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Need for disambiguation at Teatro Apolo and Teatro Apollo

There were and are many theaters by this name around the world. Right now these pages redirect to a film and one specific theater. See here for an example of a foreign language wikipedia with a disambiguation page already in place.4meter4 (talk) 12:45, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Apollo Theatre (disambiguation) is an example of an English language WP page ;-) that would do the trick and could include Apollon Theater, Syros. Sparafucil (talk) 04:08, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Ring Cycle category

Is there a reason we don't have a category for the Ring Cycle/has there ever been one? It seems obvious since we have a bunch of articles relating to it, not just the operas themselves but others, but I wanted to check here first. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:24, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

We don't have all Cycles that have been done. We list only premieres and a few spectacular performances. If we'd include stage directors, conductors and singers, it would be endless. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:43, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we include every person who's performed a Ring Cycle (compare Category:People associated with Gilbert and Sullivan which is really people who are best known for that). I would include the four operas, the four discographies, the article on the entire Ring and the discography of the same, Der Ring des Nibelungen: Composition of the music, Der Ring des Nibelungen: Composition of the poem, the two excerpts we have articles on (Ride of the Valkyries, Siegfried Idyll), perhaps major characters even if they obviously don't originate in the operas, perhaps Anna Russell, things based on the Ring like Der gerettete Alberich or Ring (video game).... Do we have articles on any specific productions? I don't see them. Anyway, I think we have more than enough articles to categorize. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 10:36, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Sounds like a reasonable idea. Be bold. Here is the Ring navbox: Template:Der Ring des Nibelungen. -- Softlavender (talk) 10:49, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

What we have now is that category, Category:Der Ring des Nibelungen, as a subcat of Category:Operas by Richard Wagner, - leading to Anna Russell appearing as an opera by Wagner, - can we do something about the hierarchy of cats? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:33, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

This happens all the time and no one is confused by it. Is A Midsummer Tempest a person of the Elizabethan era? No, despite belonging to a subcategory of Category:William Shakespeare, but somehow we get by. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:50, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Colette Lorand

I translated Colette Lorand and can't find a ref for her debut in Basel as Marguerite in Faust in 1945. Help? Probably in the Kutsch, but the page is not online. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:16, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Gerda. there's a reference for that here in the OUP preview of her entry in the he New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Voceditenore (talk) 11:06, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:09, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Gerda, if you need more detailed stuff about her there's also this Grove Music Online excerpt. Her entry in Großes Sängerlexikon, Volume 4, p. 2783. And finally, this lengthy article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Voceditenore (talk) 11:30, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, I wonder why I didn't get to the Sängerlexikon entry, and unfortunately can't see the SZ article because of my ad blocker ;) - So if you want to add from that article, go ahead. I'll use Kutsch.

Min-on Concert Associaton

I have been submitting an article on the Min-on Concert Association and made edits based on suggestions from editors. I was referred to this page but am not sure how to present the article to the editors here.Stgrlee16 (talk) 19:13, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

• Is this article available anywhere for us to look at? - please give directions.Smerus (talk) 11:39, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I think Stgrlee16 is referring to Draft:Min-on Concert Association (with a lengthy talk page). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:55, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
    • I see. In view of the various comments on the draft, perhaps this article might be better, stripped down a bit, merged to Daisaku Ikeda, the fiunder of the Min-on movement.--Smerus (talk) 13:05, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
      • Stgrlee16, I'll get back to you on this tomorrow, but in my view, you were badly served by the AFC project on a variety of levels. Voceditenore (talk) 17:31, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
• Smerus, both the Daisaku Ikeda and the Soka Gakkai articles are HUGE—too big for merging this—and this organization is notable in its own right. It just needed better referencing, and somewhat more perceptive AfC reviewers who seemed to rely solely on how many "newspaper articles" could be found about the subject. They entirely ignored a whole chapter devoted to it in a book published by Taylor & Francis as well as several paragraphs/pages devoted to it in other books published by University of California Press and Scarecrow Press, amongst others. Humph! Stgrlee16, I'm working on polishing up and expanding the draft now, and when I finish it in the next couple of days, I'm going to move it into article space. Voceditenore (talk) 17:22, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Done! Incidentally, there were already long-standing articles on the German, Japanese, and Thai Wikipedias. Voceditenore (talk) 16:58, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 11

Newsletter • February 2018

Check out this month's issue of the WikiProject X newsletter, with plans to renew work with a followup grant proposal to support finalising the deployment of CollaborationKit!

-— Isarra ༆ 21:26, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Vivienne Chatterton

I have a Vivienne Chatterton, soprano, active at the BBC in the 1920s & 30s (examples: 1, 2, 3, 4)... not sure if it is the same person as, or a different person than Vivienne Chatterton, actor. Can anyone throw any light on this? Much obliged; thanks. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:02, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Tagishsimon. If the British Film Institute is to be trusted [1], I'm pretty sure she is. There's a brief bio of her in Radio Who's Who (1947):

CHATTERTON, VIVIENNE CYNTHIA. Singer and Actress, b. London. Has an unusual talent for every type of dialect. Daughter of English father and French mother. Won open scholarship at Royal College of Music, 1919. Sang lieder, oratorio and opera, and appeared in a number of London musical productions. Last stage part before the war was the Welsh cook in "She Was Too Young" at Wyndham's. Joined B.B.C. Drama Rep. Company in 1939. Broadcast continually to schools for five years. Rejoined Drama Rep. in 1945. Has appeared in many recent programmes including the Forsyte serial. Did Television before the war.

Note also that several of the films listed in the WP article were musicals. Hope that helps. Voceditenore (talk) 16:51, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

@Voceditenore: That's fantastic, thank you so much. I'll do some work on the en.wiki article, and the result is very useful for some IRL work I'm doing. I'm very grateful to you. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:58, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Categories for deletion

See deletion discussions for Operas set in Scandinavia and Operas set in Iberia which I've put up for deletion as superfluous.Smerus (talk) 11:37, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

AfDs for an opera and its composer

• The Francis Bacon Opera at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Francis Bacon Opera
• Stephen Crowe (composer) at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephen Crowe (composer)

Voceditenore (talk) 17:37, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Julietta (Martinů)

As I have amended it already, I wonder if someone would help with the reference to 2018 Prague performances, which I have already put in the right place but has been added back today. Many thanks Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 21:18, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Cg2p0B0u8m, I've added a reference for the performance but have removed that is was to be performed "in the presence of Margot Blommestijn-van Leeuwen who also celebrates her 80th birthday that day". I can find zero mention of this anywhere and who in the heck is Margot Blommestijn-van Leeuwen??? The article needs more eyes. I suspect the IP who keeps re-adding this will be very persistent. Perhaps, she's his grandmother and this is her birthday treat? Voceditenore (talk) 12:05, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that. Yes, difficult to tell the reason for the keeness to add it.Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 20:26, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Cathinka Buchwieser

As requested for March, I translated Cathinka Buchwieser, but now she is an orphan. Help? Three red-link operas ... - She is pictured/painted naked in the Theater an der Wien, DYK? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:39, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

It's always a safe bet to list a new biog in the year and day of her birth & death (which I've done) - May 24#Births, July 9#Deaths, 1789#Births, 1828#July–December 2 - and a settlement with which she's associated - Koblenz#Notable people. hth --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:13, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Just starting an article on Die beiden Kalifen --Smerus (talk) 15:13, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Tagishsimon's idea is excellent. I also use the Year in Music pages. In this case, 1789 in music and 1828 in music would be good targets. Oh, and Smerus, see my comments at Talk:Die beiden Kalifen. The article needs some revision of the facts. Voceditenore (talk) 15:33, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I've added her to both of those pages. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:29, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, and for the pic clarification! - Update: I'm close to nominating her for DYK. 4 more red-link operas there ;) - Today, I began the last of four German sopranos requested for March, but her pic is not yet on the commons. Help? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:03, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

This is available - File:Anna Bockholtz-Falconi AEhrlichSängerinnen1895.jpg ... the image on the de.wiki has no artist info, so no certainty on copyright status, so could probably only be loaded to en.wiki as a fair use image. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:27, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

And the reason you did not find her was ... her image on the commons is currently filed as bocKHoltz rather than bocHKoltz - google tells me others have made the same mistake. See, for instance, [2] ... is it worth covering that in the article? I've created redirects from the alternate spelling, and added her to the usual lists, per Cathinka. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:26, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I usually cover alternate name spellings as a footnote immediately after the bolded name at the beginning of the article, e.g. Bernardine Hamaekers. If they performed or are listed in encyclopedias or similar sources under two different names, I simply add both to the lead, e.g. Armanda Degli Abbati, Yannis Apostolou, Concepció Bordalba. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 08:20, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Performance history Verdi operas

While starting to go through the Verdi operas adding an image of the composer, which they mostly lack (seems disrespectful to me to have pictures of the singers etc but not the composer) due to the composer template being replaced by infoboxes, I notice that all except the very most popular ones will say something like "the opera has only been rarely staged in modern times" (Giovanna d'Arco), except for this production, that production, the other production, and give a long list of when it has in fact been staged which is out of date as it stops about five years ago. This pattern is repeated on almost every article on the operas except the warhorses such as La Traviata, Aida, etc. Isn't it true that especially since the bicentenary in 2013, any opera by Verdi,even ones which used to be very obscure, may very well turn up in performance at just about any major opera house? Is it worth going through the articles and adding, for instance, that Anna Netrebko and Placido Domingo gave concert performances of "Giovanna d'Arco" in 2013 and La Scala staged "Giovanna d'Arco" with Anna Netrebko in 2015? and then you have an even longer list - "nobody puts this opera on except for this long list of when they did" - is that useful or interesting? What other solutions to this can anyone suggest? Thanks Smeat75 (talk) 20:35, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

If you have good images of Verdi from about the time when he composed the work, that might add perspective. I come from Bach, whom I respect highly, but we have only two images, one of him young is doubtful (but used anyway in the early works), the other is suitable only for the very late works. Better no image than a misleading one, and his scores tell me almost more than the images of the person. - Talking about performance history, should the 2015 performance of The Passenger be added to the opera? It is mentioned for the author of the radio play on which it is based. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:58, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, there are good images of Verdi from young to old but what I really wanted to ask was is it still useful to say "this opera is rarely performed" and then give a long list of when it was? and those lists are very out of date now, is it worth updating them?Smeat75 (talk) 21:07, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I can only answer the other, but - without knowing too much - feel that you are right that it's a contradiction. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:49, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, thank you Gerda for trying to answer, I have not received much guidance from others so I guess it is up to me to use my judgement. I notice the same sort of thing with other composers also, for instance Le comte Ory performance history says "The opera is performed infrequently and, between 2008 and 2013, it stands at number 165 with 19 performance runs as listed on Operabase.com". The 165th most frequently performed opera out of more than ten thousand that have ever been composed? I don't think that's "infrequently", I think that's a lot. Also typical is that the information is five years out of date. The section goes on to say "That number was increased in April 2011 when the opera received its premiere performances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York" and this is also typical, "infrequently performed" seems to mean "the Met and/or Covent Garden haven't put this opera on very often". But there are a lot of other opera houses in the world and although this is the English WP it is read in conjunction with opera productions outside the English-speaking world, I noticed for instance that two articles I expanded, Jephtha (Handel) and Le prophète, when the works were being performed recently in Paris and Berlin respectively, the number of page views sky-rocketed, so I feel there is a responsibility to reflect opera performances in other countries as well as the USA and UK.Smeat75 (talk) 01:10, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

(An interesting Jephta was staged in Wiesbaden, [3], by Achim Freyer, conducted by Konrad Junghänel. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:13, 28 March 2018 (UTC))

I agree with you Smeat. I always thought those types of performance histories were lazy for a start, and not very helpful to the reader, especially going on about their position on Operabase, which can shift quite a lot over time. I almost always write about fairly obscure operas where modern performances really are very rare such as Mala vita, Don Checco, and Mala Pasqua!. But for the "middle group" of operas like Le comte Ory, saying they are rarely performed and then listing a whole bunch of modern performances and recordings (or neglecting to mention the modern performances out of ignorance) is pretty pointless. Better to simply cover the opera's initial performances and major house debuts and then shift to pointing out some notable modern-day revivals. Voceditenore (talk) 07:36, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your input Voceditenore. I am glad we are in agreement. I will revise the performance history sections of the articles little by little.Smeat75 (talk) 12:05, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Smeat, another thing to look out for when you're revising these articles are assertions about future performances. Sometimes they're just spam, especially from minor opera companies putting on very frequently performed operas. Others were added by a really active member of this project who has since passed away. I never said anything to him, but I feel that it is wildly inappropriate. We're writing an encyclopedia, not an opera magazine. Secondly, the sources for those assertions are almost invariably primary. Most importantly, these "will be performed" assertions often remain forever in the article, making it out of date and frankly silly. Voceditenore (talk) 12:34, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

question on notability for page creation

i've gotten interested in opera recently and just learned that today, it was announced that Ian Derrer moved from the Kentucky Opera to the Dallas Opera as general director/CEO. i wanted to update his page to reflect this, and then noticed he doesn't have a page. i'm always interested in what makes someone notable so i'd appreciate insight into if he is notable or not. if so, i'd be interested to challenge myself to page creation. thanks. CanoeUnlined (talk) 21:52, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Under Wikipedia:Notability guidelines, "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" are required. There are some supplementary criteria in various other places, but WP:CREATIVE may apply particularly. If you can gather the fundamentals of a CV and career achievements, and provide supporting citations, you should consider creating the article Ian Derrer. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:36, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Assessment requests

ATTN: EDITORS - RE: Nestor Mesta Chayres and Juan Arvizu

Hello fellow Wikipedian Editors: In the event that you have some free time kindly examine the new biographical articles Nestor Mesta Chayres and Juan Arvizu for a quality/importance assessment for the Wikiproject Opera. Each of these lyric tenors from Mexico achieved international acclaim interpreting the boleros of Agustín Lara as well as the standard operatic repertoire and were held in high esteem both in North and South America as well as in Europe and new York during the 1930s and the 1940s. They also recorded extensively for RCA, RCA Victor, and Columbia Records in both North and South America with leading concert orchestras and radio orchestras. Their musical legacy has been archived for posterity on Archive.org as documented in the external links section (See: and

Enjoy and kindly accept my sincerest thanks in advance for your kind and thoughtful consideration. With best regards for the future success of Wikiproject Opera - 72.69.152.90 (talk) 20:25, 7 April 2018 (UTC)JJ

• Afa I can see, neither of these articles have anything to do with, or even mention, opera, and neither should have the link to this WP on their talk page.--Smerus (talk) 21:34, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Afaik, every singer of classical music goes to this project even if they hate opera ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:52, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Really? Agnes Giebel isn't, and I agree with Smerus that these two shouldn't either. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:39, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

fwiw, Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music exists as a carpet beneath which to sweep that which is not opera. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:42, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Did things change since 2010? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:56, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

You decide: "WikiProject Classical Music aims to improve, expand, clean up, and maintain all articles related to classical music that aren't covered by other classical music related projects." - from Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:33, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians - Kindly note that I have respectfully restored this request for an Assessment of the articles about these two Lyric Tenors from Mexico. User:Smerus in his objections indicates there is "no mention of opera" in the articles. Kindly note that both articles indicate that Juan Arvizu and Nestor Chayres were educated as Lyric Tenors at the prestigious National Conservatory of Music (Mexico). In addition, kindly note that Arvizu initiated his professional activites in performances of Vincenzo Bellini's opera "La Sonambula" and Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera "Dinorah" in Mexico. Chayres was a member of the Chicago Opera in 1949 (before it was incorporated as Lyric Opera of Chicago) and toured throughout Europe in France, Holland, Norway, Denmark, England and Spain as an operatic tenor. He also concertized as an operatic tenor with the New York Philharmonic under the musical direction of Alfredo Antonini at Carnegie Hall in New York and with the Montreal Symphony. While both tenors are clearly recognized for their interpretations ofthe Mexican bolero, perhaps these additional contributions to the advancement of Opera on the international concert stage immediately after World War II are worthy of documentation within the WikiProject on Opera. Thanks again for your kind interest and best wishes for the future. Respectfully104.207.219.150 (talk) 17:52, 8 April 2018 (UTC)PS

Donizetti tragic operas

Can others please have a look at the articles Maria di Rohan, Maria de Rudenz, Marino Faliero (opera) and Imelda de' Lambertazzi. They have been / are being extensively revised, if that's the word, by what, if you look at the edit histories, seems to be two IP's and one user with a name but I believe they are all the same person. The articles were quite OK until this process started and now they all have long quotes from contemporary reviews, all sorts of unreferenced material, long long lists of early performances, most of it without any sources, many many red links, personal opinion such as " Perhaps too many critics like Donizetti in a box, as if all his operas must operate in the same way, as if all must compete with Lucia di Lammermoor", eccentric synopses with quotes of untranslated text from the libretti such as “Ove son? - Chi piange qui?.... / Mio nipote ov'è? Morì? / Voi chi siete? - Che piangete? / Ma Fernando ov'è" and the synopses all end with the word "FINE" in capitals. In my opinion these "revisions" have turned these articles into hot messes. I have left a note on the talk page of one of the IP's, but I feel the best thing would be to revert all four of these articles back to the versions they were before they started undergoing these changes. That seems a bit drastic though so I am wondering what others think. Thanks. Smeat75 (talk) 20:20, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

After having only looked at the first, I agree. Your message to the IP is very polite, and an answer there might change things, but with no answer, a revert to before, asking to discuss changes on the talk, might be best. - I encountered a similar activity on Kathleen Ferrier discography, but that was a new IP, while the Donizetti lover was here from 2016. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:47, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

I have put the articles back to the way they were before these unacceptable changes started, we will see if there are any developments.Smeat75 (talk) 13:18, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Anyone have access to Deryck Cooke's Vindications: Essays on Romantic Music (1982)

On Macbeth there's a {{page needed}} tag on a cite to Deryck Cooke's Vindications: Essays on Romantic Music (1982), specifically the essay "Shakespeare into Music" (1964), supporting the following quote:

Only during the present Verdi craze could his Macbeth be seriously set beside its tremendous original. What can we make of a Macbeth who pursues his fatal vision through a musical desert of the old fustian recitative, or a Lady Macbeth whose prayer to be unsexed is a barn-storming martial cabaletta? In the "Grand scena di sonnambulismo", admittedly, Verdi did so magically stroke the big strumming guitar of his orchestra, and so chasten the vocal pride of Italian bel canto, as to foreshadow his achievements of some forty years later.

If anyone has access to either the original essay or the reprinted version—or, in a pinch, can cite the quote to a different source (someone using the same quote perhaps?)—it would be much appreciated. My field is Shakespeare, so for those opera articles that intersect with Shakespeare I will generally lack both the relevant expertise and access to sources. Any assistance would be very much appreciated! --Xover (talk) 09:57, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

That is a very outdated quote ("the present Verdi craze" - Verdi's entire canon is now much more highly valued and frequently performed than it was during the supposed "craze" of 1964) and is an old-fashioned snooty view of "primitive" Italian opera, typical of British Wagnerians such as Cooke at that time. It doesn't belong in the article at all imo and I am removing it.Smeat75 (talk) 17:35, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

@Smeat75: Since this is specifically about the content of the article, which belongs on the article's talk page, I'm going to go ahead and copy this thread there for discussion just after I save this here. But everyone interested should, of course, feel free to comment there (the more the better!).

Regarding the specific edit, I disagree that it should be removed (per WP:PRESERVE, if nothing else). What the critical opinion was at the time, or among a certain subset of critics, is importance historical context about its reception. We have entire articles dedicated to that (e.g. Critical approaches to Hamlet). If you feel the quote as currently used isn't sufficiently contextualized, the correct fix is to rewrite it. For example by adding the context you just did in your comment here: the opinion Cook expresses reflects a trend of snobbery among a certain group of critics, at a certain time, and the modern view is completely different. As a general rule, we shouldn't hide such things but document, contextualize, and explain them. --Xover (talk) 09:16, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Any interest in Otello?

Just a note for those interested: Otello appears to have been a labour of love by a small group of editors who are now inactive, and looks to me to be generally in pretty good shape. It's currently B-class but has, again by my best estimate, definite potential to become a Featured Article. The biggest problems I can see are a somewhat excessive Synopsis, and a large section of musical analysis that is entirely unsourced (and is probably original research). Opera is way way outside my field of even marginal competence (I'm a Shakespeare geek), but if anyone actually familiar with the subject is interested, I think a FA push could be a good project. I would of course be happy to help out there, but I probably wouldn't have much of value to contribute outside of possibly some technical stuff (citation templates and such, if needed). --Xover (talk) 11:02, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I am definitely interested in Otello but do not have much interest in taking articles to "Good Article" or "Featured Article" status. I don't think readers care anything about those levels and would rather spend my time improving the many many woefully inadequate opera articles that there are (I have been updating "performance history" on a lot of opera articles and hoo boy, have I found some doozies). However I would be willing to help with Otello if you Xover and others want to get it to FA status.Smeat75 (talk) 01:18, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, no, GA and FA—and the other quality categories—are just Wikipedia-internal wonkery that readers neither do nor should care about. But the point of them is that 1) they give a somewhat more definite goal for an effort than the open-ended "Let's just make it better some way", and 2) there is an actual process attached to each that gives us something definite to measure quality against, and 3) it provides independent eyes on the article and elicits comments and suggestions for improvement. For example, a technical factor such as compliance with the Manual of Style is something you really need to be pretty enthusiastic about to catch every single little nuance. Having the sort of review that happens at FAC to point out the bits you've missed is extremely useful. And I don't know about everyone else, but I tend to get lost in my own prose, and after a while I develop utter blindness to prose problems. Having fresh eyes look over the prose is invaluable for improving it. And not least of all, FAC is the process by which articles get featured on the main page, and if one wishes to bring one's efforts to the attention of the widest possible audience, this is essential.

But in any case… I just saw the article was a good candidate for FA with not too herculean an effort, but it's way outside my area of expertise, so I just wanted to drop a note here in case someone else was interested. --Xover (talk) 11:34, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

It's a good idea - I don't have much free time at the moment but I will try to make a start on it in the coming weeks. Smerus (talk) 11:40, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

June Women in Red focus on singers

		Welcome to Women in Red's June 2018 worldwide online editathons. New: WiR Loves Pride New: Singers and Songwriters New: Women in GLAM New: Geofocus: Russia/USSR Continuing: #1day1woman Global Initiative
		(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

--Ipigott (talk) 10:19, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

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Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

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If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:50, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

• Portal:Opera is the one bannered with our project. It was made a Featured portal in 2009. I have listed myself at WikiProject Portals as Portal Opera's maintainer and am keeping an eye on the WikiProject Portals talk page. Because of the way our portal was set up for us by Cirt, it requires very little maintenance, apart from adding new sub-pages as the need arises. See Portal:Opera/Selected picture as an example. Over the years, the number of selected images rotating on the portal has risen from 4 to 90, many of them thanks to the work of Adam Cuerden. Gerda diligently updates and maintains the portal's databank of opera-related DYKs which are used to periodically enlarge the rotating Did you know? section of the portal. Voceditenore (talk) 13:34, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Portal:Opera deprecated sub-pages

Apropos of Portal:Opera, I have been checking its sub-pages and found several left over from the period before the portal was redesigned in 2009. They are no longer used and have been superseded by other sub-pages which conform to Featured Portal criteria. I have tagged these pages for speedy deletion under G6 (housekeeping/technical deletions). The list of tagged pages can be found at Portal talk:Opera#Deprecated pages tagged for speedy deletion. Voceditenore (talk) 12:48, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 12

Newsletter • August 2018

This month: WikiProject X: The resumption

Work has resumed on WikiProject X and CollaborationKit, backed by a successfully funded Project Grant. For more information on the current status and planned work, please see this month's issue of the newsletter!

-— Isarra ༆ 22:24, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Bravo

Bravo to Jacqke for the newly expanded Bernardo De Pace. It made today's main Did You Know section with:

Did you know that Bernardo De Pace, an Italian immigrant, started his own opera company and eventually performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York?

A fascinating article! I'm also going to add it to the DYK section of Portal:Opera tomorrow. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:48, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

It was fun to work on. Thank you!Jacqke (talk) 18:54, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Violeta Urmana

Help please. Someone keeps adding from her website. (Not that what was our article before is much better, sadly.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:31, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Third time. I reverted one more than I normally do already. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:00, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi Gerda. I've made a start cleaning this up and referencing it. I left a stern warning on the COI miscreant's talk page. I think he's got the point. Anyhow, this is a very distinguished singer and deserves something better than the poor quality mess that it was. I'll continue to work on this next week. Of anyone else wants to chip in at the article, be my guest. :) Voceditenore (talk) 10:08, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

That is much more than I hoped for, already, thank you. I have a series of singers this month, including improving Elly Ameling who also deserves better. I'll look at this one again after that ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:06, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

"List of operas by ..." articles and titles

I've been rifling through the contributions of several users, looking for talk page archives with non-standard naming schemes and trying to fix them when necessary. Tonight the user whose edits I've been checking was Kleinzach, and when I found a page entitled "List of operettas by Offenbach" (with its archive), I moved it to List of operettas by Jacques Offenbach without a second thought, because most articles with titles in the form "List of XXX by YYY" use full names (such as the lists of compositions pages). Ditto with List of operas by Handel. Then I came upon the relevant cat and went gung-ho, moving all the articles whose surnames start with A and B and updating links/templates. Unless there is general consensus here that I deserve to be screamed at for my actions so far, I plan to do this for the entire category. I love classical music (but not so much opera), but I have a visceral hatred of the practice of referring to people by surnames on Wikipedia on first mention; it just seems so elitist to me. The list formerly at the title list of operas by Adam almost sounds as if it could be a list of operas by Adam. And I'd also note that the list of operas by Antonio Vivaldi has been at that title for over three years seemingly without complaint. I searched the archives here but couldn't find any mention of first names, so here I am. Graham87 13:31, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

I would support what you are proposing (and have started). I share your dislike of using surnames alone on first mention, even for the best known of composers. --Deskford (talk) 14:11, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't have a major opinion at present for the famous and non-confusable names like Handel, but "List of operas by Adam" is quite a yikes. Thanks for fixing it. Softlavender (talk) 14:30, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the approach, although every time I see Wolfgang Amadeus, I remember that he'd never have used that himself ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:52, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

LOL indeed. I'll go ahead with the moves. Graham87 03:23, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that giant task! I think we'll need the redirects, because people searching may rather remember Galuppi than Baldassare, and wonder if we should make even shorter redirects also, such as Galuppi operas. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:57, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

No worries, all done! I kept the redirects in all cases (or at least that was my intention); I think they're still useful. Shorter redirects might be handy too. Graham87 11:11, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Graham, many thanks for taking this on, heroic work!!! But - looking at Category:Lists of operas by composer, I see that there are curious variants in the articles listed. Apart from 'list of operas by', there are 'list of operas and operettas by', 'lists of works for the stage by', and even 'list of stage and broadcast works by'. In the latter case it includes a ballet and a number of ballades - so not a list of operas then. Some of the lists of 'works for the stage by' - e.g. List of works for the stage by Manuel de Falla - also include incidental music and ballets. So I ask editors, is there a need of a rethink as to what title can apply to what sort of list?. Best, --Smerus (talk) 12:03, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Spam links to "Online Music Library"

A single purpose editor has been doing nothing on Wikipedia but placing links to the Online Music Library on dozens of articles. They place them at the very top of "External links" sections and even created Template:OpenMusicLibrary for the purpose. Note, that the original version of this template had two links to the OML, one for the person and one to the site's homepage. I have since altered it to remove the latter link [4]. This is a for-profit site (owned by Pro-Quest) which aims to get people to subscribe to their streaming and paywall articles. See here. The pages have nothing on them that contributes to further knowledge about the person. See, for example, their pages on Maria Callas and Telemann. I am in the process of removing all of these links (about 30 so far), but would like members' opinion on this. This is a list of the 60+ pages still linked to the template. Previous spammers from this company had also added 30+ links to this site in 2016 and 2017–2018. Some, but not all, of those have since been removed. I have posted a similar message on this issue at the Classical Music project, because there isn't a complete overlap in membership. Voceditenore (talk) 10:46, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks - i have removed form articles I have worked on/am looking at.--Smerus (talk) 11:51, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

• Although links to OML's individual "person" pages are unsuitable for addition to articles for the reasons outlined at the discussion at WikiProject Classical Music, I have added a link to OML at WikiProject Opera's Guide to Online Research. Re access to material behind paywalls in general, I'd like to remind everyone about The Wikipedia Library Card Platform. Wikipedia has formed partnerships with a variety of academic publishers to provide free access to their online material for Wikipedia editors on approved application. Many of them are highly relevant to opera and classical music or have a significant number of books and scholarly journals on the subject, e. g. Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals (RIPM), JSTOR, Project MUSE, Taylor & Francis, Baylor University Press, Bloomsbury Publishing, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Edinburgh University Press, etc.. The full list of partners and instructions for application is here. Voceditenore (talk) 09:15, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation of singers

This is something not covered in Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Article guidelines but one can survey the precedents at Category:Opera singers. I'm considering moving User:Sparafucil/Paul Bender to Paul Bender (singer) instead of Paul Bender (bass), Paul Bender (musician) having been being homesteaded by an electric bass player of undetermined notability and Paul Bender being ready for a move to Paul Bender (jurist). There are a couple of other naming variations such as Peter Cornelius (opera singer) and Caroline Müller (1755-1826), apparently a move from Caroline Müller (mezzo-soprano). It's of course revealing of WP's coverage of women in general that hardly any sopranos or mezzos have needed dabs. Sparafucil (talk) 04:59, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I think it's common practice here to disambiguate opera singers by their voice type, "(bass)" in this case, despite his occasional Amfortas. Why would a bland "(singer)" be preferable? (The 2 current links to that term can be taken care of with a REDIRECT.)

As for those counterexamples above: Cornelius sang equally tenor and baritone, so "(opera singer)" seems appropriate. The REDIRECT at Paul Bender (musician) could be moved to Paul Bender (bassist) because there are no incoming links, but I don't think ("musician)" is appropriate for the opera singer Bender. Caroline Müller was apparently known as an actress as much as a singer and her voice type is a bit uncertain – she might as well be disambiguated as "(soprano)", so using her vitals seems reasonable. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:02, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Paul Bender (musician) is just a redirect to his group, though they seem reasonably popular. One might take that over with a hatnote. In any case a disam page will be needed once the singer hits articlespace. Johnbod (talk) 14:12, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Agree with Michael. And as a side note to Sparafucil... the fact that sopranos and mezzos rarely need disambiguation is more a reflection of the fact that the majority of them have "foreign" names which are highly unlikely to be identical to any other person on Wikipedia where biographical coverage tends to be somewhat skewed to figures in the English-speaking world. It's certainly not gender bias. By 2016, the number of articles on female opera singers was nearly double that of male singers. Voceditenore (talk) 16:13, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

To perhaps clarify, the two already common forms are (voice-type) and (singer), the outlier (opera singer) merely arousing my curiosity about a possible correspondingly named (flamenco singer) (and btw what male singer hasn't started out with some baritone rep?). But (bassist) is established, so Paul Bender (bass) it will be, Zwischenfach or no (I note though two incoming links, by different editors, to Paul Bender (singer)). As to the tangent, it's touching that anyone can be so certain there's no possibility of bias, but the proffered theory hardly begins to explain away Category:German operatic basses (5/25) and Category:German operatic sopranos (0/134). Sparafucil (talk) 00:02, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

• Apropos of all this is the discussion at Talk:Patricia Payne (mezzo-soprano) re a requested move to Patricia Payne (singer). Voceditenore (talk) 09:59, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Critical reception for Britten's Dream?

On A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera), there is a cleanup tag attached to the reception: The opera originally received a mixed critical assessment. Britten's estranged collaborator W. H. Auden dismissed it as "dreadful – pure Kensington," while many others{{Who}} praised it highly. I'm incapable of navigating the relevant sources, but surely someone here can either rewrite the reception bit or find an attributable positive review to cite for the tagged part of the sentence? --Xover (talk) 09:03, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi Xover. Done! Best, Voceditenore (talk) 12:41, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, Voceditenore. Excellent work, and much appreciated! --Xover (talk) 08:27, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Katie Clarke

Katie Clarke was a red link for Jahrhundertring, or rather 8 red links. I can't find much about her. Anybody around who has printed records from the ENO? There are many women with that name which doesn't make things easier. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:24, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

1876 Rhinemaidens

We have this image of the first Rhinemaidens in Bayreuth, in 1876, but this source has it reverse, making it difficult to say who's who. Any help welcome, looking at a main page appearance for the opening of the Bayreuth festival on 25 July. Lilli Lehmann is in the middle, that's for sure, but where is Minna Lammert (Floßhilde) on which version? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:17, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

One of those is obviously flipped. This image, from Philip Gossett's 2014 article "Opera from the Other Side" in The New York Review of Books gives, because of its framing, more credence to Lehmann's version: Lammert – LL – Marie L. (left to right). This version also seems more widely published than the AKG one. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 16:01, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, will change then. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:27, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Icelandic Opera Ragnheiður

I wrote a draft for an article on the icelandic opera Ragnheiður, to be found in my sandbox (Not sure, though, if you can see it? I've never written much before. Currently it's waiting for a review), trying to adhere to the structure of other articles and the information posted here in the WikiProject. Would very much like to hear your opinions (and also proofreading, because English isn't my native language); there is already an article on the opera on the German Wikipedia (Ragnheiður), so I thought it would be good to add one to the English one as well. AccioFelicis (talk) 07:33, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Ratings of articles

Who does these ratings of opera articles "Stub, start, C class" etc? It is impossible to tell by looking at the box at the top of the talk page how recently they were done. I feel a lot of them were "rated" when the article was created and have not been updated since, for instance Ottone,Giulio Cesare and Semele (Handel) are all rated "Start class" which I think is ridiculous. Le prophète is rated B-class, fair enough, but Les Huguenots "start class" which seems silly. I don't like to "rate" articles I have re-written myself, is it possible to request a rating from someone else? I don't actually care about these ratings or GA or FA status as I don't think the readers know or care about such things, I had a very bad first experience with trying to get an article promoted to GA status with a reviewer who knew absolutely nothing about the subject and swore never to bother with "status" again. However the other day an editor said something to me like "I don't know why you are being so fussy about this article, it is only C class" so for that reason I would like the "ratings" to reflect reality a little better. (talk) 21:49, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Project Classical music doesn't do any rating, and we could do the same. I care about GA and FA because it's reviewed quality. Anything else is probably not worth to spend time on it. I look at articles, not at a rating box ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:58, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm tending to agree with Smeat75 about this issue. I think we need to discuss this in more depth as well as possible solutions when I get back from deepest darkest Tuscany tomorrow.--Voceditenore (talk) 07:36, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I also sympathize with Smeat75 on this (thanks for your great work on Meyerbeer operas by the way!). Save that I think that GA and FA have value as indicating the standards we should seek to rise to - (but that depends of course on how sensible the reviewer(s) may be). Stub class has value as indication that some basic work is needed; the other classes serve no purpose as far as I can see.Smerus (talk) 08:48, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with Smerus. (Recently I wrote a very long detailed article - more information than could be found anywhere - and it merited only a C.) I know many WikiProjects have stub-upgrade campaigns. Perhaps Voceditenore could include a list of stubs (currently 3,141) along with the various updates that begin the talk page. kosboot (talk) 16:26, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for that suggestion, kosboot. I've added a section on stubs with a link to Category:Stub-Class Opera articles to the top of this page and added a similar message to the "How you can help" section on the main project page. Voceditenore (talk) 14:17, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I have no particular stake in this discussion, but just to throw a couple of cents in… The rating system is primarily useful as a way for a WikiProject to track and categorise the articles within its scope (this rating is for editors, not readers, and the per-project rating is for that project, not others). The underlying assumption is that the WikiProject desires to systematically improve the quality of the articles as much as possible. This is not always a valid assumption: Women in Red, for example, mainly cares about de-redlinking biographical articles about women, while Disambiguation deals with dabs, which have no quality rating, not articles. But under that assumption, the |importance= parameter is a way for the WikiProject to prioritise its work.

The quality rating is mostly standardised across projects, but with quite a lot of room for subjective judgement in each category. To a degree, Smerus and Gerda Arendt are right: Stub and Start are relatively clear categories, and GA and FA have associated peer-review processes, but everything else is pretty random. But, and this is the crucial bit, the WikiProject is who does these ratings! That means the WikiProject has latitude to define its practices in this regard (within reason, of course). As an example, Military History has implemented their own process and detailed, project-specific, criteria for A- and B-class. I haven't looked in detail, but I believe the setup is roughly: B-class is a checklist of MILHIST-specific criteria that anyone can assess against, but A- class requires review in a process maintained by the WikiProject (think FA, but strictly within the MILHIST project).

At that point you have Stub-class (any minimal new article; no cites, no structure); Start-class (at least one cite, at least one heading); C-class (everything else: better than Start but not yet A/B/GA/FA); B-class (self-assessed against project-specific checklist); A-class (project-assessed against project-specific criteria); GA-class (lightweight community-assessed against community-wide criteria; probably comparable to B-class); FA (comprehensively community-assessed against community-wide criteria). If the project doesn't have the capacity or interest in maintaining A- and B-class, and doesn't specifically relate to GA and FA, then the effective scale becomes: Stub, Start, C.

That is, you can opt out of using A and B class (and these can be disabled in {{WikiProject Opera}}), and have a scale of Stub, Start, everything else (C) for anything that hasn't been through a community process (GA, FA). Or you can define Opera-specific criteria and process for A- and B-class and use those actively.

I want to argue in favor of using at least the minimal quality rating system as a good way to organize work: if you use it conciously, for that, it's a good system. Where it falls down is if you start to assign meaning to it that it doesn't actually have: it is not like a star rating for a hotel or restaurant, which seems like what frustrated Smeat75 above, and more like the project's internal todo list. There is no reason why you should not review or re-review an article you've worked on, any more than there would be a reason for not crossing out an item on a todo list when the item has been completed. Unless the project (A-class) or community (GA/FA-class) has defined a specific process that entails independent review, of course. --Xover (talk) 06:29, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

The Opera project's assessment system (stub, start, C, B, A) at Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Assessment is an "ancient artefact". It was developed 10 years ago, but never really got past a few attempts at applying it to articles. The problem is that using the C, B, and A classes required way more work than members could possibly carry out on a consistent basis. At that time there were about 5000 articles under the OP banner. Now there are nearly 11,000! I would not be in favour of dispensing completely with the "class" parameter as it is a very valuable tool for keeping track of OP articles. For example, the Classical Music Project which eliminated class/assessment has no way of seeing stub articles under its banner, nor GAs and FAs. Nor can it differentiate and find other types of pages, e.g. lists, drafts, templates, etc. as the OP banner does now:

FA	A	GA	B	C	Start	Stub	FL	List	Category	Disambig	Draft	File	Portal	Project	Template	NA	???	Total
40	0	56	484	1,312	7,952	3,309	3	246	2,659	9	31	161	265	258	345	192	61	17,383

As far as I can figure out that kind of extended page classification is only available if there are at least some quality classes used in the banner. I could investigate a way of keeping the extended page classification while reducing the available quality classes to simply stub, GA, FA, and FL and perhaps add a note to that effect in the text of the banner and updating the current assessment page Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Assessment. I'm not sure that keeping a "start" class is all that valuable given the huge variations in quality and depth of coverage, For example, both Mala vita and Le tribut de Zamora are rated "start". In the meantime, Smeat75, I agree with Xover that you should go ahead and re-assess articles that need it, even if you were the principal author. Voceditenore (talk) 13:49, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

A- and B-class are the only complicated ones. All the List and Dab stuff aren't quality so much as type of article and give themselves. All the GA, Featured Whatever come out of a process and are mostly a given when relevant (no effort actually required). If you eliminate A- and B- class (which WikiBannerMeta has facilities to do, it shouldn't be a problem), you're left with just Stub, Start, and C. And my rules of thumb for these is:

• Stub: default for any new undeveloped article. It's a stub from the time it's a single line, until it reaches Start level.
• Start: If it cites at least one source and has at least one heading (speaks to organization) it's Start.
• C: Clearly better than the generally undeveloped Stub/Start. Stub/Start are obviously undeveloped. C is everything else until it reaches GA/FA.

Using those rules of thumb I find the rating stuff to be pretty much a no-brainer. If you use User:Evad37/rater, the purely mechanical bit of rating and rerating articles becomes pretty effortless too. Nothing's going to make processing 11k articles trivial: but the running ad hoc maintenance of them really doesn't have to be either complicated or hard. --Xover (talk) 16:03, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I like Xover's idea of having just stub, start, C, GA and FA, and would support any moves in this general direction.Smerus (talk) 10:39, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Cheryl Studer article needs eyes

The article on soprano Cheryl Studer has been overrun with obvious COI SPAs, who have written the bulk of the article, mostly without citations, and have edit-warred to preserve their edits. The editors in question are:

• Luluplatz (talk · contribs) (edit warring on the article for the past 1.5 years)
• Goustaff (talk · contribs) (blocked at least once for behavior at the article)
• Gcdea (talk · contribs) (multiple usertalk warnings about the article)

In fact, the accounts may all be the same editor, as there is a long break between the start and stop of each account.

In any case, the article has a lot of tags at the top and is in need of help and eyes. Thank you. Softlavender (talk) 03:10, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Update, for those of you not following the saga at ANI. Luluplatz decided to go on a retaliatory spree, deleting role/repertoire lists from seven articles about other opera singers and is now indefinitely blocked. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that these generally don't belong as embedded lists in singer articles and are more suited to the singer's website than to an encyclopedia article. Having said that, if they are kept in an article, each role listed should have an inline citation, e.g. Simon Keenlyside#Operatic roles and Jonas Kaufmann#Repertoire. Ones that don't, like Anna Netrebko#Repertory and Renée Fleming#Repertory, probably should be removed or at least have the relevant section tagged as unreferenced and removed if references are not provided in a timely manner. Any thoughts? Voceditenore (talk) 10:40, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes such entries should be referenced. Juan_Diego_Florez#Roles_sung_on_stage, that's another one. The accounts that have edit-warred on the Studer article are the same person, it is obvious to me, it is a notorious crazed fan who is obsessed with this singer and has trolled every online opera site for years.Smeat75 (talk) 14:12, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't know what's worse, Smeat, the rabid fan or those working for/representing the singer. I recently had to get Nino Surguladze semi-protected because an IP was repeatedly over-writing it with lengthy and blatant copyvio which began with... er...

Referred to as “Penélope Cruz of the opera” by the media and compared at various times to Audrey Hepburn and Anna Magnani, Nino Surguladze is one of the leading mezzo-sopranos of modern generation, admired for her warm and velvety voice, incisive musicianship, excellent acting abilities, notable stage presence, and physical beauty.

Sure enough, a newly registered account has now shown up on the talk page saying "I am the editor (and owner) of Mrs. Surguladzes Webpages and edit additional most of ther public web appereances. So I need access to her Wikipedia enty to keep it up to date". Let's hope they don't figure out how to get autoconfirmed. Voceditenore (talk) 17:45, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

• I personally would prefer tagging rather than deleting the lists on the most prominent living tenor and soprano(s). While I dislike fancruft, there is encyclopedic merit of lists for indivuduals of that stature. Worst case scenario for me would be move the lists to talk until cited or until there is a consensus what to do with them, as I think outright deletion destroys valuable info. Softlavender (talk) 07:54, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

La Belle et la Bête (opera)

In La Belle et la Bête (opera), we miss a ref for the soloists of the premiere. I assume that they are the same as for the first recording, but that's propably not enough. Help? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:37, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi Gerda. They weren't exactly the same. I've fixed the role table and added a reference. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 17:29, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Wonderful, thank you. I was only the nominator, so rather helpless, and could find anything easily. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:32, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

You're welcome! :) The live premiere was in Seville. The recording was made later at The Looking Glass Studios in New York. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 17:40, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

‎Ser Amantio di Nicolao

"Naturally, he's an opera lover" - The Washington Post has a nice profile of User:Ser Amantio di Nicolao: Meet the Most Prolific Contirbutor To the English Wikipedia. - kosboot (talk) 18:14, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

@Kosboot: Thanks kindly for the ping. (Meant to say something earlier today, but I've been in and out of the house.) --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 04:25, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Return of the spurious "discographer"?

Back in 2011 we had a spate of spurious additions to discographies by an Italian IP. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera/Archive 100#Spurious "discographer" at it again for background. He may have returned. The IPs currently involved are 37.77.121.12 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 37.77.114.53 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 176.32.28.46 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), and possibly others in those ranges, all of which resolve to Linkem SpA in central/southern Italy. Their additions to La fiamma were clearly non-existent recordings, ditto Médée (Cherubini). There other additions need to be checked. Also, if any you find discography changes in articles on your watchlists added without references and by an IP, it may be better to remove them to the talk page pending verification. Pinging NinjaRobotPirate who has reverted some of their edits in other opera-related discographies. Voceditenore (talk) 09:39, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

188.216.242.63 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) added a fake recording to I Masnadieri [5].Smeat75 (talk) 14:00, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Smeat75, 188.216.242.63 was the last editor before the revert by Rodomonte, but the fake recording had been added by 37.77.114.53 above. See [6]. Voceditenore (talk) 15:12, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

This user has never left us. In the meantime he mainly vandalized simple.wiki.x.io and other language versions. Recently he created several very small stubs about totally unknown operas in the german wikipedia, which have already been deleted. For more information also see User_talk:37.77.115.252, User_talk:151.56.8.23 and User_talk:151.56.11.27. Some of the known IPs are 151.56.9.50 / 151.56.2.192 / 151.56.12.99 / 79.25.70.122 / 79.35.86.97 / 79.39.119.34 / 82.187.24.168 / 151.56.9.214 / 5.170.113.52 / 46.227.7.8 / 176.32.17.55 / 176.32.25.197 / 176.32.26.152 / 176.32.27.252 / 176.32.27.87 / 37.77.114.53 / 37.77.115.195 / 37.77.122.128 --Rodomonte (talk) 15:33, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Rodomonte. What a complete pain this person is! Best, Voceditenore (talk) 15:37, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

For his activities on simple, you may have a look at my reverts.[7] There may be much more.--Rodomonte (talk) 15:45, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

This is bizarre! He even makes lists of fake recordings and then adds them to articles. He's also been trolling Talk:List of important operas, see [8]. I've removed it. Voceditenore (talk) 17:22, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

The way to keep obsessive hoaxers like this down is try & ensure the stuff doesn't stay up at all long. Johnbod (talk) 17:31, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

You might also report long-term abuse at WP:AIV. Some increasingly long and increasingly broad rangeblocks might make them lose interest. --Xover (talk) 17:49, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

This came up on the CheckUser mailing list; it's apparently cross-wiki disruption. There were reports from Italian Wikipedia and French Wikipedia, and I tried to clean up the edits here. Unfortunately, I know nothing about the topic. You can ping me if you see something that needs admin attention, like blocking or semi-protection. For what it's worth, the main IP ranges used seem to be 37.77.112.0/20 and 176.32.16.0/20. If it keeps up, I probably could do range blocks. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 17:58, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, NinjaRobotPirate. We'll now keep an eye out and ping you of it continues. An edit filter might be another possibility. Voceditenore (talk) 15:43, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

User:NinjaRobotPirate, he is still trolling.[9] I think, it would be usefull to have a global page for this user, where his edits on all wikipedias could be collected. --Rodomonte (talk) 15:17, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't know of any global forums for tracking edits by disruptive editors. On English Wikipedia, we have Wikipedia:Long-term abuse. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 17:21, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

He is now creating external references for his fakes on opera.fandom.com. --Rodomonte (talk) 20:19, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

AfD: Opéra bouffon

Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Opéra bouffon. Voceditenore (talk) 10:04, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Result: Kept. Voceditenore (talk) 10:34, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Marina Poplavskaya

Needs eyes. A Russian comedy actress and TV star of the same name was killed in a traffic accident on October 19 [10]. There have already been two attempts to state that the opera singer, i.e. the subject of Marina Poplavskaya, was killed on October 19. Meanwhile, the opera singer appears to have retired and gone into real estate. Probably true, but the sole source I can find is Norman Lebrecht's blog, which should never be used as a source for anything, let alone a BLP. However, this appears to be her (with a brief bio) listed on the official website of Citi Habitats (a NY real estate firm). Voceditenore (talk) 14:37, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Eyes needed on Ailyn Pérez and Nadine Sierra

Both are notable, but both have been receiving the attentions of an obvious PR rep. I've cleaned up the Perez article somewhat. The Sierra article needs further checking. Voceditenore (talk) 13:54, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Sistine Chapel Choir

In writing an article about Odoardo Ceccarelli who was an opera singer and a singer in the Sistine Chapel Choir, I was taken aback by the utterly appalling state of that article. Zero references to scholarly sources, incomplete, POV, and badly written. Not the least of this is the goofy "Golden Age" headings, and especially the so-called "Second Golden Age", allegedly presided over by Lorenzo Perosi. Much of the article is cribbed verbatim from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia overlaid with the dreadful ministrations of a series of sockpuppets who were attempting to promote Leonardo Ciampa and his self-published biography of Perosi. Antandrus will remember that saga. Anyhow, this is just a heads-up if anyone is looking for something to do. Voceditenore (talk) 16:35, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Featured quality source review RFC

Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:49, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

What do others think?

I don't know what to think of this edit to an opera, Zazà. I feel provoked, but will try to ignore. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:17, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

I'd leave it be for the moment. If/when the article is expanded from more than a single paragraph, it can be revisited. In fact, I may expand it myself later on. Voceditenore (talk) 17:26, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Megan_Marie_Hart

Hello everyone! I need help with this draft I prevented from deletion over a year ago and have been working on lately.

• When I took over, it had an immense opera repertoire list, which I condensed into a short paragraph about important roles. Good idea or not?
• While researching, I discovered an emphasis on performing works from jewish composers, and mentioned it in the lead. Good idea or not?
• Every source I used is in the footnotes (I still have many more about operatic roles). Too much? Should I keep only the big newspapers?

I would very much appreciate any advice or help! OrestesLebt (talk) 05:41, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

This was the draft when I found it: https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Draft:Megan_Marie_Hart&oldid=856099242 OrestesLebt (talk) 05:51, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

• doesn't meet WP:NOTABLE imo - Smerus (talk) 10:06, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

• I thought so too, until I searched for her name. I was surprised about the many results, especially from Germany. Apparently, she's a leading lady at the Landestheater Detmold. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:27, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

• Well if agreed as notable I suggest the list of 'awards and recognitions' is way over the top, and that 'Jewish' should have capital J throughout.Smerus (talk) 13:33, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

• Without having seen this, I capitalised Jewish, and added some formatting. I agree that the list of awards should be pruned to those worth mentioning which may be few. May look again tomorrow, and should improve the theatre article ;) She seems to be well on her way, so I'd say notable-enough-to-be, - why wait? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:56, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

• Thank you all, and thank you so much Gerda Arendt! OrestesLebt (talk) 15:01, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Operabase.com link structure change?

I noticed some links to operabase.com pages suddenly leading to empty pages. Maybe the link structure changed with the recent redesign of the page, or maybe the links had not been created from the "permalink" but the URL shown in the browser? I'm going to replace those broken links with currently working ones, assuming that this is not something that will be fixed on the operabase side. One question: If a broken link entry has an access date, should I update it or not?

For example, the empty link:

• https://www.operabase.com/a/Giorgio_Berrugi/it/6258/it

The working link would be:

• https://www.operabase.com/a/Giorgio-Berrugi/6258/it

OrestesLebt (talk) 17:49, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Operamusica.com as a source

As far as I know, Opera Musica uses websites of artists, theatres and wikipedia as its source. If artists 'claim' the pages created about them, they can edit the content. Entries in Biography, Repertoire, Education, Competitions and Press might therefore be self published. The Agenda section, Assuming events in it can be edited by every listed artist, might be more reliable, if more than one artist in an event has a claimed profile. Thoughts? OrestesLebt (talk) 11:20, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Andreas Bauer Kanabas

Per this, Andreas Bauer announced that from December 2018, he is Andreas Bauer Kanabas, - including his mother's surname, probably tired of being confused with sports people and a double bass player. What do we do? Move? Say it's another name? How about the prose? - Never had this before. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:12, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi Gerda. I'd move the page to the "new name" and leave the old title as a redirect. I note that both Operabase [11] and Oper Frankfurt [12] now use "Andreas Bauer Kanabas". Ditto his management agent. Change opening sentences of the lede to something like....

Andreas Bauer Kanabas is a German classical bass in opera and concert. Prior to December 2018, he performed under the name Andreas Bauer. A member of the Frankfurt Opera, he has performed major roles...

Reference it to his website announcement, change the name at the top of the ibox to the new name and list "Andrea Bauer". under | other_names = . Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:21, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, feel supported ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:28, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

I didn't change much in the text, because everything he did so far was under the short name. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:32, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

L'Africaine / Vasco de Gama

See here (talk page of L'Africaine): an editor has added information on a new edition and is asserting that the title of the article will need to change. Comments invited.--Smerus (talk) 10:26, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject X Newsletter • Issue 13

Newsletter • December 2018

This month: A general update.

The current status of the project is as follows:

• Progress of the project has been generally delayed since September due to development issues (more bitrot than expected, some of the code just being genuinely confusing, etc) and personal injury (I suffered a concussion in October and was out of commission for almost two months as a result).
• I currently expect to be putting out a proper call for CollaborationKit pilots in January/February, with estimated deployment in February/March if things don't go horribly wrong (they will, though, don't worry). As a part of that, I will properly update the page and send out announcement and reach out to all projects already signed up as pilots for WikiProject X in general, at which point those (still) interested can volunteer specifically to test the CollaborationKit extension.
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Pilots was originally created for the first WikiProject X prototype, and given this is where the project has since gone, it's only logical to continue to use it. While I haven't yet updated the page to properly reflect this:
  • If you want to add your project to this page now, feel free. Just bear in mind that more information what to actually expect will be added later/included in the announcement, because by then I will have a much better idea myself.
• Until then, you can find me in my corner working on making the CollaborationKit code do what we want and not just what we told it, per the workboard.

Until next time,

-— Isarra ༆ 22:44, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Crowe (singer)

Opinions welcome --Smerus (talk) 21:24, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Result: Kept. Voceditenore (talk) 10:28, 2 March 2019 (UTC)