, but they are not in English. Is this a notable topic, and should the page be kept and improved? —Anne Delong (talk) 15:48, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, clearly notable, though not reliably referenced. This doesn't make it unverifiable though: hasn't anyone tried Google? When major opera houses host bios in French, German and English it's pretty clear the article isn't a hoax. Sparafucil (talk) 01:34, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
I added one reference that was in English and moved out the inappropriate ones.—Anne Delong (talk) 15:17, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Hi Anne. He'd pass WP:MUSICBIO on his discography alone, with several recordings on the Hungaroton label and a DVD on the EuroArts label (no WP article, but a well-known German label). See WorldCat for a list of his recordings. I'd move it to article space and tag for clean up. It's more likely to be improved there. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 17:37, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Okay, done.—Anne Delong (talk) 04:26, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Frank Waller

Recently discovered this completely unreferenced article about an Olympic gold medalist who apparently later became a successful vocal coach of several famous opera singers. I just put an opera project banner on it. References would be a nice addition.4meter4 (talk) 02:46, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Done. kosboot (talk) 14:24, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Melba Ramos

Unreferenced article that is full of WP:PEACOCK and reads like a commercial promotion. Some of it apparently a translation from the German of her own website. I doubt she is really WP:NOTABLE - any views? --Smerus (talk) 08:43, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Cripes, Smerus, how on earth did you find this one?!? It didn't even have an OP banner. I've stubbed and rewritten it with some independent references. It had been copied verbatim from an older version of her official website and basically hadn't been touched since it had been pasted in in 2007. She's notable enough. There are quite a lot of German sources about her. Her career has been primarily in Germany and Austria. I can't be bothered to expand it further, but perhaps someone else will... eventually. Voceditenore (talk) 11:21, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
Thanks VdT. It came up by accident - I wrote Sophie's Choice (opera) as a new article and found to my surprise that this article linked to it.--Smerus (talk) 12:02, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Voodoo

Anyone want to collaborate on creating an article for this opera whose first performance since 1928 will probably receive a lot of attention in the New York press: Long-Unheard Harlem Renaissance Opera Coming in June - kosboot (talk) 00:52, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Soon done with the beginnings of an article - hopefully will post in 1-2 days. - kosboot (talk) 03:48, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Here it is: Voodoo (opera) - have at it. I suppose we'll get more information from the program that will come from the performances in June. - kosboot (talk) 02:51, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
It's looking good, kosboot. You might want to clarify "It has been called the first American opera composed by an African American". Although Treemonisha didn't premiere until 1972, Joplin composed it in 1910 and published the piano/vocal score in 1911. And according to several reference books, A Guest of Honor, an even an earlier opera by Joplin whose score has been lost, was performed in 1903. Voceditenore (talk) 12:09, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Thanks VdT. I too was thinking: that A Guest of Honor is really the first opera which we know was performed. Although Freeman wrote his first opera in 1891, it probably wasn't performed. It then becomes a question of "first opera composed" and "first opera performed." I'm going to move that sentence in the Voodoo article to a footnote. - kosboot (talk) 13:37, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Back in March, I came across the navbox template for {{Opera companies in Canada}} open on a page, and felt impelled to add one missing company, remove a dead one, change two out-dated company names (one from 2008), and do some minor copy-editing, before sweeping through all of the Canadian company articles, checking and correcting external links, staff changes, company names...

It was the combination of the list of companies being (a) inside the article body itself, (b) open and visible, and (c) being about companies (which are, ummm.... more interchangeable or of-a-piece than most things you come across in a navbox) that made the list dangerously close to useful.

I'd be happy to do the same for other countries, but I would want that the navboxes were complete lists -- ie, that the List of opera companies in Denmark, say, was a list of opera companies in Denmark, not a list of WP articles. That potentially means a navbox with red-links. It will be a lot of work to put this together, and it would be rather discouraging to discard up to half of the work because of the vagaries and accidents of enWP's selection of articles.

If this project would agree to navboxes with redlinks, the lists of opera companies in Europe (etc), could be replaced by collections of templates {{Opera companies in Denmark}}, {{Opera companies in Sweden}}, etc. Articles about Danish opera companies would include the template in-article, greatly increasing the chances/ frequency of updates. Any continental/ regional lists would just then include the same templates. By re-using a single list, we can halve the maintenance overhead and generally keep both national and continental lists better up-to-date.

Does anyone have any feelings about this, positive, negative, strong or otherwise? Scarabocchio (talk) 12:49, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

First feeling: thank you for doing something so useful! Navboxes with red links: {{Bach cantatas}} was one, showing what was missing (until they were all completed), - but some editors are strongly against red links in navboxes, and I don't know if one/this project could fight them. What do you think of a list of operas in [country], providing a sortable table with article name, original name, other name (s), date founded, date closed? Similar for orchestras. I guess I am not the only one to need help in the judgment which German orchestra is represented by some English translation. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:08, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
Hi Scarabocchio. My personal feeling is that these could be very useful, red links or not, and for the reasons you outlined. There is a school of thought that because navboxes are for navigation they should only contain "places" that you can actually navigate to. But like all things on Wikipedia, it needs to be treated with common sense. I've seen quite few navboxes in other subjects with one or more red links. When creating them, you'd have to assure yourself that the ones included are indeed notable and don't already exist under a different title, which in itself would be very useful. I'm not so sure about transcluding the templates in the various lists of opera companies. Apart from it generally "not being done", you're liable to get novice editors wanting to add one and messing up the page and/or templates considerably. Also, the list format contains useful information about the red-linked companies which can help in article creation, e.g. List of opera companies in Europe. Having said that, I think that page is rather misleading as it stands. Many of the entries are for annual events and/or festivals which do not have a resident or permanent company, but bring in outside productions or commission them ad hoc. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 08:09, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

To help crystallise thought and reactions, here are the two first rough lists for France and for Italy. These initial lists are taken from the professional opera companies which are members of the Réunion des Opéras de France, the Associazione Nazionale Fondazioni Lirico Sinfoniche (the former Enti Lirici + Bari), and the Associazione Teatri Italiani di Tradizione (with a few producing festivals added). The labels will need a tweak, and both lists will need a few cuts and a few further additions but these are the sorts of numbers of companies (and of red links) that might result. Scarabocchio (talk) 06:19, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Looks great to me! I replaced the interwiki-links using the template {{ill}}. Articles in other languages do establish notability in List of composers by name. - I just joined project ill (my nickname for it), anybody else? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:41, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
They look good to me too, Scarabocchio. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 17:01, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

AfD: A Scholar Under Siege

Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A Scholar Under Siege.– Voceditenore (talk) 08:58, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Update: Closed as "Keep". Voceditenore (talk) 17:02, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Pride

You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride!

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  • When? June 2015
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    1.) Create or improve LGBT-related articles and showcase the results of your work here
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User:Another Believer and User:OR drohowa

Some round anniversaries

Approaching anniversaries of an operatic nature:

  • 25 Mar Premiere: Lizzie Borden, Beeson; New York, City Center of Music and Drama, 25 March 1965. (50 years). (stub)
  • 01 Apr Death: Giuditta Pasta, Italian soprano. (1865, 150 years) (Start)
  • 28 Apr Premiere: L'Africaine, Meyerbeer; Paris, Opéra, 28 April 1865. (150 years). (Start)
  • 25 May Premiere: Amadigi di Gaula, Handel; London, King's Theatre, 25 May 1715. (300 years). (Start)
  • 30 May Premiere: Amleto, Faccio; Genova, Teatro Carlo Felice, 30 May 1865. (150 years). (Start)
  • 09 Jun Birth: Albéric Magnard, French composer. (1865, 150 years) (Start, not tagged as WP Opera)
  • 09 Jun Birth: Carl Nielsen, Danish composer. (1865, 150 years) (C-class) Featured
  • 10 Jun Premiere: Tristan und Isolde, Wagner; Munich, Königliches Hof- und Nationaltheater, 10 June 1865. (150 years). (B-class)
  • 30 Jun Premiere: Die schöne Galathée, Suppé; Berlin, Meysel's, 30 June 1865. (150 years). (Start)
  • 27 Jul Birth: Mario Del Monaco, Italian tenor. (1915, 100 years) (Start)

I've queued the Giuditta Pasta and Tristan und Isolde anniversaries to appear on the Main page On This Day...

Scarabocchio (talk) 10:13, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Re: Giuditta Pasta on 1 April: "Sorry, but per the rules, we only do births and deaths on multiples of 100 years, so she wouldn't be eligible yet." Well, I hope that they remember in the year 2065 .. and they say that WP is trying to increase the coverage of, and by, women ... Scarabocchio (talk) 13:35, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

New article by newbie needing help

Hi all. This article on conductor Stephen Simon was just created by an inexperienced editor. Some help with reference formatting, categories, copy editing etc. is needed if any of you have time.4meter4 (talk) 22:24, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

No more bare urls, italics for titles. - too tired for more ;) - discography needs formatting, and text pruning, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:39, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
I did a tiny bit too. I sense this was created by someone close to the subject, so some of the text borders on puffery. (The one reference I checked was very different from what the original article author wrote.) - kosboot (talk) 01:28, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Thanks 4meter4, Gerda, and kosboot. I've also wielded my handy-dandy pruning shears, but added some stuff as well. It seems OK for now. I've formatted the recordings. Gerda you were quite right to comment out for now the lengthy and badly formatted list of his "Stories in Music" which had been pasted there. I'll try to get to it later. Voceditenore (talk) 09:34, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Yeah User:Voceditenore - you formatted all those recordings - thanks! - kosboot (talk) 10:59, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Adalgisa Giana and a new user

This article is one of the recent creations of the new user User:Forgottenoperasingerslover. Some of us have tried to be kind in mentoring this user. This article cites one source, one time. But if you go to the source, it's just a list of roles with no biographical or evaluative information. Someone else had already bannered the article saying it needs help. Today user 188.123.230.227 removed those banners but I put them back. I know one of the issues facing WP Is not discouraging new users, but this person does not appear to be reading our entreaties on how to improve one's editing. Does anyone have some suggestions? - kosboot (talk) 19:55, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I feel your pain, kosboot . I too have tried to encourage this editor to stop putting up unreferenced articles. I guess this is a slight improvement in that at least a source was added this time, albeit a poor one. I don't think there's much we can do, apart from cleaning up after him. They are notable topics. I'm pretty sure all the content of these articles basically comes from... er... forgottenoperasingers.blogspot.com. Click on that link with caution. It's so "media-rich" it practically crashed by browser. The site markets copies of recordings of these singers (and I think their photos as well). So if there's a conflict of interest, kudos to the editor for not adding links to that site as refs. Anyhow, I've now referenced the article sufficiently to remove the tags (as I did with two of his others), but in the process, I've noted a lot of errors that needed correcting. A lot of the material is based purely on conjecture and extrapolation from limited "amateur" sources. Voceditenore (talk) 09:16, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

voceditenore kosboot I would like to notify you that there are NO biographical or any other errors in the article on Adalgisa Giana, as I have been researching into the lives and recordings of these singers for a pretty long period of my life and it is connected with my professional activities. Very little is known about these enigmatic performers, and most are actually forgotten, and I would like more people to know about them. And NO information is copied from forgottenoperasingers.blogspot.com! The texts are all made by me, I only use different pieces of information (including chronologies) to make the whole thing look complete using my own phrases. And, importantly, chronologies are virtually the only sources of information about these singers (owing to Roberto Marcocci, creator of La Voce Antica) and, judging by them, we can even make up a short biography (and this is exactly what I am doing). I'm sorry for not citing references - I'm a novice in here and sometimes I do not know how to insert a link. I am on my way to self-improvement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Forgottenoperasingerslover (talk • contribs) 10:27, 19 June 2015‎

Hi Forgottenoperasingerslover, thanks for getting in touch. The articles you've created are valuable additions, but you must always add a source, even if only a bare URL in a "Sources section". It's a requirement. More experienced editors will then format it properly for you. You must also avoid relying solely on chronologies from La Voce Antica (which themselves have no sourcing provided) and then guessing about the rest. As you can see from my additions to Adalgisa Giana, Olga Simzis, and Nunù Sanchioni, it is not true to say that there is no other information about these singers in reliable sources. Two of them had entries in a very famous German music dictionary. One example of an error you made via guessing and which I corrected was:
"Olga Simzis probably studied singing in the USA and debuted as a member of the Lambardi Opera Company in New Orleans in 1908. In 1909 she moved to Italy, where she kept on singing till 1920"
A US newspaper article about her from 1907 states that she made her debut in Parma in 1906 as Amina in La sonnambula. She almost certainly did not study in the US as she was already an established singer when she joined Lambardi's American tour in 1907. I corrected a similar error about Adalgisa Giana here.I hope you create more articles for us, just try to find the best sourcing possible and avoid speculating. Take a look at our project's Guide to Online Research. It has lots of useful places to look for reliable information. There's now a wealth of this put online by libraries in Italy and France in particular, + many rare theatre and opera books from North American libraries which you can read in their entirety at Archive.org. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 14:05, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Nicolai Gedda

An unregistered user put in a death date for Gedda (May 16). Swedish Wikipedia does not report this, nor can I find any other verification. Has anyone heard anything? - kosboot (talk) 17:26, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I haven't seen anything, even on Swedish or German news sites. It may well be true but it has quite rightly been reverted by another editor. Voceditenore (talk) 18:06, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
There was a report that he died at http://slippedisc.com/2015/05/sad-news-a-towering-tenor-has-died-aged-89/ ; but the link is no longer up. Perhaps a mistaken story or an unverified one that was published and then taken down?4meter4 (talk) 00:11, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
There was a French report which claimed that Lebrecht got his information from Wikipedia - so it's come full circle. - kosboot (talk) 02:13, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Yikes, poor Norman; he's normally quite accurate and quite a good source. :-( He does love breaking stories though ... I guess he shouldn't be tracking uncited Wikipedia edits from anonymous IPs. Softlavender (talk) 03:04, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
I would never believe anything Lebrecht writes without a second source to corroborate it, and his blog(s) should never be used as a reference. This from On An Overgrown Path and the accompanying comments pretty much sum up the chap. It has one from me too, aka "Anonymous" (scroll down). Even his books are riddled with errors of both fact and judgement. Benjamin Ivry sums it up well here. Voceditenore (talk) 08:39, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
PS Here's Lebrecht's retraction on Twitter where the rumour started and then got added to Wikipedia and then got added to Lebrecht's blog. Geesh! I've also requested semi-protection of the article. Without a reliable source, this is a serious BLP violation. Until it kicks in I suggest several of you keep this article on watch. The rumour has been added (and removed) multiple times. Voceditenore (talk) 09:01, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
I believe the term for Lebrecht's kind of writing is yellow journalism. - kosboot (talk) 11:19, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Yep. In spades. And hot off the press on Lebrecht's blog is his confirmation that Gedda is very much alive and well [1], complete with "We apologise without reservation to Mr Gedda and to our readers." Voceditenore (talk) 11:54, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Cue the Mark Twain quote. Softlavender (talk) 01:55, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Use of "Cat:" in table style recordings

Looking at the Norma discography page for recordings of Norma (opera) I noticed a format in the Label column that I have never seen before, anywhere at all, e.g.

with a clumsy-looking note at the bottom of the table saying

  • Note: "Cat:" is short for catalogue number by the label company.

To my mind this was obviously a formatting error, and I thought to look at the history, where I found that another user had recently made the exact same edits that I thought were needed. However those edits had been immediately reverted by User:Viva-Verdi, with the edit summary

So at least I wasn't alone in thinking this was strange, and redundant. Following this link, I find that, to the best of my knowledge, adding Cat: to a catalogue number appears to be a format unique not only to Wikipedia, but unique to the opera project as opposed to other classical music or other types of music, and within the opera project, unique to Recordings (table style) but not Recordings (short style).

Frankly, this does not make the slightest bit of sense to me. It's not just a question of making a distinction between "short" style" versus any other style; it's superfluous, and looks very odd, as well as taking up extra space. Surely there must have been some discussion of this proposed format, but having no idea how to find it in the project's gazillions of archives I asked User:Voceditenore if he could recall any such discussion and decision. He responded, in part

  • I didn't have anything to do with writing those particular style and format guidelines. They seem to have been largely written by Viva-Verdi(who passed away recently). I think the closest we had to a project discussion on this issue is here (2010) and a much earlier one here (2006). As you can see, none of them are conclusive on that subject.

So there appears never to have been any such discussion. Looking back through the edit history of the style and format guidelines, I find Viva-Verdi's edit of 18 January 2010, changing

  • Catalogue number (if available) should follow the name of the recording company.

to read

  • Catalogue number (using abbreviation "Cat:"), if available, should follow the name of the recording company.

His edit summary reads "clarify aspects of what has become "standard" layout". Of course if any format has become a de facto "standard", then it's entirely appropriate to specify that standard in the guidelines. My question then becomes, was the inclusion of Cat: ever truly a de facto standard used by the majority of opera discography editors. My own suspicion is that this format was more likely a relatively idiosyncratic usage, begun by perhaps one or two editors. It's certainly not "standard" in anything else I've ever seen.

Nor, for that matter, is the redundant (in this context) "Audio CD". Any music - including opera - is by definition "audio". What needs to be distinguished is between its formats, e.g., 78, cassette, LP, CD, etc. If it's a filmed opera, then it will almost always be issued on DVD or some similar format to accommodate the video.

Personally, I would have written the 1952 Callas Norma as "EMI Classics CD 562 668" (also omitting the final "-2", which is not part of the catalogue number, but simply identifies the medium as being a CD).

Thus I propose the article styles and formats guidelines should be amended, to remove the Cat: instruction for Recordings (table style), and also to remove the redundant Audio. Viva-Verdi objected in his revert that many other table discographies have now been formatted in this style, but this "standard" style itself is not really standard at all except as used in Wikipedia's opera project alone; it's redundant, and looks very odd. It shouldn't be necessary for anyone to have to suddenly undertake a big project of changing all of the extant tables; this could be done gradually, as they may be encountered. Some discographies of classical music that I've seen do include older formats, so perhaps the guidelines should allow for these by suggesting 78, LP, cassette, etc., as well as CD.

I should note that Vociditenore's reply to me also addresses other important issues, not copied here, but which are worthy of further discussion by this project. (Also see his link to the 2010 discussion.) Milkunderwood (talk) 02:41, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I feel that the use of "cat." must be a vestige of printed catalogs. When you think of it, what catalog is "cat." referring to? Professionals don't call this number a catalog number but either a "record (or CD) number" or "issue number." I'd recommend the project use one of these terms instead. - kosboot (talk) 11:20, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
But why is there need for any identifier at all? Any such would be equally redundant. EMI Classics CD 562 668 by itself is perfectly clear, and this style comports with most such discographies I've ever seen. I think you do have to identify the medium, here given as CD. When Sony bought the huge Columbia catalog, they have left much of it in their vault and never reissued it. So to the extent that it's available at all, it would be only on the original LP release, or on a CD pirate. Some old recordings have never been transferred from their original issue on 78s. Milkunderwood (talk) 17:35, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Is Alto a voice type?

The template {{Voice type}} exists. User:Zkidwiki has recently added Alto to the list of possible voice types, while other editors have reverted those attempts. What do the rest of us think, is Alto considered an actual voice type? If you believe so, then it should be listed in the Voice type template and the Alto article should include the template. If you believe not, then it should be left out of the Voice type template and the Alto article should not include the template. Pinging User:4meter4, User:Discospinster, User:Michael Bednarek who have recently contributed to the template. Cheers, all. Prhartcom (talk) 19:08, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Sure it is. (I'm not crazy about the definition as the "second highest" voice which is true when there's a four-part SATB setting. But there are plenty of settings (especially in pre-Baroque music) where the alto is somewhere in the middle depending on the texture/setting of voices.) - kosboot (talk) 20:10, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
All I did was revert some vandalism, and I'm not a music expert by any means, but maybe the issue is that alto is usually thought of as being in the male range, while in the template it's in the female section? ... discospinster talk 20:29, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
Solo vocalists do not typically refer to themselves as 'altos'. It isn't an accepted vocal category within a vocal performance degree at any conservatory, college, or university. The term alto is usually used within the context of choral music. However, the alto section of a chorus is typically made up of a mix of voice types, including contraltos, mezzo-sopranos, and more rarely countertenors. Any serious vocal pedagogue would never label a student an "alto". It's a choral term when used in a singing context not a voice type. Please remember that choirs do not categorize individual voices by type but lump singers into groups which is why mezzos can end up in soprano and alto sections and baritones can end up in tenor and bass sections, and men singing falsetto can be put in soprano, alto, or tenor sections. Further, opera composers do not use the term alto in their scores when indicating voice types for roles, and classical composers do not use the term alto for soloists in oratorio scores, art songs, etc. Best. 4meter4 (talk) 03:33, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
(To introduce my statement, I want to make it known that a number of persons have added "Alto" to the template over the previous 5 years after analyzing the edit history, most of which had their edits reverted by user:4meter4 in that time. I was not the first, nor the only, to have this idea). Firstly, Alto is only considered a female voice. The closest male voice is a Countertenor (it is traditional that there be separate categories for male versus female voices, and it is also a timbre issue). Secondly, Alto is accepted as a vocal category at multiple institutions, including every school for secondary education I have worked with, the University of New Mexico, and others. It is ridiculous that we consider the 4 types of male voice (Bass through Countertenor) appropriate, but do not for the 4 types of female (Contralto through Soprano). Furthermore, I believe the template also requires the use of "Treble" (also known as "Boy Soprano") under a "Child" category, as that also is a voice type, constituting the type by children before the development of their voices in puberty. It is also important for children's choirs, and the voice types now used in choirs to replace the previous usage of Castratos. (Part 2) In response to the addition of previous comments, I counter your statement that opera composers do not use Alto as a voice type, citing my length of experience with the works of Manuel Areu, who does use Alto as a type. Zkidwiki (talk) 03:53, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
Please prove it with some references Zkidwikiltak. Show me one famous classical vocalist advertised as an alto. Show me one senior recital from Julliard, Eastman, Peabody, the New England Conservatory, Mannes, the Royal College of Music, or any other major institution with an alto as the soloist. Show me one vocal recital advertising an alto soloist at Carnegie Hall, Albert Hall, or any other major venue. I guarantee you that you won't find one classical singer marketed that way. It just isn't done. Further none of the major writers in the field of vocal pedagogy or literature published by the National Association of Teachers of Singing utilize alto as a voice type for a solo singer. I can provide a plethora of published sources stating their are only three voice types for women: soprano, mezzo-soprano, and contralto.4meter4 (talk) 03:33, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
I think that part of the problem is trying to claim the term "voice type" as limited to classical operatic tradition. A title of "operatic voice type" my make the content less contentious. Alto is a commonly referred to voice type, and thus should be included in a general template or vocal classification.
4meter4's statement, "Please remember that choirs do not categorize individual voices by type but lump singers into groups..." is classic nonsense. Each individual is classified and trained by their individual vocal type. They are grouped in a choir based on their particular vocal range and tessitura: just as operatic performers are placed in a role based on their vocal classification. Each country, time period, composer and vocal school uses a variation on the classic terms. We should make our box large enough to be inclusive of the most common terminology, not just a single fixed viewpoint. Bcharles (talk) 21:38, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

It's good to get these points of view in this discussion and I welcome new ones. As this is Wikipedia, however, what matters is what is published in reliable sources. I would like to read the book sources referenced by the Voice type article and others, such as A Manual for Teachers of Singing and for Choir Directors. An Internet search brings up various online sources that so far each list only the seven voice types appearing in the {{Voice type}} template and Voice type article. One of them says, "A common misconception would be to use the term 'Alto' instead of 'Contralto' to refer to female voices ... 'Alto' more commonly refers to the range or notes to be sung and is not exactly a voice type." I'm guessing some editors may be more familiar with choral music (perhaps they sing in a church choir) and may be less familiar with the life of a soloist trained in a conservatory; knowing the famous SATB designations but may not know that choir members are slotted into the range of notes their group is to sing according to each member's voice type. I think we need reliable sources to back up any statements to the contrary, but the discussion is lively and appreciated. Cheers, all. Prhartcom (talk) 13:25, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Many sources state that voice types should not be confused with choral parts: see here for one example. If we are to add 'alto' to the voice type template I think we need to make it clear it is a choral classification in the template. FYI, two highly respected vocal pedagogues James McKinney in The Diagnosis and Correction of Vocal Faults and Ralph Appelman in The Science of Vocal Pedagogy: Theory and Application state that alto is not really a voice type because in in actual practice the alto section of the chorus employs mezzos and contraltos and often, particularly in the UK, men using falsetto vocal production. Further, McKinney states that choral parts are designated only by vocal range and do not consider other aspects like tessitura, vocal weight, vocal registration, etc. Also I'm not comfortable with an opera versus choral distinction as the solo voice types are also widely used in the scores for oratorios, symphonies, concertos, art songs, and other types of compositions. 4meter4 (talk) 16:58, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
I think we've got it straight now. According to reliable sources and even the reflective Wikipedia articles, there are seven basic voice types; Alto is not a voice type but a vocal range and is one of the four basic choral parts (SATB), usually made up of mezzo-sopranos and contraltos together with countertenors. It is a coincidence of etymology that the names of the four choral parts include the names of three of the seven voice types, but it is comforting that the occasional confusion has occurred since antiquity and is still being discussed. Cheers, all. Prhartcom (talk) 14:18, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
Granted that voice type encompasses more than a vocal range; but as the names imply, the general terms point primarily to the core singing range of that type. Other qualifiers and subtypes speak to other qualities. The reason alto is not used in opera classification is that the roughly synonymous term mezzo soprano is used instead. I do not know what is the best way to resolve the opera vs choir vs other genre, but at least the voice type articles need to include these parallel classification schemes. Bcharles (talk) 15:10, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps create an SATB template? Prhartcom (talk) 15:20, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
Hmmm... part of the problem here also is that some writers on vocal music are not willing to deem the choral terms with the genome "voice type"; purposely using other terms like "choral parts" or "vocal lines". Further, in choral music, the alto two line often goes well below the mezzo range into pure contralto territory and the alto one line can go as high as an A above the staff which is well above the contralto in the upper area of the mezzo range. In fact choral writing or composition, as noted by several sources I can provide, is concerned not with what one individual voice or voice type can do but what an entire group of singers are capable of achieving together. For that reason I really don't think we should think of the choral terms as "voice types" but "vocal or choral parts". I think including the choral parts in the voice template with the required nuance is going to be a difficult task; particularly when trying to strike a neutral point of view that is contextualized. An easier solution would be to create a separate template entitle Template:Choral Voice Classification. This template would fit better under the section Voice type#Choral music classification which interestingly enough points out that choirs often misclassify singers under the wrong voice types. Best.4meter4 (talk) 23:09, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
Exactly. 4meter4, I'm not sure you noticed my single-sentence comment above yours; I suggested essentially the same thing. Question for you: If this new SATB template were created, would you agree that it would need to be placed in the Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass articles. But, as three of the four choral voice classifications have the same term as three of the seven voice types, this would mean three voice articles will have two templates. Perhaps it would be placed in a choral music section of each of those four articles. Prhartcom (talk) 12:35, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
I think that is an excellent idea Prhartcom.4meter4 (talk) 20:53, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

I went ahead and created the template at Template:Choral Voice Classification. Please let me know if you like it or if changes need to be made. Best.4meter4 (talk) 02:20, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Beautiful job, and I see you wisely left out the hard-coded formatting. I have just removed such formatting from {{Voice type}}. I just slightly changed the title of the template to use the usual lower-case.
You just finished the easy part; the hard part is adding it to the four corresponding voice articles. To endeavor such a process, a choral section is required in each article. This section already exists in the Tenor article but not in the Soprano and Bass articles. I have added the new template into the choral music section of all five choral voice classification articles and added the headers for the new choral music section into the Soprano and Bass articles; Wikipedia now requires the help of you and others with access to reliable sources to write these two sections.
The addition of such a choral section in each article lead me to realise the structure of the voice articles could be more consistent. I have just restructured them. Cheers. Prhartcom (talk) 15:13, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
As I see it, there's two possibilities to consider:
  1. Given that opera does not own all vocal music, we should probably check the way that lower female singers / very high male singers are referred to in, for example, jazz, musicals, etc. If "alto" is a common usage there, it would be worth considering inclusion, though we'd have to discuss it a bit.
  2. Speculating, I could certainly see a case where a singer in the chorus of an opera or other show was notable, and sung alto in the chorus, and thus would be most reasonably labelled as an alto. Luckily, this probably won't matter too much for this template. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:54, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

"Bohemian Rhapsody" in WikiProject Opera?

I occasionally trawl the category:Unassessed Opera articles. Today, I found that an edit by User:Dimadick added {{WikiProject Opera}} to the article Bohemian Rhapsody. I can see that the term "operatic" is widely used that article, but I'm not sure that that is enough reason to apply this banner. Aside: if it is, what should be its assessment class? "C" like the rating for that article's other projects?

The same question applies to the jazz album Carmen (Barney Kessel album). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:04, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi Michael, both of these are so tenuously related, that in my view they are completely out of the project's scope. I suggest removing the OP banners. Voceditenore (talk) 13:24, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Marga Schiml discography

I don't remember if Marga Schiml appeared in the section of new articles, anyway, she's pictured on the Main page, and - thanks to Tim riley who made the compilation (and achieved Falstaff FA for Viva-Verdi today!) - has an elaborate discography. Comments to the templated listing welcome at {{classical discography row}}, under construction, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:42, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

James King (tenor)

Hi all, I just did a major cleanup of the article on tenor James King. It was in really bad shape, and now is passable. It could use a little fleshing out though, as the article is heavily focused on his early training and his career at the Met. Best.4meter4 (talk) 03:59, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Karl Mantzius

Hi all, I just wanted to point out that their is an article on Karl Mantzius who created the role of Jeronimus in Carl Nielsen's Maskarade, our opera of the month. However, there is no mention of Mantzius' work as an opera singer in his article, only his work as an actor. This might be a good time to update accordingly. Best.4meter4 (talk) 00:02, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi 4meter4! Mantzius was a fascinating person. The article doesn't really do him justice. I've fleshed it out a bit and added the two opera performances, but there's a still a lot missing about the rest of his life. For one thing he was a noted theatre scholar. He was predominantly a stage actor, but the Danes seemed to have no trouble genre-crossing. Peter Jerndorff, who created Leonard in Maskarade is another one like that, although he sang in more operas than Mantzius did. As for Maskarade, I've done some fixing up/expansion/referencing etc. I chucked out the whole "Cultural significance" section—an unreferenced chunk of essay-cum-original research. Instead, I added a bit on that issue to the "Background and performance history" section. I shamelessly cribbed it from Ipigott and Smerus's splendid work on Carl Nielsen. Maskarade still needs a recording section, though. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 12:51, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
Thank you voceditenore! Great work! One thought, should the opera singer cats be placed on the Mantziu article? Or should his two appearances in operas be regaurded as more of a blip in an otherwise busy acting career?4meter4 (talk) 17:39, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
From what I've read, Mantzius was quite a polymath, although the current state of the article doesn't reflect that. I'd add the opera singer cats. What the heck. Voceditenore (talk) 17:56, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Kathleen Battle

Hi all. Some more comments and eyes would be helpful on this page. I am not really wanting to participate any more than what I have at this point. I have no interest in contributing my own pen to this article, but support any of you who choose to. Best.4meter4 (talk) 05:47, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Does anyone object to my putting "catalogue number" in front of what's obviously (for you) a catalogue number? I'm not looking to do that in article text, I'm just aiming at a broad readership at TFA. - Dank (push to talk) 16:23, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

That seems very sensible to me, Dank. Voceditenore (talk) 16:47, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
I am against it, because there is a link, as would be for K., BWV, Op., - it would be different for FS for Carl Nielsen because that is not explained. Those who really don't know might be confused by the term "catalogue number" as well. Possibly the better option is to have no catalogue number at all in the blurb. Operas are generally not known by catalogue numbers, different from masses where there are many with similar names. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:55, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
That's an even better suggestion from Gerda—just leave it out. It's only the blurb, and the less technical/verbose it looks, the more likely people who are unfamiliar with opera would be tempted to click and read. Voceditenore (talk) 17:00, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
Great, will do. - Dank (push to talk) 17:15, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
Brian, does deleting the catalogue number work for you? - Dank (push to talk) 17:18, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes. Brianboulton (talk) 17:44, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Marinka page move

User:Inwind recently moved the page on Emmerich Kálmán's Marinka from Marinka to Marinka (operetta) in order to create a DAB page. Unfortunately he did not change the majority of the articles that are supposed to link to the operetta, and therefore there are multiple articles (including the opera corpus) that are now wikilinked to the wrong article.4meter4 (talk) 00:17, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Looks like Inwind has now corrected most of the incoming links.4meter4 (talk) 14:50, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
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