Talk:Die Königin von Saba

A fact from Die Königin von Saba appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 4 February 2009, and was viewed approximately 567 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that operatic tenor Gustav Walter portrayed the role of Assad in the world premiere of Karl Goldmark's Die Königin von Saba?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/February.

Wikipedia

Possible audio recording

I've found an audio recording. I'm happy to clean it up, but I, personally, don't like the tenor much, so I'd prefer it if someone asked me to do it first.

The recording is at [1]. Note we cannot use their copyrighted, cleaned mp3 (CC-by-NC), but the original wav is fine. Still, all members of the opera project probably know I'm reasonably competent at audio editing by now, so listening to the mp3 and judging from that will probably do. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 10:17, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you intending to write an article on the singer Andreas Dippel? He is in The Record of Singing Vol 1. --Klein zach 13:10, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Kleinzach, you ought to know by this point that singer biogrfaphies are well away from my area of expertise, nor do I have suitable books or preparing articles on them. But this opera may be part of the new Opera of the month proposal, so I want to get some things I can do sorted. =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 00:40, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In that case why not choose a singer who is already documented? --Klein zach 03:23, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we'll be doing Königin next month at OP - just Samson et Dalila and Moses und Aron. But... Andreas Dippel now exists, and a handsome man he was too ;-) Best, Voceditenore (talk) 18:35, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good. Not a minor figure! Shoemaker's Holiday: The next stage is to see whether you have an adequately clean copy, and after that to consider whether the recording should only go on the biography or if it is good enough to also appear on this article. We don't want to put readers off opera by associating it entirely with ca. 1900-1914 recordings. I happen to like them, but for many music lovers the leap of aural imagination from these discs to the real thing is more than they are willing to attempt. It's no problem to use an old recording to represent an early singer. Representing the actual opera is entirely different. --Klein zach 23:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shoemaker's Holiday, it would be very welcome in the Andreas Dippel article, if you can get it cleaned up. However, like Kleinzach, I think the 'ancient' files should be used sparingly, if at all, to illustrate the operas themselves for the reasons he outlined. Apart from the sound quality (no matter how well cleaned up), there is the problem that many of these arias etc. were meant to be heard with a full orchestra but are recorded with a piano accompaniment only. In other cases, as I pointed out over at the Opera Project, they are recorded by voice types not intended by the composer, e.g. Caruso singing "Ombra mai fù". It's not a view shared by everyone though, just something to think about. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 07:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Having said all of the above, I've listened to the MP3 version, and it's not bad. It gives a reasonable picture of the musical style of the opera, and in the case of a relatively obscure opera that is now very rarely performed or recorded (i.e. this one), it can be useful. I'm more dubious about the over-use of the 1900-1914 stuff to illustrate well-known, frequently performed works with many modern recordings, e.g. Carmen, La bohème, Otello, etc. Voceditenore (talk) 09:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine. I just hope Shoemaker's Holiday is finally getting the message. Every time one of these old recordings goes through the (not very rigorous) Features Sounds procedure it immediately appears on four or five articles. --Klein zach 02:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, go away Kleinach. I'm getting tired of you attacking me and trying to score points every time any discussion of historic sounds come up. There's almost no modern recordings of professional opera recordings that we could ever use on Wikipedia (in the next few decades, at the least) at the moment. If we start a culture of including audio, maybe we can start convincing Juliard students, singers, and the like that releasing a recording to Wikipedia might be a good way to promote themselves, but first we have to have a culture where sounds are actually used. The historic recordings aren't that bad. In a slightly biased sample, surveying some friends showedthat they thought that the older recordings still were listenable, and that they didn't feel put off by them.

In the end, we can either try to describe that eventually people will buy one of out the recommended recordings, or we can actually provide a sample of the work, performed by professional opera singers. I choose the latter. You choose to be obstructionist. It's getting old. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 22:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Objection. My criticisms of your contributions are not ad hominem, and should not evoke ad hominem responses. In any case my concerns about FSC files have been consistently shared by other editors, hence their removal from many articles. --Klein zach 01:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Without commenting on the above conversation, I do hope you go ahead and add music to this article Shoemaker. I personally appreciate your efforts.Nrswanson (talk) 00:35, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, it's actually done. I just haven't uploaded it yet. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 01:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]